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Angered by an American law barring some Russian officials from entering the U.S., parliament members in Moscow have retaliated. Putin has now said he sees no reason not to sign the adoption ban. More than 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by Americans since 1992, the State Department says.

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.

An estimated 1,500 American families are in the process of adopting from Russia. About 50 have already been matched with a child. Now, their plans are in limbo. Russian President Vladimir Putin today signed a law barring U.S. adoptions of Russian children.

The general who led coalition forces during the successful 1991 war to push Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, "removed the scar of Vietnam" from officers who had also served in that earlier war, says retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales Jr.

Also: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf dies; Secretary Clinton is expected back at work next week; death toll from this week's winter weather reaches 17; former President George H.W. Bush wishes folks would "put the harps back in the closet."

The drought gripping the nation's midsection has made the river very hard to navigate from St. Louis to Cairo, Ill., where it meets the Ohio River. By next week, barge traffic may have to halt altogether in that section, trade groups warn.

In North Korea, profound social change is happening beyond the view of the outside world. The pressure of national ideology has forced women to become the primary breadwinners in many households — dramatically redrawing gender roles in the process.

President Obama might have had the top tweet this year, but a lot of other notable things were said and discussed on Twitter in 2012. Host Michel Martin gets a breakdown of the year's top tweets from Keli Goff of The Root and blogger Viviana Hurtado of The Wise Latina Club.

Conversion these days at the state's Spanish missions isn't only about religion; it's also about seismic retrofitting. That's because the missions — which date to the late 1700s, when Spain's king sent Franciscan missionaries to convert natives to Christianity — would not withstand a major earthquake.

"If it's not me, who's it going to be?" asks Colorado school cafeteria manager Kathy Del Tonto. After serving processed foods in her cafeterias for years, she realized that reducing childhood obesity can begin with her. She now has the lunch ladies making 95 percent of meals from scratch.