U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration for the Secretary of State job on Thursday. President Obama accepted her withdrawal and says she will continue in her role as U.N. ambassador.

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Homecomings at the nation's military bases are treated as occasions of the highest order. This morning, more than 100 families at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, waited for hugs and kisses before the sun came up. Blake Farmer of member station WPLN was there.

BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: The 747 touched down just before sunrise.

JOHN KING: Look at that big old plane.

JACK BELZER: That's giant.

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Our next story is an economic mystery. Our Planet Money reporter Chana Joffe-Walt stumbled over it while holiday shopping.

CHANA JOFFE-WALT, BYLINE: The other day, I went to Toys R Us after work to buy my son some Legos for Hanukkah. He's never had Legos before, so I was very excited. But did you know that a basic box of Legos cost 59.99? For just 102 DUPLO pieces, 60 bucks. They're plastic blocks.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: Legos cost a lot of money.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Yeah, actually, they are expensive.

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Drug cartels are taking to the ocean. That's because security along the land border between the U.S. and Mexico has been beefed up. Smuggling off the coast of Southern California is up 30 percent this year, according to the government, and that has the Coast Guard and Homeland Security warning of an increasingly dangerous situation off the busy coast.

NPR's Kirk Siegler reports.

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In Egypt, the road to democracy is anything but easy. President Mohammed Morsi has set a vote on a new constitution to begin this Saturday. But Egyptian rights groups are warning of possible election fraud.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

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European leaders have taken a big step forward in their efforts to address the continent's debt problems. At a meeting today in Brussels, they approved the idea of a single regulator who would have power over most of Europe's banks. Officials say such a regulator could have averted the kind of credit bust that has crippled the economies of Spain, Greece and Ireland.

NPR's Jim Zarroli has that story.

Stop anyone on the street in Europe, Latin America, Africa and even Asia, and chances are they'll know the name Lionel Messi — and they'll probably know what he did this week. The soccer phenom scored his 88th goal of the year, which is widely thought to be a world record.

And the year's not over yet.

On Sunday, Messi, 25, scored his 86th goal of the calendar year in a Spanish league game against Real Betis, in Seville. The goal, Messi's second of the game, gave Barcelona a 2-1 win over Betis, with the announcer booming, "A new goal king!"

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Now one final time, we'll borrow the words of Ebenezer Scrooge to introduce a series of conversations we've been having.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, A CHRISTMAS CAROL)

GEORGE C. SCOTT: (as Ebenezer Scrooge) I will live in the past, present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

The O'Haras don't talk much about what's wrong, but the members of this biracial Queens family — the central characters of Yelling to the Sky -- are bedeviled by alcoholism (dad), mental illness (mom) and adolescent defiance (the two daughters). Indeed actress-turned-director Victoria Mahoney barely explains her characters' circumstances, which makes the movie obliquely intriguing. But whenever the story comes into focus, it's revealed as fairly conventional.