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Seriously, again?

Anyone who follows the adventures of the alternative minimum tax has to be getting sick of the many sequels. Again and again, this unpopular income tax threatens to hit middle-class families with large and unexpected tax increases.

And each time the threat reappears, Congress applies a "patch" to fix the problem temporarily. That makes the threat an annual event — along with the associated congressional hand-wringing and taxpayer confusion.

The Washington Post just announced that executive editor Marcus Brauchli is leaving that position to "become vice president of The Washington Post Company with responsibility for evaluating new media opportunities."

His successor has already been hired: Martin Baron, editor of the Boston Globe, will move to the Post on Jan. 2.

Motor Trend named Tesla's Model S as its Car of the Year. It is the first time in the award's 64-year history the honor goes to a car without an internal combustion engine.

Picture, if you can, a prehistoric Bobby Flay — an inventive 3 million-year-old version of the Food Network star chef. He's struggling to liven up yet another salad of herbs and twigs when inspiration strikes. "We've got grass here, and sedge," he says. "Grass and sedge, that's what this dish needs!"

His pals take a tentative taste of this nouvelle cuisine. Sedges usually aren't considered gourmet fare, after all, by these human ancestors. They're tough grasslike plants that grow in marshes. But wow! Not only is this a new taste sensation, it's found in many places.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up, we're hearing a lot about the so-called fiscal cliff: those automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that will take effect if lawmakers and the White House don't come up with a deficit reduction plan by the end of the year. We're going to focus on a tax hike that may hit many more people than you might think. We'll have that conversation in just a few minutes.

If the government goes over the "fiscal cliff," millions of households could see tax increases because of an obscure part of the tax code, known as the alternative minimum tax. Host Michel Martin talks with NPR Business Editor Marilyn Geewax about exactly what could happen and who would be affected.

Hindus from New Jersey to New Delhi are celebrating Diwali. The holiday has its own traditions, customs, and most importantly, food. Host Michel Martin speaks with writer and cookbook author Anupy Singla about the dishes she's bringing to the table for this year's Diwali celebration.

It was 1569, or maybe early 1570, when it happened: A young French gentleman was out for a ride with his workers, all of them on horseback, when suddenly, "like a thunderbolt," he felt something thick and fleshy slam him from behind. (It was an overzealous, galloping assistant who couldn't stop in time.) Michel de Montaigne's horse crumbled, he went flying up, then down, he crashed to the ground. Then things went black.

When he came to, a minute or so later, he says,

Update at 11:30 a.m. ET: The Associated Press just moved a "bulletin" saying that according to a "senior defense official" the emails between Gen. John Allen and Jill Kelley were "flirtatious."

Update at 4:33 p.m. ET: NPR's Tom Bowman reports that U.S. officials tell him Paula Broadwell sent Gen. Allen messages warning him about Kelley. Allen, in turn, warned Kelley about those messages.

Our original post:

As workers consider their health insurance options this fall, chances are there's one on the open-enrollment menu with a deductible of more than a $1,000.

Coverage like that is often linked to a tax-advantaged financial savings account to pay for medical expenses that fall below the hefty deductible.

A woman sits on a bed in a dim, wallpapered room. There's an old rotary phone on a nightstand, a prescription pill bottle by the foot of a lamp. Her long wavy hair is brushed back, and the moonlight peers in from between the curtains, illuminating the flowery pattern of her nightgown and the small tattoo on her fleshy arm. Curled sleeping on the bed is a baby, and the woman's head is turned towards the child. But the expression on her face is unclear. Perhaps it's a look of resentment and exhaustion, of alienation and despair.

Good morning.

Earlier, we posted a guide to "who's who and what's what" in the Petraeus affair.

As for other stories making headlines, they include:

-- "Residents Flee Air Strikes On Syria Border Town." (Reuters)

Fiction and nonfiction releases from Ann Beattie, Ben Marcus, Jonathan Odell, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein and Ellen Forney.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. It's a big year for the little word gif. The Oxford Dictionary has chosen it as the word of 2012. Short for graphic interface format, which are looping Internet animations, gif began as a noun in the 80s but caught on as a verb. For example, I giffed. That is made my own looping animations of the president's speech. Runners up include nomophobia - fear of being without your mobile phone. And YOLO - you only live once. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

A police officer in Sarasota, Fla., said he was being conscientious when he arrested a homeless man in a park, who was charging a cell phone in a picnic shelter. The officer accused him of theft of city utilities. A judge threw out the case.

Ian McEwan's 15th book of fiction, Sweet Tooth, is a Tootsie Roll Pop of a literary confection — hard-boiled candy enrobing a chewy surprise at its core. The novel is set 40 years ago, when communism was still perceived as a threat, and takes its title from a fictional clandestine mission by Britain's MI5 intelligence service to sponsor writers espousing the Cold Warrior cause.

I know what you're thinking. Same old president. Same old Senate. Same old House.

And yes, same old ScuttleButton.

ScuttleButton, of course, is that once-a-week waste of time exercise in which each Monday or Tuesday I put up a vertical display of buttons on this site. Your job is to simply take one word (or concept) per button, add 'em up, and, hopefully, you will arrive at a famous name or a familiar expression. (And seriously, by familiar, I mean it's something that more than one person on Earth would recognize.)

Eurozone finance ministers have decided to give Greece two more years, until 2016, to turn around their budget deficit. What eurozone leaders did not agree on is whether to release more aid to Greece — money that's needed as its outstanding loans come due.

There are nearly 400 art galleries in New York's Chelsea neighborhood. Many of these galleries were flooded by the storm surge that accompanied Hurricane Sandy. One insurance company estimates it has $40 million in claims.

Men have always outnumbered women on America's roads, but that's no longer the case. According to the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, the switchover happened in 2010.

In Mexico City's most prominent tree-lined park, you can find statues to such international heroes as Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and now Heydar Aliyev. He's the Soviet-era autocrat of Azerbaijan. Its government paid for the park's latest statue and restoration of a nearby plaza. The gilded gift has upset many in the capital and is causing headaches for Mexico City's outgoing mayor.

Immediately after last week's election, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state would not be setting up its own health insurance exchange. Next door in Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback announced that Kansas will have no involvement in running a state exchange either. The moves open the door for increased federal involvement in health care in staunchly Republican territory.

Toothbutter: noun. Butter spread so thickly as to reveal teeth marks upon biting.

The fact that this word exists in the Danish language should help to explain what politicians were up against when they introduced the "fat tax" just over a year ago. This is a country that loves it some butter (and meat, and all things dreadful to the arteries).

President Obama meets with labor leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss how to steer clear of the so-called fiscal cliff. It's the first of many meetings aimed at avoiding automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the beginning of the new year.

A week ago, the president proved again that he and his team are good at winning elections. The question now is whether he can translate victory at the ballot box to success in shaping policy.