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"It wasn't just students involved in this protest. There was a lot of people from all walks of life involved," says Laurie Penny of the New Statesman, who joins us from London to talk abut the newest round of protests led by UK Uncut. Saturday's protests saw crowds in excess of 500,000 and violent clashes with police forces. Penny joins us from London where she has been observing the protests first-hand to talk about the protests, the media coverage, and what comes next. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"Now we think not only us are going to have to review our sense of comfort. I am not very comfortable." says Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers union. Gerard himself was once a union representative at a facility that mined and refined uranium, and he represents many workers in such dangerous conditions across the country today. The USW has long been part of the Blue-Green Alliance, creating a labor-environmentalist coalition, but stopped short of calling for an end to nuclear power--but will that change after Japan? Leo joins Laura via Skype to discuss the crisis in Japan, the situation of the workers there, and why this crisis is linked to workers' protests around the US. Republicans have NPR and PBS in their sights once again, and once again progressives and media reformers have to fight for every penny that public media gets. Just how many pennies is that, though? Sally Kohn of Movement Vision puts that funding in perspective in this video. "You see this coming together of networks of educated people—I call them the graduates with no future—with the urban poor, with sometimes organized labor. This mixture is there everywhere the protests have been," says Paul Mason, Economics editor of BBC Newsnight and author of Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global. Mason notes that from student protests in London to workers in Wisconsin, revolution in Tunisia to uprising in Libya, many of the same characteristics are visible. Paul joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the global protest movement, the role of social media, what different areas have in common, and much more. You can see Paul and Laura along with Cornel West and Barbara Ehrenreich in New York on Friday night at the opening plenary of the Left Forum--more information here! Finally, the US Government paid $2.3 million to have CIA contractor Raymond Davis freed in Pakistan. But what are other lives worth--or other jobs? Distributed by Tubemogul.

Welcome to the third day of our special coverage from the workers' protests across the country. Today's show features Columbus, Ohio as well as Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks again to our friends at The Uptake, Free Speech TV, and WORT FM in Madison for making this collaboration happen, and a special thanks to the Rev. Jesse Jackson for bringing us to Columbus with him! As thousands protest Ohio governor John Kasich's plan to gut public workers' collective bargaining rights, Brian Rothenberg of ProgressOhio notes that the election that put Kasich in charge was the result of a lot of people staying home out of frustration, and that those same people have been awakened by the moves of the new administration. Like governors in Wisconsin and Indiana, Kasich's early moves have sparked widespread anger, and a newly invigorated protest movement that isn't just made up of union members is striking back. Laura spoke to Rothenberg in Columbus, Ohio during the protests. "I think we've been inspired by Madison; I think we've been inspired by Egypt, frankly," says Ohio state representative Nickie Antonio from the statehouse in Columbus, where thousands of protesters were locked out yesterday when they attempted to protest Governor John Kasich's legislation to end their collective bargaining rights. Laura spoke with Rep. Antonio from the statehouse when protesters were allowed into what she called "The people's house." Back in Wisconsin, "This movement has to expand, we have no choice. They have no interest in compromise. . . we have to bend them or break them, because that's what they're doing to working class people in this state," says Ben Manski of Wisconsin WAVE, a new organization fighting austerity measures. He notes that labor organizations have nearly unanimously voted for to prepare for a general strike should Scott Walker's attack on unions be signed into law. And Kabzuag Vaj of Freedom, Inc. notes that, "If Governor Walker can attack people with some resources to fight back, he has no fear of poor people or people who have no resources." Laura sat down with Ben and Kabzuag before she left Madison for Columbus, Ohio to discuss the wider movement, expanding beyond union rights, in Wisconsin and the rest of the world. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"It's a very, very exciting time to be involved in politics," says the New Statesman's Laurie Penny, who has a cover story in the magazine this week on what's next for the student protesters in London now that the Liberal Democrat/Conservative government has passed the education budget cuts. Disability funding and even the National Health Service are in the sights of the government's hatchet, and the students are hard at work reaching out to broaden their coalition. Laurie joins us while on the move in London to talk student protests, the connection with activists around the globe, the Cairo and Tunisia protests, and more. "Economics has a lot to do with unhappiness," says Helena Norberg-Hodge, co-director of The Economics of Happiness. "We have an economic system that is systematically creating job scarcity worldwide," she notes, and it's time that we stopped obsessing about bottom lines, corporate growth, and income at the top and started to think about other ways of measuring positive effects in global society. Helena is also the author of Ancient Futures, and she joins us in studio to talk about the need for economic literacy, new models of measuring happiness, and finding a balance between rural and urban life. Finally, as New Yorkers dig ourselves out from another snowstorm, Laura notes that even the New York Times and a federal investigation have found no evidence that union workers caused the streets to remain unplowed back in December. That would be budget cuts and layoffs. Distributed by Tubemogul.