UpFront – June 29, 2026
UpFront delivers a mix of local, state, and international coverage through challenging interviews, civil debates, breaking updates, and in-depth discussions with authors.
Upcoming Episode
UpFront
7:00 AM PACIFIC TIME: Mondays - Fridays
UpFront delivers a mix of local, state, and international coverage through challenging interviews, civil debates, breaking updates, and in-depth discussions with authors. Pitch us at [email protected].
Theme Music: Turn It Up by Digital Primitives, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.
Trans March Kicks Off Pride Weekend; Plus, Boyle Heights Community After the Lineage Warehouse Fire; Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan Exacerbated by International Community’s Normalization of Taliban
00:08 — Mar Omega is a community organizer and head of the media team for the San Francisco Trans March. She also goes by Mar xoxo, the Bay Area’s finest trans pinay pop princesa. Both her music and social work are intimately intertwined as she creates audiovisual and physical spaces for everyone to be liberated and … Continued
Mariah Blake on Forever Chemicals
Mariah Blake, investigative journalist and author of They Poisoned the World: life and death in the age of forever chemicals [rebroadcast from 2025]
The Fight for Accountability on Chemical Waste in Hunters Point Continues; Plus, Federal Cuts Hitting HIV/AIDS Care
00:08 — Hunter’s Point community members are demanding answers after toxic materials were discovered during the cleanup of the former naval shipyard. We speak with Bradley Angel of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice and journalist Tom Molanphy about the latest developments, community concerns, and the legacy of environmental contamination in Bayview-Hunters Point. 00:33 — … Continued
San Francisco’s Budget Battle; Plus SNAP Benefit Cuts and the Fallout from USAID Reductions
San Francisco is facing difficult budget decisions as city leaders weigh layoffs, service reductions, and competing priorities around homelessness, public safety, and a growing fiscal shortfall. We speak with Anya Worley-Ziegmann of the People’s Budget Coalition about what’s at stake in the city’s budget battle and the changes advocates say are needed. Then, ProPublica reporters … Continued
Russia’s War in Ukraine; Plus Middle East Roundup with Khury Petersen-Smith
00:08 — John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, about Russia’s war in Ukraine. 00:33 — Khury Petersen-Smith, Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow and co-director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, joins the program to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East. … Continued
Robin DG Kelley on Freedom Dreams [rebroadcast]
[0:08] Robin D. G. Kelley. Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. He is the author of seven books, including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. [rebroadcast].
Walter Riley on Walter Riley
00:08 Walter Riley, longtime civil rights attorney, fixture of struggles for justice in the Bay Area, subject of the new book cao-authored byJesse Strauss: Civil Rights and Structural Attacks: Conversations with Walter Riley
Nekima Levy Armstrong on Minneapolis “Antifa” Charges
On this episode, we are joined by Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minneapolis civil rights attorney, founder of the Racial Justice Network, and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP. Later in the hour we speak with Assemblymember Alex Lee, Democrat representing Silicon Valley’s 24th Assembly District on the California Budget. Finally, we speak with Dylan Gyauch-Lewis … Continued
The Rule of Johns
Today on Upfront, we are joined by The Nation’s John Nichols and later by John Feffer from Foreign Policy in Focus. Corona Calls with Dr. John Schwartzberg will resume in July.
Primary Results in Maine and South Carolina; Plus Trump’s Administration Extension on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ; And Iran-U.S. Peace Framework
00:08 — John Nichols, Executive Editor of the Nation 00:33 — John Feffer, Director of Foreign Policy in Focus.