First Aid Kit is two sisters, ages 18 and 21, from Sweden. But their music sounds like a slice of Americana: acoustic guitar, autoharp and lots of vocal harmony.

Klara and Johanna Soderberg wrote the songs for their new album, The Lion's Roar, while on their last tour. Many started with ideas, short riffs, recorded on a cellphone.

A burly beast of a man bursts into a presidential press conference and is shot in the leg by secret police. Two days later, the White House reveals that the befuddled intruder with a handlebar mustache is really former President William Howard Taft.

So begins Taft 2012, a novel that gives a satirical take on contemporary politics through the eyes of a president who served a century ago. Author Jason Heller places Taft in a 21st-century election campaign, where he is forced to sit in bars on New Year's Eve and master Twitter along the way.

Some of the biggest banks in the country are reportedly close to a settlement with authorities over the so-called robo-signing scandal in which mortgage company officials signed and notarizeed foreclosure documents without properly reviewing them.

Many lenders and mortgage servicers acknowledged making serious mistakes in foreclosure paperwork.

When I was 17 years old, I got so depressed that what felt like an enormous black hole appeared in my chest. Everywhere I went, the black hole went, too.

So to address the black-hole issue, my parents took me to a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She did an evaluation and then told me this story:

On a recent cold, gray day in Moscow, several dozen reporters and photographers milled about restlessly on the main floor of the Central Election Commission of Russia.

The person they were waiting to see was supposed to be there at 10 a.m. Nearly six hours later, Mikhail Prokhorov, appeared at the front door and smiled for the cameras.

The last battle scar of 2011 for the GOP came in December, when House Republicans painted themselves into a corner on extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut. The fight exposed the party's internal rifts and the loose control of its leaders.

"A public relations fiasco," one GOP lawmaker called it. They could compromise with the Democrats or allow taxes to go up; neither option palatable to large portions of the majority.

This Sunday's Work with Marty Nemko is devoted exclusively to you. If you or someone you love has a work problem or a lack-of-work problem, call in or listen to Marty doing three-minute Workovers on callers. Interspersed, he'll share his favorite new career and workplace ideas. Most listeners say they're not looking for a job but just enjoy listening. Those listeners too are, of course, most welcome.  That's Work with Marty Nemko, this Sunday, Jan 29 from 11 am to noon, here on 91.7 FM, KALW.

Gabrielle Giffords.

The Arab League sent observers to Syria about a month ago. Their mission: to bear witness to the escalating violence between soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad and armed opposition fighters.

The presence of the orange-vested observers was supposed to discourage the violent crackdown on protesters, but since they arrived in December, almost 1,000 Syrians have died. Overall, it is estimated that more than 5,400 people have been killed since the protests began last March.

Outside Penn State's football stadium, mourners paid respects to legendary football coach Joe Paterno who died Sunday from lung cancer.