NPR News

Nearly three decades ago, Kenny Buchanan decided to drop out of school. Over the last 26 years, he's jumped from job to job and unemployment. He now has a full-time job and for the first time in years, he and his family have health insurance and can enjoy a few luxuries.

Steve Inskeep has business news.

Some of the most spectacular business failings of 2011 were created or enhanced by the very people who should have provided protection against failure: the CEOs. Linda Wertheimer wraps up the year in CEO blunders with Professor Sydney Finkelstein, of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He's also the author of "Why Smart Executives Fail."

Steve Inskeep has the Last Word in business.

In Texas, a private intelligence company has apparently been hacked by the loosely organized activist group Anonymous. Some members claim they obtained personal information about Stratfor's clients, as well as thousands of credit cards numbers which were then used to make donations to charities. But other members have disavowed the hacking job. Freelance journalist Quinn Norton, who has profiled Anonymous for Wired Magazine, talks to Linda Wertheimer about the breach.

As the debt crisis spreads across Europe, the economy in the region is slowing to a crawl. One place that's starting to feel the impact of the slowdown is the massive port of Rotterdam in Holland. It's the biggest port in the world outside Asia. Much of what's bought and sold in Europe goes through Rotterdam.

U.S. officials may be giving up on their goal of strong relations with Pakistan. That's the suggestion, anyway, in the details of a report by The New York Times. The report describes the U.S. preparing for a much more limited relationship after U.S. forces in Afghanistan killed Pakistani troops across the border. Eric Schmitt, who authored the report, talks to Steve Inskeep about deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.

As North Korea prepares for the funeral of leader Kim Jong Il, attention is being focused on the country his son, heir apparent Kim Jong Un, will inherit. Like almost everything to do with North Korea, the picture of how the country's economy works is cloudy.

With just a week until the Republican caucuses, presidential candidate Rick Santorum spent the day in Iowa hunting — for pheasants and votes. Although he's worked hard in Iowa, he's not won over the group he's targeted: social conservatives.

As 2011 winds down, Morning Edition is looking at music we missed over the past 12 months. R&B singer Anthony Hamilton is one artist that slipped under our noses; we just missed his album Back To Love, which came out earlier this month. Hamilton's been in the music business for two decades, during which he's had a mostly black audience. Now, with Back To Love, he's gaining even wider appeal.