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If Congress and the president can't reach a deal, budget cuts will go into effect next week. But most agencies won't be hit right away. The biggest planning headaches seem to be for payroll companies and others who deal with taxes — as they wait to see if automatic increases happen Jan. 1.

The publishing industry has been in flux for years. First chain stores, then Amazon, then e-books — all combined to create dramatic change. Industry consultant Mike Shatzkin outlines some of the biggest changes, like the recently announced merger of Penguin and Random House.

Conventional wisdom says e-books are destroying the traditional publishing business model. But the story's not that simple. For one thing, flexible pricing allows publishers to hold what amount to one-day-only sales on any given title — which means more people will discover that book.

Charles Dickens wrote many of his greatest works in serial form, but serial publishing has fallen by the wayside since his day. Now, it's being revived online, and Margaret Atwood is publishing a future-dystopia novel called Positron in installments via the literary website Byliner.

About three-quarters of public libraries offer e-books, according to the American Library Association. But finding the book you want to read can be a challenge when every publisher has its own licensing rules for libraries — and several major houses don't sell e-books to libraries at all.

In Italy, a Catholic priest has stirred widespread outrage after he blamed incidents of domestic violence on the way women dress. Father Piero Corsi's remarks were in a Christmas message he put on a church bulletin board; photos of the note soon went viral.

Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the Desert Storm offensive that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait, has died. Audie Cornish talks with NPR's Tom Bowman about the much-decorated soldier.

Wednesday marked the start of Kwanzaa, the seven day festival celebrating African-American culture. In the 1980s and '90s, many considered Kwanzaa a mainstream holiday like Christmas and Hanukkah. But now there seems to be less fanfare. Host Michel Martin speaks with Duke University's Mark Anthony Neal about whether Kwanzaa is still a thing.

The tortuous negotiations involved in the "fiscal cliff" talks are like a chess game. To shed some light on the kinds of negotiation techniques that members of Congress might be using, we asked two negotiation experts to walk us through examples from their everyday lives.

Our list of this year's best biographies focuses on books about individuals who lived their lives off the beaten path. From the story of a spy turned chef to the story of the real Count of Monte Cristo, these books chronicle subjects who refused to conform to the expectations of others.