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The North American Aerospace Defense Command keeps an eye on Saint Nick's progress from an Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. NORAD volunteers in elf hats fielded more than 100,000 calls from kids checking on Santa.

The Milwaukee VA is shortening its residential mental health treatment programs. Doctors there say the shortened stay from 90 to 45 days will mean more intense treatment and will make it easier for veterans to transition back into society sooner. Some patients say getting clean and sober is just the first step in their recovery, and they worry about being pushed out too soon.

Perhaps more than any other major professional sports league in this country, the National Basketball Association is star-driven. A Christmas slate of season-opening games featured the electric play of the league's Most Valuable Player Derrick Rose, the NBA's top scorer Kevin Durant and LeBron James, too.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Moscow. They disagree with elections allegedly rigged in favor of Vladimir Putin's party. Lilia Shevtsova, senior Russia analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, talks to Steve Inskeep about the demonstrations.

Air travel horror stories typically involve lost luggage, missed connections and overzealous security staff. But families affected by autism face other challenges in navigating airports and planes.

A Philadelphia program is bringing families, airport employees and airlines together to help autistic kids fly more comfortably.

Airports are loud, hectic places: blaring announcements, glaring lights and long lines can spell trouble for people with autism. They often can't tolerate noise, bright lights and close quarters.

Steve Inskeep and Linda Wertheimer have business news.

Linda Wertheimer talks to Rich Jaroslovsky, tech columnist for Bloomberg News, about his top gadget picks for 2011.

Steve Inskeep has the Last Word in Business.

The Iowa caucuses are a little more than a week away. The candidates dialed back the intensity of their TV ads this past weekend, featuring gentler messages many of which showcased the candidates' wives. Iowa Public Radio's Kate Wells reports on the Iowa landscape this past weekend - and what's likely in the coming week.

This year, Morning Edition covered the death of Amy Winehouse, Spotify's arrival in America and the end of R.E.M. Listen above to host Steve Inskeep and Ann Powers catch up on the year's musical stories the show didn't cover.

Hurricanes topple plenty of trees, but when you think about it, the more amazing thing is that many trees can stand up to these 100-mile-per-hour winds.

Now a French scientist has come up with an explanation for the resilience of trees. And astonishingly, the answer was first described by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago.

Leonardo noticed that when trees branch, smaller branches have a precise, mathematical relationship to the branch from which they sprang. Many people have verified Leonardo's rule, as it's known, but no one had a good explanation for it.

In 2011, Novak Djokovic had just about the best year a male tennis player has ever had, including wins at three of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

"This is the athlete of the year," says Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated. "This is a brutal, brutal sport. This guy is playing on six continents, every surface....This is one of the all time great years in open tennis history."

This year, Djokovic also kept to a gluten-free diet. Must have been particularly difficult since his family's business is a pizza parlor.

The digital cloud became a household word in 2011.You can now store and share things via the Internet in ways you never could before. But what does the cloud look like, and where can we find it?

The section of the cloud we visited has a lot of concrete and security.

Behind a ballistics-grade door, data center owner David Sabey ushers us into a spotless Seattle-area facility the size of nine football fields. It's crammed full of racks upon racks of powerful servers, sophisticated computers that serve up information. There are lots of blinking lights and wires everywhere.

Three days of intense pressure persuaded House Republicans to give in and approve a short-term extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment compensation benefits. Linda Wertheimer talks to NPR's Tamara Keith about the reversal by GOP leaders in the House.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne. An Irish man received a touching Christmas gift when 100-year-old letter from his mother to Santa was printed in the Irish Times. He had never seen the letter. The slightly-scorched note had been stuck in the chimney of his mother's childhood home in Dublin for more than 80 years until the current owner discovered it. Annie Howard was just 10 in 1911 when she asked Santa for gloves, toffee and a baby doll.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin was writing for the majority in an insurance fraud case. He produced six pages of verse with gems like: "Convictions for the forgery and theft are approbated — the sentence for insurance fraud, however, is vacated."

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with bad Apple.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MONTAGNE: The frenzy for Apple's phone 4S has failed to catch on in much of Europe. Given the product's high price and the region's weak economies, shoppers just haven't bitten. Apple's market share has dropped in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Though, the British never wants to fall in with the continent have fallen hard for the phone. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Thursday was the busiest day of the year for shipper UPS. Rick Howlett of member station WFPL went to the company's hub in Louisville, Kentucky, to find out what the day was like.

Few things announce the arrival of Christmas-time like the sound of bells. And chances are many of the bells you hear this holiday season can be sourced to one small, family-owned manufacturing business in Connecticut. Bevin Brothers was founded 180 years ago.

Men's professional basketball was on a long break because of the lockout. But on Christmas Day, the NBA season begins with a five-game package featuring exciting teams and glittering superstars. There's a rematch between defending champion Dallas and everyone's favorite team to hate — the Miam Heat.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

It appears as if the bitter fighting in Congress is about to come to an end just in time for Christmas. Today, the House and the Senate are expected to approve an extension of the payroll tax holiday and benefits for the long-term unemployed. This required a major reversal for House Republicans who, earlier this week, voted to reject a nearly identical compromise.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul is anything but an establishment GOP candidate. Yet, he is at the top of the polls in Iowa, largely because his message appeals to more than just the typical Republican caucus-goer. That was made clear when he met John McCarthy and Michelle Godez-Schilling, both of whom attended a campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa.

"I would like to say I'm an independent, and for the first time in my life I'm affiliated with one of the two major parties because of you," McCarthy told Paul.