The Finest

At Richard J. Donovan State Correctional Facility in San Diego, a weekly art class offers something rare: a space to create, connect and feel human. In this episode, we visit Project PAINT, an arts organization bringing art education to people incarcerated in California prisons. We meet students serving life sentences who have found unexpected purpose in painting, including one former student who now returns to the prison as an instructor. Their stories reveal how creativity can help people manage anger, grief and isolation, while opening doors to education, self-expression and a sense of belonging. But access to art supplies and classes is limited, and the question of whether prison arts programs reduce recidivism remains difficult to answer. Through conversations with artists, educators and researchers, we examine the promise of creative rehabilitation and why making art can matter even when freedom is out of reach.Guests:Sources:

We're sharing an episode of the Voice of San Diego podcast that we think The Finest listeners will love. The VOSD team discusses HBO's "Neighbors," including an episode featuring a San Diego man whose front-yard workouts have raised concerns among his neighbors. The show also looks at how human behavior may have played a role in the orphaning of two bear cubs in Monrovia, California. Plus, The Finest talks with Voice of San Diego reporter Jakob McWhinney about his favorite grimy dive bars and how these spaces help build community.Voice of San Diego team:Matt Skraby, podcast producerJakob McWhinney, education reporterAndrea Sanchez-Villafaña, managing editorBella Ross, social media producerMackenzie Elmer, environment and energy reporterScott Lewis, editor in chief

Taylor Guitars is one of the world's best-known acoustic guitar makers, with roots in San Diego and a history of changing how guitars are designed and made. But founder Bob Taylor's work has taken him far beyond the factory floor. A trip to Cameroon to investigate an ebony sawmill exposed a problem with wood used in his guitars and sent Bob on a decades-long journey involving forests, sustainability and some surprising research. We visit Taylor Guitars in El Cajon and talk with Bob about the company's evolution, his approach to guitar making and what happened when he started asking where the wood in his guitars actually came from. And that's where elephants come into the story.Guests:Bob Taylor, co-founder and president of Taylor GuitarsCraig Evans, director of marketing for Taylor GuitarsNick Kennedy, content writer and contributor for Taylor GuitarsSources:Fifty Years of Feel (Jim Kirlin, Taylor Guitars)The Surprising Connection Between Elephants and Your Guitar (Scott Paul, Taylor Guitars, 2025)I traced my guitar company's supply chain upstream. It led to elephants. (Bob Taylor, The Washington Post via Taylor Guitars, 2026)Lacey Act Declaration Requirements (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2025)Rob Cavallo interview about "Excalibur" (Taylor Guitars via YouTube, 2012)Declines of ebony and ivory are inextricably linked in an African rainforest (Vincent Deblauwe, Matthew Scott Luskin, Serge Désiré Assola, Olivier J. Hardy, Simon Jansen, Céline Loubières, Gaston Guy Mempong, Jean Mathurin Ntsihe, Gilbert Oum Ndjock, Eric Rostand Onguene Kwecheu, Luke L. Powell, Bonaventure Sonké, and Thomas B. Smith, Science Advances, 2025) Scientists discover how elephant extinction threatens everything from rainforests to musical instruments (Alison Hewitt, UCLA Newsroom, 2025)Ebony Project (Congo Basin Institute)Taylor Transitions to 100% Employee Ownership Through an ESOP (Taylor Guitars, 2021)

Dianna Cowern, better known as Physics Girl, built a career explaining science to millions of people. But after a mild case of COVID, she developed debilitating symptoms that left her largely bedbound and unable to do many of the things she once took for granted, including sharing physics videos with her devoted fans. After struggling to find answers, she was diagnosed with ME/CFS and mast cell activation syndrome. Three years after she stopped making videos, Dianna recently returned to Physics Girl with a new science video. We talk with Dianna her husband, Kyle Kitzmiller, about the illness that changed their lives, the treatments that have helped her regain some abilities, the challenges of caring for someone with a poorly understood condition and what researchers are still trying to figure out.Guests:Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl, science communicator and physicistKyle Kitzmiller, Long Covid and ME/CFS advocate and Physics Girl’s husbandSources:The Surprising World of Local Twitch and YouTube Streamers (Julia Dixon Evans, Voice of San Diego, 2019)Community-Developed Resource Guide for Infection-Associated Chronic Conditions (IACC, 2025)ME/CFS Prevalence in the Long COVID Era: A Corrected U.S. Burden Estimate Using Infection-Associated Chronic Condition Modeling (Cynthia Adinig, CYNAERA Institute via SSRN, 2026)

San Diego musician Nicole Hernandez grew up in Tijuana with a Cuban father and a mother from Sinaloa, Mexico. The music she heard growing up, from salsa and reggaeton to hip-hop, now finds its way into her sound. After discovering Nicole through the NPR Tiny Desk Contest, we invited her and her band to perform at the KPBS San Diego Book Festival. After the performance, Nicole joined us in the studio to talk about her debut album, "Layers," writing in English and Spanish, the stories behind songs like "Viste" and "Rina," and how she brought together an all-women band of musicians from around San Diego.Guest:Nicole Hernandez, musicianNicole's band for the Sun Drenched Sounds live performance:Drums: Sarah BrewCongas: Sahar MalikBass: Angelica Yumi PruittGuitar: Athalia RodriguezSources:Nicole Hernandez's Tiny Desk Contest submission, "Viste" (2026)Nicole Hernandez, "Pa Ya" official music video), from "Layers"Daddy Yankee, "Gasolina"  (2004)Havana D'Primera, "Pasaporte" (2013)How Tijuana Went From Stopover to Destination (Frankie Mills, New Lines Magazine, 2026)10 standout San Diego artists from the 2026 NPR Tiny Desk Contest (Julia Dixon Evans, KPBS, 2026)

