It's a seasonal tradition to gripe miserably about the ubiquity of holiday music — about piped-in department-store drivel and CD sale racks bursting with holiday cash-ins. But let's face it: There's crass commercial junk, and then there's a rich canon of soul-stirring, ...nostalgia-inducing classics. W...

As gentlemen may have noticed, flies are turning up in urinals with increased frequency. Not real ones, but lifelike images carefully positioned in the porcelain bowl. It seems the very presence of this insect drastically reduces what's politely called "spillage." But why flies?

After several rounds of last-minute diplomacy at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, President Obama announced that he had reached a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" with the key developing nations of China, India, South Africa and Brazil.

Congress had banned the use of federal money to finance needle exchange programs. Supporters of the ban thought such programs encouraged drug use. Now, activists see the lifting of the ban as a step forward in the fight to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

It's that time of year again, when the gang at All Songs Considered gathers 'round the warm glow of a computer to air their grievances with one another, hug it out and spin some seasonal songs to make it all better.

Critic John Freeman picks the year's top five debuts by fiction writers. The list features three collections of short stories and two novels, including Shahriar Mandanipour's Censoring an Iranian Love Story.

The expensive visual effects in James Cameron's film Avatar have gotten a lot of attention, but he also commissioned a linguist to spend several years developing an entire language for the Na'vi, the alien race featured in the film.

To discourage undocumented immigrants from re-entering the U.S., the Border Patrol is busing those it captures in Arizona to a remote border crossing in Texas, where they are sent back to Mexico.