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Sen. Kent Conrad has chaired the Senate Budget Committee since 2006. The Democratic senator from North Dakota is retiring in January 2013, but before leaving the Senate, he is a key player in the negotiations to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff." Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin speaks with Sen. Conrad about the challenges to achieving a budget compromise.

It's widely known as the fiscal cliff, but some prominent Republicans have been calling it a "debt crisis." Economists agree such a crisis may be coming, but it's not here yet. Demographic changes are forcing a reckoning of how to pay for what people want from their government.

Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin explains Alan Simpson's musical contribution to the debt and deficit crisis.

The Afghan construction industry has been one of the big winners since the fall of the Taliban. NATO and the international community have pumped billions of dollars into building roads, schools and bases.

With the drawdown of troops and NGOs, however, comes a drawdown in construction spending, and that has Afghan contractors scrambling to find new business.

The expiration of Bush-era tax cuts. A patch to the alternative minimum tax. An increase in capital gains taxes.

As the "fiscal cliff" approaches, all of these are possible, but none certain. That uncertainty solicits many questions from anxious taxpayers. But, for accountants and financial planners, there are a few definitive answers.

Financial professionals who spoke with NPR say they are not strangers to uncertainty. When the Bush tax cuts were up for expiration two years ago, for instance, the feeling was similar.

Three years of euro-zone recession have badly hurt Spain's media sector, where some 8,500 journalists have lost their jobs. Dozens of newspapers have closed and the remaining publications are sharply cutting back as ads plummet.

That's led to warnings from journalists, who see a threat to press freedom at a time when Spaniards want to understand why their financial stability is unraveling.

On-air challenge: Every answer is a six-letter word containing "QU" somewhere inside it. You'll be given anagrams of the remaining four letters. You name the words (No answer is a plural or a word formed by adding "s.").

Last week's challenge from listener Adam Cohen of Brooklyn, N.Y.: Name two articles of apparel — things you wear — which, when the words are used as verbs, are synonyms of each other. What are they?

Answer: Belt, sock

Winner: Jeanne Kelsey of Lamberton, Minn.

The big demographic story out of the 2012 presidential election may have been President Obama's domination of the Hispanic vote, and rightfully so.

But as we close the book on the election, it bears noting that another less obvious bloc of key swing state voters helped the president win a second term.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has annulled a decree that gave him sweeping new powers last month, an official announced overnight in Cairo. The referendum on the draft constitution is still set for Dec. 15.

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson says Morsi had been saying recently he would give up his expanded powers after the referendum.

The advantages to making products in the U.S. are starting to stack up — and companies are taking notice. Among them are Apple, which announced Thursday it plans to start producing some of its Mac computers here instead of in China, and General Electric, which is making big investments at home.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

In a startling move, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appears to have reversed a controversial presidential decree that granted him extraordinary powers and launched weeks of protest. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is in Cairo. She's covering that story and joins us now. And, Soraya, tell us what's going on.

When Bayard Winthrop founded American Giant, he set up manufacturing in San Francisco. The sweatshirt company focuses on the details and skips over the distributors. Winthrop tells host Guy Raz how making the clothing in America actually helps his bottom line.

Hurricane Sandy wrecked hundreds of thousands of cars all along the New York and New Jersey shorelines, and could cost auto insurers around $800 million. That's not their only problem; disposing of these water-damaged vehicles is not so simple.

If you have comprehensive coverage on a damaged car, the insurance company gives you a check and the car disappears from your life. But then what?

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

When clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached an impasse in talks with management over job security last week, they took what has become something of a rare step: They went on strike.

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CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell.

(APPLAUSE)

KASELL: We're playing his week with Adam Felber, Paula Poundstone and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host, at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

All the news we couldn't fit anywhere else.

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PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Right now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about the week's news, of course. Maz, hold onto your hat, a shocking scientific discovery from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. According to psychology researchers, humans like what?

MAZ JOBRANI: Humans like what?

SAGAL: Yes. They discovered this scientifically.

JOBRANI: Scientifically, humans like food.

SAGAL: Even more than food.

JOBRANI: Air.

(LAUGHTER)

That fledgling Democrat within Charlie Crist, former Republican governor of Florida, has emerged at last:

This should be The Decision That Surprised No One, since Crist was a featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention last September and had been a registered independent before that.

As NPR's S.V. Date writes,

America is obsessed with Downton Abbey, the British series about a family so wealthy that they can't feed, clothe or care for themselves. Hugh Bonneville plays the patriarch of the family, and we've invited His Lordship to play a game we're calling, "Welcome to America, Lord Grantham."

Some outraged protesters remain around the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo today, as opponents of President Mohammed Morsi defy his recent ruling granting himself executive powers that can't be questioned by a court.

Now there's word he may have signed a new order allowing soldiers to detain and arrest civilians, a right that's reserved for police officers.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.

Tens of thousands of people were again protesting at the gates of the Presidential Palace in Cairo overnight. And yesterday, protesters broke through the barbed-wire barricades to climb on tanks that were stationed to keep them at bay.