The employees of Morgan Stanley, owner of the world's biggest brokerage, will receive a maximum cash bonus of $125,000, this year. As The New York Times puts it, the cap reflects "the difficulties that new financial regulations and the debt turmoil in Europe have posed to Morgan Stanley and its rival firms."

And with tongue firmly in cheek, it also notes that the bankers "may want to put their kitchen renovations off until next year."

It's been six years since The Little Willies released an eponymous debut album.

There were hints that all was not well in Paula Deen's Southern-fried world. Last November, when NPR correspondent Allison Aubrey asked Deen if she'd ever do healthier versions of her greasy, sugar-laden fare, Deen said: "As I age, and get older and I get 'different things' that I have to battle physically — it may, you know, resonate closer to home for me."

The voice mail and computer hacking and police bribery scandal that has roiled the British newspaper industry has also led to calls for government regulation of the press in one of the world's greatest democracies.

Some newspaper executives, such as Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail and editor-in-chief of the Mail on Sunday, are attempting to draw the line.

Investigators are now saying arson was not the likely cause of a fire that on Monday destroyed a cypress tree in Central Florida that was an estimated 3,500 years old — making it perhaps the oldest such tree in the nation and one of the oldest in the world.

Known as "The Senator," the tree that once stood 165 feet tall (before a hurricane lopped off about 45 feet in 1925) was more likely brought down by a fire that had been smoldering inside it — without being detected — since a lightning strike about a week ago, investigators say.

The Los Angeles City Council is poised to approve a measure today that would require adult film stars to wear condoms when making films. The AP reports that last week, the council voted 11-1 for preliminary approval.

The new requirement is controversial in the porn industry. NPR's Alex Cohen explored the issue back in 2010. Essentially, the industry claims condoms hurt sales and their method of testing actors every 30 days is effective.

Last September, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas requested full membership to the United Nations for a state of Palestine.

With negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders at a stalemate, is there another approach that could offer a diplomatic solution for peace?

The nation's obesity epidemic appears to have hit a plateau, according to the latest federal data released Tuesday.

Obesity soared in the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s, doubling among adults and tripling among children. That raised widespread alarm and debate about the causes and possible solutions. Obesity can increase the risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other serious health problems.

In an interview with the CBC, yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had some harsh words for the United States and its side of the Keystone XL pipeline debate.

"I don't object to foreigners expressing their opinion," Harper told the CBC. "But I don't want them to be able to hijack the process so that we don't make a decision that's timely or in the interests of Canadians."

He has probably paid an effective federal income tax rate of about 15 percent in recent years, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told reporters in South Carolina a short time ago.