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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It has been a busy year in Mexico's war on drugs. The administration of former President Felipe Calderon struck major blows to the country's largest cartels, slowing the violence that has claimed more than 50,000 lives.

But the new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, says he'll change tactics. He wants to go after the crime associated with drug trafficking instead of taking down crime bosses. His new attorney general says this is the right strategy, since the number of crime gangs working in the country has grown significantly.

It's a year-end tradition to cobble together a list of the most important advances in science. But, truth be told, many ideas that change the world don't tend to spring from these flashy moments of discovery. Our view of nature — and our technology — often evolve from a sequence of more subtle advances.

Even so, chances are good that this year's list-makers will choose the discovery of the Higgs boson as the most important discovery of 2012.

Every year, banks handle tens of millions of transactions. Some of them involve drug money, or deals with companies doing secret business with countries like Iran and Syria, in defiance of trade sanctions.

But if the Justice Department has its way, banks will be forced to change — to spot illegal transactions and blow the whistle before any money changes hands.

Federal prosecutors have already collected more than $4.5 billion from some of the world's biggest financial institutions — banks charged with looking the other way when dirty money passed through their accounts.

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STEVEN INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. A New Year's tradition will change in Brasstown, North Carolina. Instead of the Times Square Ball, Clay's Corner Store lowered a love possum in a box. Store owner Clay Logan tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press we aren't pessimistic or optimistic. We're opposumistic. But nobody asked the possum. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued. Now Mr. Logan says he'll drop a stuffed animal, or road kill, depending on what's available. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

It turns out parents are increasingly naming newborns after grandparents. That's one new trend, according to the baby website, Belly Ballot. It is also predicting first names that sound like last names: think Kennedy.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in a New York hospital for treatment of a blood clot. Clinton suffered a concussion after a fall earlier this month.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In India, protestors are vowing to keep up their fight until there is justice for the young victim of a gang rape. The young woman died this weekend after injuries she suffered in the vicious attack. The incident has renewed demands for action against sexual violence. Delhi police say the accused will be formally charged with murder. From New Delhi, here's NPR's Julie McCarthy.