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Rejecting a challenge by the ACLU to the program, U.S. District Judge William Pauley said Friday that the collection of data represented "a government counter-punch" against al-Qaida. The ruling comes less than two weeks after another judge said the program violated the Constitution.

Scientists and growers are in a bitter fight against citrus greening, a disease that has devastated Florida's orange and grapefruit crops. They fear that unless scientists find a cure for greening soon, it's just a matter of time before economic realities and the disease force growers out of business.

Over the past year, a roaring debate has erupted among physicists about what exactly would happen if you fell into a black hole. Would it be "spaghettification," or a quantum firestorm and oblivion where space ceases to exist? The answer has big implications for fundamental physics.

Only a rare few people have the ability to remember everything that happened in their lives. But that gift can seem like a curse, they say, keeping them marooned in the past and unable to enjoy the present. Forgetting, it seems, can be a good thing.

The government says the former vice president is mobilizing an army of youth to seize key cities in the newly independent nation. The United Nations is not sure it can protect the thousands of people staying at its compound who have been displaced by recent ethnic fighting.

Beyond drastically curtailing a safety-net for jobless workers, allowing the benefits to expire sets up a major political fight for the coming new year.

Is that a cross? A ship with a figurehead? It's only human to wonder what the future will hold, especially on the threshold of a new year. In one German tradition, fortune-seekers drop molten lead into cold water — then it's anyone's guess what the strange shapes portend.

Inter-religious tensions have been in the headlines in parts of Africa lately. Christian-Muslim clashes have left many dead in places like Nigeria and Central African Republic. But there are also examples of peaceful inter-religious co-existence in Africa, such as Senegal.

Does Kobe Bryant's latest injury setback signal the beginning of the end of a Hall of Fame career? In the NFL's final regular season weekend there are division titles on the line, but injuries might make the difference there too. Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine talks with NPR's Linda Wertheimer about the week in sports, and the way concussions have shaped sports in 2013 and will continue to do so in the year to come.

Global warming is pushing species like the polar bear to the brink of extinction. It's not a typical conservation problem, so one government biologist discovered the best way he could help save the great white bears was to quit his job.