Crosscurrents

San Francisco’s Mayor Daniel Lurie has made changes to the city’s harm reduction policy. And not everyone supports them. Today, how the new policy is impacting the people who receive these services. Then, a Black culture space in the city is closing its doors for a few years.

A treasured Black arts and culture space, in the Fillmore-Western Addition neighborhood, is closing for a few years. The African American Art & Culture Complex has served the community for 37 years. They’re closing so the city can do seismic renovation on the building. But what happens when an important community space has to shut down, even temporarily Ashley Smiley, who goes by her last name, is the program coordinator for the African American Art and Culture Complex. Smiley spoke with KALW’s Jenee Darden on the “The Sights + Sounds Show” about the center’s longtime impact and what this closure means.

The Public Media Journalists Association, or PMJA, just announced their 2026 winners and KALW is proud to have taken three awards, so today we bring the second place winner for Enterprise Journalism, our story about how unhoused community members find shelter and support at SFO.

It’s been nearly 130 years since Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was published. Over time, artists have reimagined the blood-thirsty monster in many ways. Now, San Francisco Playhouse is taking a stab at the classic story, with a feminist twist.

Revisiting The Gay Life is a new 12-episode series from KALW’s Queer Power Hour. It explores a pivotal moment in SF’s LGBTQ history — from the rise of Harvey Milk to the early days of what would later be called AIDS.

The Jordanian national soccer team is playing in the World Cup for the first time in history. The Bay Area Jordanian American community is a tightly knit community of just a few thousand people. A group of enthusiastic fans gathered for a street party in downtown San Mateo to celebrate. Today, Crosscurrents host takes us to that street party, to hear what this historic moment means for Jordanians in the Bay Area.

Ahead of the Jordan-Algeria World Cup match, KALW's Hana Baba headed over to a favorite community store—South Berkeley Meat and Produce. People visit from all over the state to shop for nostalgic items from Algeria. It’s got a large butcher counter with all kinds of halal meat cuts, including a staple Algerian sausage called Merguez.

The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, after the hasty conclusion to a 20 year U.S. occupation. Since then, music has been officially banned in the country. Musicians are driven underground, instruments are destroyed, and recordings are contraband.Here in the East Bay, one Afghan-American is working hard to preserve what he can. He’s digitizing tapes he’s sourced from back home and posting them in an online database he started calling the Afghan Cassette Archive. But getting those tapes out of Afghanistan is not as simple as an online order… It's an illegal, expensive, and dangerous odyssey.Reporter Christopher Alam met up with Omid J, aka OMJVinyls, at his Oakland studio to check out his rare collection.

With graduation season wrapping up, many teenagers around the Bay Area are celebrating the end of high school and are making plans to begin college. But in Washington DC, policymakers are fighting over college access.In the past year, the Trump Administration has worked quickly to dismantle the Department of Education. And one of the major programs they want to eliminate is called TRIO, a federally-funded initiative that helps low-income students and those who would be the first in their families to go to college. Thousands of those students in the Bay Area get support from TRIO programs to get into college and graduate. KALW reporter Anna Casalme visited two programs in San Francisco to understand what this political fight means for students.

One San Francisco band has been going strong for 144 seasons. Today, we’re hitting the high notes with the Golden Gate Park Band’s music director. Then, the Conservatory of Flowers’ corpse flower is about to bloom again. Plus, we stop by the San Francisco dragon boat festival!

Over the weekend, San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers announced that their corpse flower, named 'Scarlet,' would be blooming in the next 7 to 14 days. It’s an event that usually makes the news because these flowers can take up to ten years to reach their first bloom and they can smell like… death. But they’re also endangered. And one of the Conservatory’s neighbors, the California Academy of Sciences, has been working with a national effort to preserve this rare plant's DNA. KALW’s Wren Farrell took a look at the program in 2024 when the Academy’s corpse flower ‘Mirage’ had its own bloom.

For a decade, an Oakland center has been helping local young people discover the joy of writing. Today, we hear about their new anthology of works by 4th graders. Then, we find out how the whole city of San Francisco was blamed for a murder in its streets.

KALW’s Jeneé Darden who grew up in East Oakland in the ‘80s and ‘90s… and her little kid self would’ve loved a place like Chapter 510. The youth writing center provides a safe and empowering learning space for young writers. And Chapter 510 centers Black, brown and queer voices… and publishes their works. Their latest book is “When the Stars Bloom in Oakland: An Anthology of Poems by Fourth Graders.” Janet Heller is an Oakland poet and a co-founder of Chapter 510. Anjali Emsellem is a writer and educator who teaches in the program. They spoke to Jenee for KALW’s the sights and sounds show. Here’s an excerpt from their conversation.