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Peter Jackson takes his audience back to Middle-earth in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, set in a time before the Lord of the Rings films. NPR's Bob Mondello says that where the Rings films struggled with what to omit, The Hobbit labors to justify its three-hour running time.

President Obama hosted House Speaker John Boehner Thursday, spending nearly an hour together in which they discussed ways to avert the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes that will arrive at the end of 2012. Boehner left the White House at 6 p.m., apparently without reaching a deal.

Hurricane Sandy delivered a powerful punch to New York's Ellis and Liberty islands. While Lady Liberty sustained no damage, flooding destroyed much of Ellis Island's infrastructure, and the Statue of Liberty National Monument is closed indefinitely.

Researchers wanted to take a census of all of the insects living in a small section of rainforest in Panama. To do this, they went up in a balloon, hung from a crane and walked atop the canopy in a huge tree raft. All told, they collected almost 130,000 specimens from more than 6,000 species.

Burdened by the weak economy, more and more millennials — ages 18 to 34 — are becoming their own bosses. A study shows that more than half of them want to start a business or already have.

He created incentives that 11-year-olds could relate to. (Somehow, "Come to school and you'll be better off in 20 years," just wasn't working.)

The term "right to work" has been in the news a lot this week. On Tuesday, Michigan became the 24th state to enact right-to-work legislation. It means unions can no longer require workers to pay full dues, even if they're working in a union shop.

As the negotiations drag on, the lack of progress means the key players have necessarily taken to repeating themselves. Sometimes, word-for-word, as they describe how they have worked for a solution while their opponents have stonewalled.

After a spate of such attacks in recent years, concerns were raised about the failures of China's psychiatric care system. Today's attack renews those fears. Fortunately, none of the 22 children wounded today have life-threatening injuries.

At the turn of the 20th century, a deadly fungus wiped out billions of American chestnut trees from the forests of eastern North America. But, growers are now trying to rebuild a U.S. market with Chinese and European chestnut species and re-introduce Americans to chestnut cuisine.