Krasny Videos

What's the one place you would take a visitor to show off the Bay Area? We talk with Bay Area fun-finders about the best sites, views, walks, museums and more.

Retailers hope for hordes of shoppers on Black Friday, the traditional day of buying fever after Thanksgiving. In this hour, we focus on what appeals to tweens and teens and why and how they buy.

Author James McManus joins us to discuss his new book, "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker."

Adam Phillips joins us in studio to discuss his new book, "On Kindness."

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has declared a state of emergency in two southern provinces after the death toll from election-related violence more than doubled to 46 on Tuesday. We'll get an update on the situation.

Yesterday President Obama, meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said "the relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century." Closer to home, a recently released study by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute explores the links between the economies of the Bay Area and India.

City Arts & Lectures has donated over 28 years of its guest interviews to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. The digital audio archives of more than 1,300 programs will be made available at UC Berkeley libraries and online campus terminals. We talk to representatives of City Arts & Lectures and the Bancroft Library and listen to some memorable moments from the archives.

The four-month-old California state budget is already out of balance by at least $6.3 billion, according to the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst. This hour, we take up California's fiscal outlook.

John McMurtrie, book editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, and host Michael Krasny elicit listener recommendations of the best books for that elusive quiet moment during the flurry of this year's holiday season.

The Senate faces a crucial vote on Saturday to decide whether it will move the health care bill forward to a floor debate. We get an update on the developments and discuss the next steps.

For his new book about the "Ed Sullivan Show," former San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gerald Nachman interviewed more than 60 artists who performed on the program including Carol Burnett, Jackie Mason and Alan King. Nachman joins us to discuss the show and its legacy. His new book is "Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan's America." Nachman's other books include "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960's" and "Raised on Radio."

In response to the UC Regents' vote to raise tuition by 32 percent, a group of UC Berkeley students has taken over Wheeler Hall and barricaded themselves from police in protest. We get an update on the situation. Then, drivers on seven Bay Area bridges may soon see tolls go up $1 for cars, and for the first time see a $3 toll in the carpool lane. The Bay Area Toll Authority is holding hearings through next month on how much to raise tolls. Officials say they need to charge more due to rising costs, decreased bridge traffic and the need to seismically retrofit the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges. We discuss the various proposals, and how they might impact drivers.

Voters will go to the polls next year to elect a new governor, as well as to determine the political fate of the state's junior senator, Barbara Boxer. A year out, there's already a lot of action in the races. We take stock of the political jockeying and the issues facing California.

A state program that has invested billions to shrink class sizes is coming apart, and the number of kids in many California classrooms is at the highest level in more than a decade. That's according to a new investigation by California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting in collaboration with KQED Public Radio. We'll find out how teachers are coping with kindergarten through third grade classes that have as many as 30 students, a situation now common in districts like San Jose and Contra Costa County. Meanwhile, some argue that with pressing budget cuts and inconclusive evidence about the benefit of small class sizes, class size reduction should not be a priority. We explore the debate.

New Yorker staff writer Hendrik Hertzberg joins us in studio to discuss his new book, "!OBAMANOS!- The Birth of a New Political Era."

Author and journalist Michael Specter believes that public fear and skepticism of technological developments -- from vaccines to genetically modified foods to synthetic biology -- threaten to undermine scientific progress. He joins us in studio to discuss his new book, "Denialism."

This week, some UC and CSU students are gearing up to walk out of classes in protest of another round of tuition hikes and course cutbacks. University and community college officials blame the state budget squeeze for forcing their hand. We look at how campuses are coping.

We discuss the impact of the environment on our health with the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. We'll address the risks of plastic additives, lead and mercury -- and the connections between the environment and cancer, asthma and reproductive health.