Crosscurrents

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. In San Francisco, at an undisclosed location, in a non-descript building, people have been saving lives with compassionate listening for years. This place, is the home of the oldest suicide hotline in the country. KALW’s Hana Baba takes us on a tour in this piece produced by reporters Kristal Raheem and Demetrius Johnson.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a powerful organizing force in the Bay Area, and it all got its start more than 90 years ago. Today, the little known history of San Francisco’s “Bloody Thursday.” Then, we peer through the lens of more than a century of Muni photography.

Over the years, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, or ILWU, has thrown their weight behind many causes. Like in 2020, they shut down the ports entirely, to support the Black Lives Matter movement and protest the police murder of George Floyd.

The ILWU is a powerful organizing force in the Bay Area. And the union actually got its start with a massive general strike and a deadly run-in with police over 90 years ago, right here in San Francisco.

And just in time for Labor Day, we’re bringing you this latest episode of The Public Works series. Reporter Sheryl Kaskowitz dives into the history of the ILWU and a radical labor leader who isn’t a household name today.

San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, or SFMTA, is 100% unionized. The 6,000 public servants who work with the agency are represented by 18 different unions. SFMTA itself is just 27 years old — It was established by voter mandate in 1999 — but there are decades of transportation history behind its formation. 

And right now, that history is on display at San Francisco City Hall. The exhibit is called “Moving San Francisco.” It features images from over a century of the Municipal Railway, better known as MUNI. Our transportation reporter Zain Iqbal has this story on why seeing the history of Muni through photography feels important right now.

The Berkeley Rose Garden is a beautiful place, but did you know it was built during FDR’s “New Deal” in the ‘30s? The New Deal is still all around us today — if you know where to look. Plus, we get an update on the upcoming trial around Oakland’s corruption scandal.

The federal corruption trial of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, her former live-in partner, and a prominent local father-son team of businessmen, appears set to begin in October. 

A recent trove of court documents has shed new light on the case prosecutors plan to present. Nathan Gartrell is a reporter for the East Bay Times, who reports on the courts and local law enforcement. He spoke recently with KALW's news editor Sunni Khalid.

The current administration has made it their  goal to shrink the federal government. But many of the impacted agencies were actually created from a belief in a more expansive role for the federal government — an idea that can be traced back to the 1930s, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs. 

The focus back then was to help the country recover from the Great Depression, but the New Deal is still all around us today. To bring that back to light, KALW has created a series called ‘The Public Works.’ It’s all about understanding where the New Deal came from and why it still matters here in the Bay Area.  So far, the series has covered Public art, public space, and preserving folk music. In this one, reporter Sheryl Kaskowitz learns about the secret messages that the New Deal has left behind.

Today, we're rolling it way back to meet the first professional women's basketball players in the Bay. It’s Bay Area women’s basketball history with the living legends of the San Francisco Pioneers.

One of the Bay Area’s youngest journalism organizations is about to turn one. Coyote Media Collective launched last September 2025, in the midst of shrinking newsrooms and a fraught time for journalism. And from the get go, they announced they wanted to be different from existing news organizations.

That started with the way they were funded- , they raised more than 150 thousand dollars on the crowd funding platform Give Butter. And their model is also different from legacy media- it’s a worker-owned, and co-founded by 11 longtime Bay Area journalists- including former SF Chronicle reporters Soleil Ho, Nuala Bishari, and Cecilia Lei.

Then, there’s their vibe. Quirky, whimsical journalism with attitude. In this interview, Crosscurrents host Hana Baba, speaks with Nuala and Cecilia, as they get ready to mark their first anniversary next month.

Repair events, where handy volunteers fix things for free, are becoming popular in the Bay Area. Recently, KALW climate reporter Mary Catherine O’Connor hosted a repair clinic, and a panel discussion about what's behind them.