Mike Judge, the creator of “King of the Hill,” “Beavis and Butthead,” and “Office Space,” serves up the new comedy “Extract” (opening September 4 throughout San Diego) about a small business owner whose life is falling apart.

This primetime television special features brief documentaries about real-life families and the story of a Muppet family coping with the ups and downs of these uncertain economic times. Hosted by Al Roker, Deborah Roberts and Elmo and his friends, the special will offer help, hope and strategies for families and will encourage children to express their feelings and ideas as their families adjust to a new life.

How do you control a force of nature as destructive and unpredictable as a wildfire? INSIDE travels onto the front lines of a battle as old as history, following a courageous team of firefighters as they work tirelessly to contain a fast-moving fire that threatens one of California’s largest state parks and the communities that surround it.

Follow the Colorado River from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park through Utah's Westwater Canyon; the national parks of Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef and Zion; the fragile beauty and rapids of the Grand Canyon; and into Mexico. The film is set to classical music by some of the world's greatest composers and is narrated by Joseph Campanella.

For Spaniards -- and for the world -- nothing has expressed their country's traditionally rigid gender roles more powerfully than the image of the male matador. So sacred was the bullfighter's masculinity to Spanish identity that a 1908 law barred women from the sport. This film reveals the surprising history of the women who made such a law necessary and profiles two female matadors currently in the arena: the acclaimed Mari Paz Vega and neophyte Eva Florencia.

Healthcare providers are applauding California lawmakers for striking a deal that saves the Healthy Families program. The arrangement means nearly 700,000 children who would have lost their health insurance will hold onto it.

A group of volunteers will gather information measuring the impact visitors have on the health of Mission Bay this weekend.

Some Labor Day beachgoers are finding ways to float around San Diego’s beach booze ban. But the police will be watching closely.

Cash-strapped California has issued billions of dollars in IOU’s since July, and today the state will start making good on them.

The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, even as employers shed fewer jobs than predicted for the month — a mixed signal for an economy that many believe is on the mend after its worst slump in decades.

Almost one million jobs have been lost in California over the last two years. The current unemployment rate in San Diego County is over 10 percent, and that's expected to grow in the near future.

The California Senate and Assembly can't agree on the best way to reduce overcrowding and cut costs in the state prison system. Each house of state government has passed its own plan for fixing the prison crisis.

The images of the Station Fire burning in Los Angeles are all too familiar to San Diego residents. We were reminded this week of how much a threat wildfires pose to Southern California.

A psychologist at UC San Diego says the way we read facial expressions says as much about us as the face we're looking at.