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A combination of greater job security, fewer bills and rising wealth sent shoppers heading off to car dealerships, malls and restaurants. "Job growth was not great, but it was good enough to make people feel like things are getting better," said Nariman Behravesh of IHS Global Insight. NPR's Marilyn Geewax covers 2012's economic good news.

There's going to be more snow in California and then over the Rockies and into the Plains. But it's parts of the Gulf Coast and Southeast that could see the most severe storms on Christmas Day.

The hustle of the holidays can put a strain on married couples struggling to find some time together. Father Leo Patalinghug says that cooking together in the kitchen goes a long way toward strengthening a marriage. He speaks with guest host Celeste Headlee about his cookbook, "Spicing Up Married Life."

For most of us, riding from floor to floor in an elevator is a completely mundane process. Lee Gray, an associate dean at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is known as the Elevator Guy. He spends a lot of his time researching the history of elevators and why we behave so oddly in the big metal boxes.

President Barack Obama nominated Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for Secretary of State during his second term. In a piece in the Washington Post, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, lays out a number of key questions the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should ask the nominee.

If you counted every good deed, every smile, every act of charity, then counted every growl, frown, kick and wrong, which would be greater? The good or the bad? Thinkers from John Locke to Martin Luther King, Jr., give insight on the progress of humanity.

President Obama may nominate former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next defense secretary. The Vietnam veteran could bring a bipartisan presence to Obama's Cabinet, but only if he survives opposition from some in his own party.

Although President Obama supports setting a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants, his administration deported a record 1.5 million of them in his first term. With immigration advocates calling for the new Congress to address the issue, the administration says it will now focus on "serious offenders."

Maya Thompson's son Ronan died of cancer three days before his fourth birthday. During his illness, she began a raw and sometimes angry blog that drew millions of readers. Thompson has since started a foundation and is funding clinical trials to find a cure for childhood cancer.

As the parties wrangle over taxes and the "fiscal cliff," there's been a lot of talk about the golden days of the 1990s — and each party's role in creating it. Yet economists say a lot was happening outside Washington as well.