A viral beach meetup in Pacific Beach brought hundreds of remote workers together to work in the sun. It also raised a bigger question: If working from home gives us so much freedom, why are so many people craving connection? " The costs of remote work are really subtle, and they are slow to take hold," says researcher Emma Harrington. "It takes a while to feel these accumulated effects of not having as strong connections to your colleagues. By contrast, not going on that commute, that happens immediately and is quite salient."We take our laptops (and mics) to Petco Park for a remote work day and put the idea to the test. Can people actually get work done at a baseball game? And what happens when you replace the isolation of working from home with a crowd of strangers? We talk with Emma about the hidden downsides of remote work, from loneliness to missed opportunities for mentorship and friendship, especially for younger workers. Then, as the Padres game heads into the ninth inning, our experiment takes an unexpected turn.Guests:Emma Harrington, researcherScott Muirhead, Remote Worker Guy All the hard-working fans in the stands who took a break to talk to usSources:'Bring Your Own Desk' | Remote workers set up office on Pacific Beach sand (Alex Lai, CBS 8, 2026)Remote workers return to Law Street Beach — this time with a city permit and cleanup plan (Thomas Murphy, Times of San Diego, 2026)The Number of People Primarily Working From Home Tripled Between 2019 and 2021 (United States Census Bureau, 2022)Hybrid Work (Gallup, 2026)Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026)We Liked Remote Work. Then We Looked at the Data. (Emma Harrington and Natalia Emanuel, New York Times, 2026)Mistakenly seeking solitude (Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, National Library of Medicine, 2014)Remote work -- not AI -- has sidelined recent college graduates, research finds (Andrea Hsu, NPR, 2026)

The Kumeyaay have long told stories through rock art, vivid images carved into stone that preserved culture, memory and meaning. Today, that tradition continues in a new comic book created by Kumeyaay educators and historians to challenge the erasure of Indigenous history in California classrooms. Co-written by SDSU professor Ethan Banegas, a member of the Barona Band of Mission Indians, the book brings Kumeyaay life — from ancestral knowledge to colonization and resistance — into a format designed for students and teachers. Blending community memory, academic research and lived experience, the comic is both a resource and a tool of reclamation. It replaces silence with story, and invisibility with truth.

At the KPBS San Diego Book Festival, we brought together three organizers from very different book clubs to talk about the communities they've built around reading. Enid Sherman has been meeting with the same group of women for 25 years. Mimi Phung started the North County Vietnamese Book Club to connect with other Vietnamese people and better understand her own heritage. And Courtney Geilenfeldt's cookbook club brings people together around a different cookbook and a shared meal each month. Their stories get at a bigger question: What makes a group of people become a community? They talk about the friendships that have grown from their clubs, the conversations that happen around the books and the moments when a monthly gathering becomes something people can't imagine giving up. Plus, they share some favorite books and advice for anyone thinking about starting a book club of their own.Guests:Courtney Geilenfeldt, University Heights Women's Walk Cookbook ClubMimi Phung, North County Vietnamese Book ClubEnid Sherman, Books, Bagels and BroadsKristin and Nancy, Chapter Three Book Club Krystal, Silent Book Club, San Diego Chih, The Lemon Literary Society Joseph, book club memberStephanie, Mission Valley Reads and BibliobibuliSources:Federal Data on Reading for Pleasure: All Signs Show a Slump (Sunil Iyengar, National Endowment for the Arts, 2024)The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey (Jessica K Bone, Feifei Bu, Jill K Sonke, Daisy Fancourt, iScience, 2025)APA poll reveals a nation suffering from stress of societal division, loneliness (American Psychological Association, 2025)

What started as a few skits between friends has grown into one of San Diego's most talked-about independent creative projects. The creators of "End of the 8" take us behind the scenes of turning their love of Ocean Beach into a sitcom, casting friends instead of actors, filming in local businesses and discovering that one pilot was enough to bring their community together. They talk about learning as they went, keeping creative control and why the Ocean Beach neighborhood itself has become the show's biggest star.Guests:Daniel M. Dyer, director and co-producer of "End of the 8," co-founder of Visual Candy  John Cristini, co-producer of "End of the 8" and one of its starsOcean Beach spots mentioned in this episode:The Harp | 4935 Newport Ave.Hodad's | 5010 Newport Ave.Raglan Public House | 1851 Bacon St.Little Lion Cafe | 1424 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.Winstons Beach Club | 1921 Bacon St.Sources:Sitcom based in OB makes its way around the indie film circuit (Tessa Balc, Times of San Diego, 2026)Help Us Create More "End of the 8" Episodes (GoFundMe)

Best of KPBS Podcasts brings the best of KPBS storytelling to our listeners. Each episode features curated highlights from across the KPBS podcast lineup, paired with conversations with the people who bring these stories to life. This episode features the podcasts Port of Entry & The Finest