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Illinois' pension-fund shortfall is by far the largest in the nation, and the clock is ticking for the state's governor and lawmakers to tackle the problem before a new Legislature is sworn in next week. So far, their proposals have stoked frustration from state employees and retirees.

Simply put, Illinois' unfunded pension liability is massive. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn says the $96 billion of liability has been accumulating for decades, with the state's pension problems dating back at least 70 years.

"There have been 12 governors, 13 speakers of the House and 13 presidents of the Senate that have come and gone, and the issue has kind of confounded our predecessors," he says.

The State's Share

Over those many years, Illinois' teachers, state troopers, university professors and other state employees have been paying their share, contributing about 8 to 12 percent of their salaries out of every paycheck to their pension funds. But the state hasn't.

Illinois' governors and lawmakers have frequently shortchanged the pension systems. They've even skipped some pension payments altogether so they could more freely spend on things more popular with the voters, such as schools, highways, health care and prisons.

The result, says Quinn, is a huge pension shortfall that is growing bigger by the day.

"Our liability every day goes up by $17 million, so we've got to deal with this," the governor says.

Looking for a London pied-a-terre? How about a four-bedroom duplex overlooking Hyde Park? It could be yours, if you're prepared to spend $25 million.

In most of the United Kingdom, property prices are slumping. But in some of London's most upscale neighborhoods, they're going crazy.

Robin Perona sweeps the sidewalk at Egerton Crescent, a gracious semicircle of white townhouses in fashionable Chelsea.

In the 1990s, they cost about $700,000 each. Today the average price is some $13 million — or 8 million British pounds.

Perona shakes his head when told he's sweeping Britain's most expensive street.

Too Expensive For Britons

Across central London, mega-rich foreign buyers are pricing merely wealthy Britons out of the market.

In Bayswater, Joshua Ayres, of the property firm Hamptons International, is showing The Lancasters, 75 fully decorated luxury apartments. During a tour, Ayres shows the master bedroom, kitchen and living room of one apartment, saying all the units "have these grand double-height rooms."

The developers bought up five adjoining white stucco mansions, preserved their historic facades, then married the grandeur of 19th-century interiors with the latest technology and luxury.

"We have all underfloor heating, ceiling heating in these double-height rooms, as well," Ayres adds.

There's a spa (of course), 24-hour valet parking, and a staff of five is always on duty.

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President Obama may round out his new national security leadership team next week, with a nomination for defense secretary expected and a pick to lead the CIA possible.

Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is the front-runner for the top Pentagon post. Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan are leading contenders to head the spy agency.

White House aides said the president has not made a final decision on either post and won't until he returns from Hawaii, where he is vacationing with his family. Obama is due back in Washington Sunday morning.

Obama nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in December, his first step in filling out his second term Cabinet and national security team. Kerry, as well as the nominees for the Pentagon and CIA, must be confirmed by the Senate.

Hagel is a contrarian Republican moderate and decorated Vietnam combat veteran who is likely to support a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. If confirmed, Hagel would give Obama a whiff of bipartisanship in his Cabinet.

National Security

Hagel Would Be First Former Enlisted Soldier To Run Pentagon

Fiscal cliff week has mercifully ended with a deal done, hurricane relief approved, President Obama vacationing, and both parties bickering internally over what was won — and lost — in the early hours of the new year.

What we have found most intriguing is the vigorous post-facto wrestling within the liberal community over what the fiscal cliff negotiations say about President Obama.

Is he a "wimp" who blinked during fiscal cliff wrangling, failing to pursue a grand bargain and weakening his future hand?

Or a pragmatist who negotiated a "big win" in securing congressional approval for the first tax increase on the wealthy in more than two decades?

The answer we've gleaned from party stalwarts and presidential historians is a resounding "yes."

Two Sides Of The Coin

"He played his hand brilliantly," says Stanley Renshon, a political scientist and psychoanalyst whose book, Barack Obama and the Politics of Redemption, took a dive into the president's psyche.

"He got the big 800-pound gorilla — a big tax increase, and all of the implications that come from that," Renshon told us Friday.

But then there's this, from presidential historian Joseph Persico, whose new book explores Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership during World War II.

"It pains me to say this, because I support the president, but I don't think his strength is as a negotiator," Persico says, allowing, however, that "half a loaf is better than none — and this is about five slices."

Critics of the deal are disappointed that Obama looks to have squandered a good deal of his big re-election leverage with a small-ball deal.

Liberal supporters of the outcome say the president managed a deal with a dysfunctional Republican House majority, instituting higher taxes for high earners, and preserving programs that disproportionately benefit poor and middle-class Americans, unemployment insurance and tax credit extensions.

Take your pick.

Let's take a closer look at their positions.

