Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has a lot on his plate -- he's spending the next few years in New Zealand directing "The Hobbit" -- but he found time to co-author, with thriller writer Chuck Hogan, "The Strain," a novel about a plague of vampires. Demons, monsters, ...

Afghanistan holds its second presidential elections in August, but an American-Idol-style TV show has already given the country a crash course in the electoral process. On "Afghan Star," ethnic differences that divided the country in wartime play out on the show and inspire fans to rig the votes. ...

The Francis Bacon exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art serves up depictions of carcasses, sex, and a psychologically tortured pope. They're brutal, but impossible to ignore. Painter Jenny Saville explains why younger artists are so influenced by Bacon, and how he helped save painting ...

Federal judge Denny Chin and his team of New York lawyers and judges re-create historic trials. Their most recent effort is a one-hour version of the trial of atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. With terrorist trials likely around the corner, Chin says he's learned something ...

"Next to Normal" was Broadway’s sleeper hit this season. Alice Ripley, who won a Tony for her role as a bipolar suburban mom, performs a song from the show. And Kurt asks composer Tom Kitt what he had to do to get ...

Kurt talks with Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer (who plays Diana's husband, Dan) about the characters' complicated relationship. They perform the song live in the studio.

Jennifer Damiano, Kyle Dean Massey, and Alice Ripley perform the song live in the studio.

There's a lot of big news coming out of Iran since the controversial presidential election. You can listen to past interviews with Kurt speaking with Iranian artists and writers such as Reza Aslan about their thoughts on the current regime here.