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Unemployment insurance is at the top of the list for President Obama as Congress returns to Washington, but the big budget battles still loom.

As the year comes to a close, NPR's Neda Ulaby takes a look at a particular category of artists that has had an outstanding year in music. While female country musicians have had a banner year, their work also went against prevailing radio and industry trends — for better or worse.

Germany's famous Max Planck Society has opened a brain research institute in Jupiter, Fla. It's another move in the international competition to attract the best brain researchers.

Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett is prompting other states to question their use of the drug midazolam in lethal injections. The Lockett execution is fueling new calls to re-examine how states put inmates to death.

The current South African leader was expecting to bask in the reflected glory of Nelson Mandela. But when Zuma appeared at the beloved Mandela's memorial service, he was booed at every turn. It represented the democracy Mandela championed — and the public's deep discontent with scandal-ridden Zuma.

Alex Sugiura says he understands why people ask. "I have always thought I've had a particularly strange face," he explains. And the query, he says, gives him a chance to really talk about what it means to be mixed-race in America.

The 1,400-work exhibition gave many Americans their first look at what avant-garde artists in Europe were up to. It was the biggest art show New York had ever seen and challenged ideas about artistic "progress."

An experimental technique called optogenetics is starting to change the way researchers look at the brain. The tool allows them to switch entire brain circuits on and off using light, and may help figure out what's going wrong in brain ailments from epilepsy to depression.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy are raising alarms about Iranian ballistic missiles in Russia that threaten Ukraine.

The 2014 Winter Olympics will unfold in a resort town on the relatively warm Black Sea — a testament to how far man-made snow has come in recent years.