Obama As Victor

Critics say the president should have driven a harder bargain, even going over the fiscal cliff if necessary. Not only would Republicans have borne the blame for raising taxes on the middle class, they say, but showing a measure of inflexibility now might have strengthened the president's hand in future negotiations, by proving to Republicans that there are some lines he won't cross.

Renshon doesn't buy it.

"If I were I on the left," he says, "I would quit complaining."

Obama during the fiscal cliff negotiations, he says, was at the "point of his maximum leverage," with his electoral win still playing like "Muzak in the elevator."

"Once you lose your leverage, you don't know where the ball will roll," he said, noting that GOP House Speaker John Boehner clearly wanted to get a deal done, and Republicans were "up against a wall."

"Obama's a very smart guy, and he's playing the long game," Renshon says. "And the long game is clearly that you get almost all of what you want, but by degree."

He describes Obama as a vague, but consistent, maximalist who sees himself as a historic figure — a la Mount Rushmore — and one determined to not be the president who presides over the "demise of the liberal welfare state."

Progressive strategist Robert Creamer says that there is nothing in the fiscal cliff deal not to like. "We made progress," he said. "The president just raised the top tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, and that's a big deal in terms of the American economy and its fundamental underlying problem of economic inequality."

"But what progressives are worried about is did we give up the leverage we need to address serious problems in the next round?" Creamer says.

He argues that the administration was willing to go over the cliff if it didn't get a "good, progressive outcome."

The main criticism, as Creamer sees it, is that Obama argued throughout his campaign for tax increases on a larger swath of high-earning Americans, calling for higher taxes on those with family income of $250,000 or more, which would bring in about $800 billion in revenue.

The deal forged this week lets the taxes rise only on families with income of $450,000 and above and is estimated to produce revenues of about $600 billion.

Obama Shows Tactical Weakness

Persico argues that Obama is no Lyndon B. Johnson, who knew which arms to twist and favors to call in to put together the big deal. Like the civil rights legislation.

"President Obama lacks the seasoning to have that kind of success," he says.

The fact that Obama tapped Vice President Biden, a Senate veteran, to negotiate in the final hours with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to the need for that kind of seasoning.

"What's happened here," Persico says, "is typical of the nature of our current government: There doesn't seem to be the will or the patience to deal with the essence of the problem, so they are just chewing at the edges."

It's not that Persico is arguing that failure to address the cliff would have been a good thing. He says it would have been at minimum a psychological blow to the economy.

Instead, he says, Obama could have begun a conversation much earlier, using the report of his own debt commission as a starting point "rather than have this drag on and explode."

No matter how things play out over the four years of Obama's second term, the fiscal cliff deal will be looked at as a turning point, Persico said.

Whether it will be viewed as an achievement or an opportunity lost obviously remains to be seen.

"I'm a historian," Persico says. "If you learn anything from history, if you look too far ahead, you're liable to be made to look foolish."

Obama As Obama

In his singular book, Presidential Power, first published in 1960, political scientist and presidential adviser Richard Neustadt titled his opening chapter, "Leader or Clerk?"

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer this week argued that the fiscal cliff deal left little doubt about where he sees Obama in Neustadt's presidential ledger.

"He's a visionary, not an accountant," Krauthammer wrote of Obama. "Sure, he'll pretend to care about deficits, especially while running for reelection. But now that he's past the post, he's free to be himself — a committed big-government social democrat."

In Krauthammer's world, that is a very bad thing. In Creamer's world, it's something else altogether.

And for Renshon, the words resonate.

"Obama is the least clerklike president we've had in a long time," he says. "The only thing holding him back from a full-fledged policy blowout that reflects where he wants to take the country is the Republican House.

"And he's learning how to neutralize it."

Whether you're a homeowner who bought an energy-saving refrigerator last year or a company hoping to build a wind farm, the tax package Congress just approved may give you a reason to cheer.

"It's got something in there, a Christmas gift if you will, for almost everyone — American homeowners, workers who commute via transit, and manufacturers of efficient equipment like clothes washers, dryers, refrigerators," says Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.

Homeowners can save up to $500 on taxes for 2012 or 2013 for installing more insulation or an energy-efficient furnace, for example.

The tax package is especially meaningful to clean-energy businesses that rely on tax benefits to stay profitable.

Jennifer Case, CEO of New Leaf Biofuel, and her colleagues had been betting on Congress coming through for them, so they are breathing a huge sigh of relief. The San Diego company turns used cooking oil into diesel.

"Everybody was thrilled, and now it's back to work today to sell the fuel that we now can afford to make," Case says.

Last year was a difficult year for New Leaf because Congress let a $1-a-gallon tax break for biodiesel expire. Even so, Case's company decided to triple the capacity of its plant. Case was hoping Congress would reinstate the benefit, and it did.

