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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. An elementary school pet is typically an animal that can be kept in a terrarium or a small cage, like say a hamster. For a few hours, some Russian village kids cared for a far wilder creature - a lion cub they found in a field after it escaped from the trunk of a car. Waiting for police to come and take it to a local zoo, the kids played with it in the gym. The cub reportedly swiped the air but did not bite. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

With a modified wheelchair and a $20 bowling ball from a yard sale, a Virginia man rolled a perfect game last week. George Holscher had 12 strikes in a row, according to The Virginian-Pilot. Holscher is the second wheelchair bowler on record to rack up 300 points.

Picture an umbrella handle and nothing else, something like a wand, that's the Air Umbrella. That wand apparently keeps you dry by releasing a shield of air. The tech website Mashable says it's still a design concept, but in theory you could adjust the power and size of your invisible air shield depending on how heavily it's raining.

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For years the United States has urged the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a peace accord based on a two-state solution. Well, there are growing concerns within the international community that the chances of that ever happening are dimming.

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The Palestinians angered Israel last week by securing a symbolically important vote at the United Nations General Assembly, upgrading their status from a non-member entity to a non-member state. Israel responded with reprisals.

President Mohammed Morsi is facing the biggest rebellion against his rule since assuming power in June. It started with a set of controversial decrees by the president that put him above the law until a constitution is in place. The move has polarized the country and every judge in the country is on strike. Critics say the president is pushing through an illegitimate constitution.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says it's up to congressional Republicans to take the next step in budget talks to avoid the pending automatic spending cuts and tax increases at the end of the year.

Appearing on the Sunday talk shows, Geithner said there's "no path to an agreement" until Republicans are willing to accept higher tax rates on the rich.

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Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. The holidays bring out the spirit of giving and giving back what you've pilfered. Recently, we told you about a 1930s teapot returned to the Waldorf Astoria. This morning: a tale of toilet paper. Eastern New Mexico University received a gift box filled with 80 rolls of toilet paper and a Christmas card apologizing for stealing rolls from a dorm years ago. Another inspiring holiday moment, or another TP prank? It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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Renee Montagne talks with Rep. Raul Labrador, Republican from Idaho and one of the congressmen who introduced the bill that's set for a vote Friday. The STEM Jobs Act allows people who are in the U.S. legally who are getting advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math to stay and get their green cards, he says.

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And in Egypt, a panel of Islamist lawmakers has approved a new draft constitution, but what should have been a welcome step in the country's transition to democracy is instead mired in controversy. NPR's Leila Fadel has our story from Cairo.

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PRESIDENT MOHAMMED MORSI: (Foreign language spoken)

For more than 20 years, the Rev. Eric Williams has educated people about AIDS and helped those who suffer from the disease. But the focus of Williams' ministry isn't something he could have predicted back in 1991.

In those days, Williams was a young pastor who had only recently taken charge of his own church — Calvary Temple Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo. He had been ordained in 1988.

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In Britain, Brian Leveson, the judge who has spent eight months probing tabloid news excesses, has just issued his suggestions for reigning in Britain's sometime-rambunctious press. Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the wide-ranging inquiry in the wake of revelations of illegal phone-hacking at the Murdoch-owned News of the World and other newspapers. The victims included actors Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, as well as the parents of a murdered teenager and other crime victims.

Journalist Vicki Barker joins us from London.

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People who know The Onion is a satirical newspaper got the joke when it named North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year's "Sexiest Man Alive." Editors at China's People's Daily newspaper did not. They picked up the story with a 55-page photo gallery of the pudgy young dictator and excerpts from the Onion's spoof — like, "This Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true."

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What do anti-abortion beliefs, and patronizing Chick-fil-A, and a devotion to college sports have in common? Hmm.

Well, according to Trey Grayson, the former Kentucky secretary of state and U.S. Senate contender who is now the distinguished head of the Harvard Institute of Politics, those are the trio of giveaway markers to suggest that you are conservative.

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The AP tabulated the ages of the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood. They are older than the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. On average, the Stones are closing in on 69. The Supremes are spry young kids who average just under 67.

A row of restaurants in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., looks tantalizing — there's Vietnamese, Italian, New American.

But if you walk around to the alley at the back of this row you might gag.
Dumpsters packed with trash are lined up, and they get emptied only twice a week. Which means a lot of food sits here, filling the block with a deep, rank odor.

A grand bargain, a compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, could all come down to one word: revenue. It's now widely agreed that steering away from the cliff — the combination of spending cuts and tax increases set to hit at the start of the year — will require some combination of revenue increases and spending cuts. The central sticking point could well be whether President Obama and Congress can agree on the definition of revenue.

At the moment, the casual observer could easily get the sense that the president and Republicans in Congress are talking past each other.