Talk of the Nation

NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin recaps the week in politics from the winners and losers of the 'fiscal cliff' deal to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's health concerns. Incoming freshman representatives Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) share their expectations as new members of Congress.

Talk of the Nation kicks off the new year by taking time to follow up on some stories from 2012. NPR's Neal Conan talks with some of the memorable guests and callers from 2012, including a farmer devastated by drought and a new mom evacuated from a hospital during Superstorm Sandy.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Early this morning, the Senate approved a fiscal cliff package that includes some important steps forward on taxes, an unemployment extension and a new farm bill, among others. But now it appears that bill may be in trouble in the House of Representatives. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving joins us now from his home here in Washington, D.C. Ron, Happy New Year.

RON ELVING, BYLINE: Happy New Year to you, Neal.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan. This afternoon, House Democrats and Republicans are meeting separately to consider the Senate-approved deal that would avert automatic tax hikes and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff. Some House Republicans indicate they'd like to amend that bill and send it back to the Senate, which if it doesn't get done tonight could invalidate the negotiated deal. It would then become a problem for the next Congress, which takes office on Thursday. As of now, no vote is scheduled.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

Right now in Pasadena, the floats in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade are the homestretch. The Rose Parade is a long-established national tradition, of course, watched every year by hundreds of thousands across the country. Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison covered the event many times and wrote today: Its huge cultural shadow has been as much about what you didn't see on display as what you did.

Republicans and Democrats have until midnight tonight to avoid going off the so-called fiscal cliff. If they can't reach an agreement by then, automatic tax hikes and spending cuts will kick in.

In A Man of Misconceptions: The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change, John Glassie writes of 17th-century Jesuit priest and scientist Athanasius Kircher, a renaissance man who studied magnetism, Mount Vesuvius, even the blood of plague victims. The only problem? His theories were often wrong.

Did you know that the human overbite may have evolved after people began using forks and knives? In Consider the Fork, author Bee Wilson traces how kitchen tools--from knives to pots to gas stoves--have changed over time, and how they have influenced what, and how, we eat.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST: