Dan Rather no longer anchors the CBS Evening News, but he's got plenty of viewers of his News and Guts news blog. Dan Rather is in the studio to give you his big picture take on how America's doing today. His new book is "What Unites Us."

On the night of Dr. Roberto Montenegro’s dissertation defense celebration, he went out to dinner at a fancy restaurant with his wife and colleagues. He felt like he was on top of the world at the end of the night. Until, as he stood in line waiting to claim his car from the valet stand, a woman walked up and handed him her keys. She assumed that because he was Latino, he was there to park her car.

A Seattle Times investigation reveals that a Washington state legislator and CWU professor was accused of sexually harassing his students on more than one occasion. We'll talk with Mike Baker, who broke the story for the Times.

This holiday season, let's all try to avoid being like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout. Remember her? The famed profligate from the Shel Silverstein poem who refused to take the garbage out? Let us refresh your memory.

Bill Radke talks to state Representative Morgan Irwin and Michele Storms, Deputy Director of the ACLU of Washington about what they hope to see in the next Seattle police chief.

A group of US Congress members including Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell say it's time for Al Franken to leave Congress because he's been accused by several women of sexual harassment. Would his resignation help? And what would help even more?

Bill Radke talks with poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen about Seattle-based poet and science teacher Melinda Mueller’s poem “Covert Acts.” The three-part poem is set in the American Civil War, and illuminates the lives of Union soldier Private Mary Galloway, field surgeon Mary Edwards Walker, and freedwoman and Union spy Mary Bowser — three women who defied the constraints of their time.

Bill Radke talks with Kristin Leong and Christina Joo about finding common ground between students and teachers. Leong is a former middle school teacher and founder of the Roll Call Project , which asks students and teachers to think about what they have in common, and why it matters. Joo is a junior at International School in Bellevue, and a participant in the project.

The election results were just certified -- and voter turnout was a historically low 37.1%. That shatters the previous low... of 38.5%, in the 2015 election. We went to vote by mail in 2011 to increase turnout. What gives? To find out, Bill Radke spoke with Christopher Mann, associate political science professor at Skidmore. Tl;dr? As its voting rate declines, Washington has lots of company across established democracies. Mann also mentions local media as one potential way to stop the slide.

Results are in, and Washington state's voter turnout in this last election was at an all-time low. Why don't we vote? We ask political science professor Christopher Mann of Skidmore College whether there's anything we should be doing differently.