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The NBA comes back on Christmas, and the NFL marches on to week 13. Will Americans tune in to basketball late, and will the Packers reach the end of the season without a loss? Scott Simon talks with ESPN's Howard Bryant about the week's sports.

The U.S. Postal Service has waived its rule banning someone from being honored on a stamp until he or she has been dead for at least five years. Host Scott Simon reports the Postal Service has received thousands of nominations from the public for new stamps to honor more recent celebrities, ranging from Billy Graham to Lady Gaga.

Russians vote in parliamentary elections on Sunday, but there's no doubt the ruling United Russia Party will get the most votes. With Vladimir Putin ruling Russia for more than a decade now, the political opposition has been emasculated. Yet Kremlin officials are worried about the size of United Russia's majority, and the growing numbers of Russians voicing dissatisfaction with corruption and a sluggish economy. Host Scott Simon speaks with reporter Julia Loffe in Moscow.

The current world economic crisis has raised hard questions about the assessments made by the big three ratings firms, S&P, Moody's and Fitch. It's also brought charges that they not only missed the onset of financial crisis, but helped fuel it with faulty judgments. Host Scott Simon talks with Roben Farzad, a senior writer for Bloomberg-Businessweek.

December marks the beginning of the end of the U.S. war in Iraq. The withdrawal has already begun as hundreds of U.S. troops leave Iraq every day. NPR is taking a look at the eight years of the war: the turning points, the costs and expectations about what comes next.

The Niemeyer Center for the arts in northern Spain is slated to close on Dec. 15, after barely nine months of operation, because of budget cuts. The fate of the Niemeyer could be an omen for the future, as conservative politicians slash funding for the arts and public projects.

Traffickers are reportedly forcing illegal border crossers to smuggle drugs into the U.S. For courts along the border, it's a struggle to decide how to deal with terrified migrants, especially when there's no proof to their claims.

Herman Cain is a presidential candidate no more. Cain's campaign was always unconventional, and just as he made his unlikely rise to front-runner status, he was enveloped in controversy about alleged inappropriate behavior with women. His campaign never recovered. NPR's Tamara Keith looks back at his campaign.

The U.S. relationship with Pakistan is in crisis, a week after an incident in which NATO troops killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border. The Pakistanis have cut off a key NATO supply line to Afghanistan, and they've refused to take part in the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports from Lahore, Pakistan.

At the Pentagon, bean counters are working long hours trying to figure out how to cut close to a trillion dollars from the department of defense budget over the next ten years. Part of the defense budget usually protected from budget cuts is health care and retirement benefits, but some argue those benefits are depleting the Department of Defense of funds it needs to function as a top military force.