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British bank HSBC has agreed to pay a record fine of $1.9 billion to settle an investigation by U.S. prosecutors. HSBC faced charges of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and facilitating prohibited transactions with nations like Iran and Cuba. For more, Robert Siegel talks with Jimmy Gurule, law professor at the University of Notre Dame.

The New Jersey city has surpassed its previous record for murders. City officials, who say the unionized police force has too many perks, turn to the county to provide a larger and cheaper force.

President Obama and Senate Republicans have different views when it comes to what counts as "recess." A federal appeals court is now weighing the question in a case challenging three of Obama's appointments.

Najaf in southern Iraq is beginning to feel the pain of neighboring Iran's economic woes. Business around Shiite sites, which usually draw scores of Iranians for the holy days of Ashura, is way down.

Author Hortense Calisher once called the short story "an apocalypse in a teacup." Critic Jane Ciabattari presents her favorite mini-apocalypses of 2012, from veteran authors like Sherman Alexie to newcomer Claire Vaye Watkins, who combines a unique voice and a shadowed family history in her debut collection.

Conductor John Eliot Gardiner and author Matthew Guerrieri explain the incredible resonances, past and present, behind one of the most famous phrases in music: the start to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

Serena Frome is more bookworm than spy, but her bosses at MI5 have the perfect mission for her: to cultivate and fund British writers whose politics align with those of the government.

The Bishop of Durham, Justin Welby, has been appointed as the next archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Church of England. The former oil executive has only a year's experience as a bishop. Philip Reeves has the story.

President Obama, in his victory speech, noted that the hours voters had to wait in line are something "we have to fix." One solution: Spend more on equipment and poll workers. But that would be tough in this fiscal climate. Another is to expand early voting. But states such as Ohio have had their early-voting laws challenged in court.

On the new album Glad Rag Doll, Krall reimagines Prohibition-era songs, which she first heard as a child on weekend visits to her grandparents' house.