Emmy Award-winning veteran journalist Belva Davis is retiring as host of KQED Public Television's "This Week in Northern California" after nearly two decades. Davis was the first female African-American television journalist in the West, and has covered many of the biggest stories in the Bay Area over the past half century. She joins guest host Scott Shafer to discuss her trailblazing career.

For the first time in almost 80 years, one political party now controls two-thirds of both California legislative houses. This supermajority will allow Democrats to raise taxes, override vetoes by the governor and put constitutional reforms before voters. But as Governor Jerry Brown noted, "desires are endless." So which desires will be fulfilled? Will it be giving back dental care to 3 million poor Californians, or restoring slashed funding to state courts? And can a supermajority fix California's dysfunction?

David Foster Wallace once wrote that good fiction should help readers to "become less alone inside." But the acclaimed author of "Infinite Jest" succumbed to his own lengthy battle with depression and committed suicide in 2008. We look back at the life and work of Wallace with his biographer, D.T. Max.

Do vitamins make you healthier? Two recent studies disagree on the answer to that. One says vitamins help prevent cancer. And a new one out Monday says they do not help prevent heart attacks or strokes in men. We discuss whether vitamins are crucial to good health. Are supplement-happy Americans going too far?

Californians decided major issues in Tuesday's election, including whether to abandon the death penalty, label genetically modified foods and raise taxes to fund schools. We discuss those propositions and more results from local and state races.

The results of Election 2012 are in. We discuss the outcomes with a panel of political experts, from the presidential race to some of the bitterly fought congressional contests, as well as how the vote played out in Ohio and other states. How did our nation's changing demographics affect the outcomes?

As voters head to the polls, we go to the movies. What is your favorite film about campaigns, elections or the political process?

China's Communist Party is getting ready for a leadership transition -- something that happens once a decade. Starting Nov. 8, a new generation of party leaders will begin to take the helm. Who will become the new top officials, and how might the shift affect U.S.-China relations?

How attention-grabbing is the U.S. election to people in Asia, Africa, Europe or South America? We'll talk with experts from around the world to get international perspectives on the U.S. election.

As voters head to the polls, we check in with Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation about online registration, the increased popularity of mail-in ballots, voting technology and last-minute online resources.

The Bay Area includes half of the state's shoreline. Could the flooding we saw in New York and New Jersey happen in Northern California? We talk to Jeffrey Mount, professor of geology and founding director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, about natural disaster risk in the Bay Area and the lessons we can learn from Hurricane Sandy.