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The human spine is an elegant piece of architecture. But by middle age most people have spinal degeneration. Eight out of 10 people will suffer back pain at some point.

The smaller-than-normal crowds at Mardi Gras this week symbolize the lingering impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans' economy. The city's hotels are struggling to recover, but a shortage of workers is hampering their comeback.

An eclectic range of influences is at the heart of Latin Alternative, a music created by young players who have been raised not only on their parents' music but also on rock, hip-hop and electronica. It represents a sonic shift away from regionalism and points to a new global Latin identity.

Clifford Odets, remembered as the defining American playwright of the 1930s, would have turned 100 this year. His works -- including Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing and Golden Boy brought social realism to the stage. Many companies around the country are staging his plays.

Katherine Bright, manager of Amazon World Zoo Park on the Isle of Wight, discusses the case of Toga, the zoo's baby South African Jackass Penguin. Toga was taken from the zoo Sunday morning and is still unaccounted for. The zoo has offered a 1,000-pound reward for the bird.

On Christmas Eve, 1945, the Sodder family of Fayetteville, W.V., lost five children in a fire. Strange events that night and afterward fueled speculation, which continues to this day, that the children may have been kidnapped or murdered.

Many American soldiers spending the holiday on duty in Mosul are watching with detachment as the war in Iraq is debated back home. But some say they are a bit frustrated by calls for a swift pullout of troops.

The life of David Sedaris took an unexpected, and not entirely unwelcome, turn when his "Santaland Diaries" were first broadcast on Morning Edition in 1992. We reprise his story of holiday cheer.

A gunman murders a pro-rebel member of the Sri Lankan parliament in a church during midnight Mass. The attack is the latest in a string of incidents that has heightened tensions between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, and threatens to revive a civil war.

Reclusive director Terrence Malick's new movie, The New World, tells the story of Captain John Smith and the beginnings of the English presence in the Americas. Critic Bob Mondello says The New World is in some ways a reflection of Malick's career -- languid in pacing, with beauty in every frame.