2011 December | Here & Now

Lawmakers in the House and Senate convene in an unusual session Friday to approve a deal to extend expiring payroll tax breaks for 2 months, which Republicans agreed to after 5 days of increasing political pressure. ABC’s Rick Klein Tweets “Dems have right to smile… it won’t be every day that they’re on side of lower taxes vs. GOP. That drove the politics.”

Mother Debbie Newhouse’s son Nick was killed in Ramadi, Iraq in 2005. She writes that she has mixed feelings about the end of the war.

From Kurt Vile to Jeff Beck.

Poet and veteran Brian Turner recently went back to Baghdad and met with Iraqi artists, who he says “see the guns and the tanks… come and they’re wondering where is another part of the conversation, a dialogue in art.”

The iconic Baltimore restaurant Cafe Hon has always celebrated bee hive hairdos and blue collar culture. Has Gordon Ramsay’s new make-over preserved its kitshcy charm?

In 2008, Nokia moved its assembly plant from Germany to Romania. But now, thanks to cutbacks, the phone company is moving to China.

Newt Gingrich has praised the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, which is one of six work colleges across the country that requires all students to work on campus to defray the cost of their education.

At least 14 coordinated bombings have struck neighborhoods around Baghdad. The bombings come just days after the last American troops left the country.

Our fearless leader Kathleen McKenna brought to Here & Now’s holiday party a very tasty red cabbage salad that had all of us requesting the recipe. We should’ve guessed that it’s a Kathy Gunst recipe!

From Dave Douglas to Bonobo.

Chef Reyna Simnegar was born in Venezuela, is Jewish and married an Iranian–a background that’s reflected in her Hanukkah menu. See her recipes for Persian eggplant omelette, sour apple latkes and cream doughnuts.

In late October, 22 Libyans, who were wounded during the fighting to oust Moammar Gadhafi, were flown by the U.S. State Department with funds from Libya’s Transitional Council to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Salem, Massachusetts.

Astronomers say they’ve found two more earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star. Planet hunters say this is a step toward finding a planet in the so-called “Goldilocks Zone,” a spot neither too cold, nor too hot, which can support water, and possibly life.

When he was just five, Actor George Takei was one of some 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans forced to leave their homes on the West Coast after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

House Republican leaders are renewing their call for the Democratic-led Senate to bargain with them and try to end the stalemate over extending a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits.

Carlos Arredondo lost one of his two sons in Iraq. Now his other son, Brian, apparently committed suicide on Monday.

From Big Red to Beth Orton and more.

Just in time for last minute holiday shopping, our resident chef Kathy Gunst picks her favorite cookbooks of the past year, she also whips up her favorite creamed spinach recipe- see a video, photos and recipes.

Photographer and mountaineer David Breashears has been taking photos of the glaciers in the Himalayas, and comparing them side by side with historic photos, to show how the glaciers have changed.

Forecasters are warning that pre-holiday travel could be nearly impossible in the Great Plains as heavy snow and fierce winds crawl deeper into the region.