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Is that a cross? A ship with a figurehead? It's only human to wonder what the future will hold, especially on the threshold of a new year. In one German tradition, fortune-seekers drop molten lead into cold water — then it's anyone's guess what the strange shapes portend.

Jews, Muslims and tourists just trying to avoid sunburn all have their own distinct headwear in Jerusalem. NPR's Emily Harris takes us on a shopping tour in the Holy Land.

A senior official in South Sudan said Saturday that government troops will attack the main rebel stronghold if the rebels turn down a proposed cease-fire. The government had offered a truce on Friday to end two weeks of ethnic violence that has killed more than a thousand people.

Children in low-income families hear dramatically fewer words, which often sets them back in school and later life. The gap was officially documented in the 1990s, but has persisted. Now an entire city is trying to close the divide.

Archaeologists are now mapping a wall in eastern China that is as much as 15 feet tall in some places, and predates the more famous barrier by 300 years. Hundreds of miles long, it was likely erected to keep neighboring Chinese dynasties from invading each other, historians say.

Stories that titillate, amuse or arouse flash-in-the-pan outrage may be more widely read and shared than solid information. Celebrity and scandals have always attracted media attention, but in the Internet age, the balance is shifting more toward entertainment.

A massive post-Christmas package of precipitation is headed up the East Coast today.

The flare-up in tensions comes while Israelis and Palestinians negotiate a peace deal and just as Israel announced it would release 26 longtime Palestinian prisoners.

Each winter, a team of scientists sets out on a search for those rare shooting stars that make it to the ground instead of burning up in the sky. There aren't many better places to look for these space rocks than Antarctica, often in areas where no human has set foot before.

The end of December is a crucial deadline for removing chemical weapons from Syria. Now the OPCW, the international organization overseeing that transfer, is backing away from that deadline. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel discusses the plan for chemical weapons removal and disposal, and why it's been so hard.