"I think coming to work every day is a gamble, but so far it's been a good gamble," she says.

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One of the cornerstones of American democracy is the pledge that every federal officer takes to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

In a piece in The New York Times, Georgetown law professor Mike Seidman argues that our reliance on the document has created a divisive and dysfunctional political system.

"It just doesn't make any sense, I don't think, to have a document that is as important as the Constitution — as entrenched as it is — given the fact that the world changes," Seidman tells NPR's Neal Conan.

Seidman, who has taught constitutional law for 40 years, explains why he thinks it's time to reexamine the role the document plays in American society.

President Obama has officially won the election, with 332 electoral votes tallied in his column.

Of course this is old news. But the formal count mandated by the Constitution took place Friday in a joint session of Congress, heavy on ceremony and light on attendance.

Young Senate pages led the way into the chamber carrying two mahogany boxes holding the "certificates of vote" mailed in from around the country. Others carried three bronze baskets holding narrow blue boxes. It turns out these were the ceremonial letter openers — one for each state. The pages were followed in by Vice President Joe Biden and a group of senators.

Even with senators padding the numbers, the chamber was largely empty — only slightly more populated than your typical afternoon of made-for-C-SPAN speechifying.

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If you're searching for work in this new year, the Labor Department's final jobs report for 2012 suggests: The trend is your friend in 2013.

The jobs outlook is actually "pretty positive," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment consulting firm.

Challenger said that, after 34 straight months of job growth, the positive trend is well established and likely to continue. The Labor Department said Friday that in December, employers added 155,000 jobs, in line with economists' forecasts. Though the pace is less than robust, its steadiness is reassuring, especially given recent events, he said.

As 2012 wound down, the economy had to absorb the impact of both Hurricane Sandy and the fiscal-cliff uncertainty in Washington. And yet economists don't see much evidence that either the winds from the Atlantic Ocean or the hot air from Capitol Hill were strong enough to blow out the recovery.

"When we look back over the last 12 months, we see it's not much different from 2011," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist with IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm. That steadiness represents "moderate improvement" in the U.S. economy, he said.

"It's disappointing compared with previous recoveries" when jobs snapped back more quickly, Gault noted. But the pace has been good enough to suggest that in 2013, many job seekers will land paychecks, he said.

Challenger agreed, and spotted another good sign: "Layoffs have been really light lately."

Planet Money

Five Years Of A Brutal Job Market, In Two Graphs

Think about one of the most popular sitcoms on TV today, says Max Mutchnik, who helped create Will and Grace.

"Modern Family introduced us to the whole world of gaybies," he noted.

Mutchnik's latest show, called Partners, also gay-themed, was recently canceled. But Mutchnick says any show with openly gay characters should reflect people audiences could know in their real lives. So we see gay men and lesbians in real life with babies — or "gaybies," if you will.

Meanwhile, gay TV pioneer Ellen DeGeneres is a face of the multibillion-dollar cosmetic company Cover Girl, and television overflows with gay and lesbian characters, from the pudgy bro Max on the ABC show Happy Endings to the crusading lesbian journalist on the cable hit American Horror Story.

Ryan Murphy dreamed up American Horror Story. And The New Normal. And Glee. His memories of watching TV as a child are best described as bleak.

"I was a little sad gay boy growing up in Indiana," he recalls. "And my visions of what was gay were what I saw on TV. Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, who I loved, and Charles Nelson Reilly on the Password shows."

Gay audiences clung to what they had — signifiers and stereotypes — says Dave Kohan, Mutchnick's non-gay collaborator.

"Remember that show called Love, Sidney?" he says, referring to an early 1980s sitcom starring Tony Randall as a wealthy gay man living with a little girl and her mom. The character's sexuality was barely even an open secret.

"He wasn't gay, he was shy," Kohan wryly observed. "It was another three-letter word ending in 'y.' We always said he went to shy bars."

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"In today's world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we're only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough. ... There is a ... disappointment if for whatever reason you haven't managed to earn a fortune or succeed in some huge way that you thought you would as a young person. And there's something, of course, marvelous about that — personally I wouldn't change that for anything; I wouldn't go back to the old way. But I think there was a comfort for people to a certain extent in knowing this is their role, this is their place. There's no pressure about it; you do the most wonderful job you can."

Hugh Bonneville, on losing the family fortune

"This was a world before financial advisers; if you had money, it made money — it was as simple as that, in that post-Industrial Revolution era. So this is the big crisis point for Robert and for the estate. But at the same time, he wants things to go back to — to the certainties that there were before the war."

Jim Carter, on Carson the butler's resistance to change

"He's like the fabric of Downton Abbey itself, really. He's unchanging. He thinks happiness is two footmen in the dining room, and women [servants] kept out of the dining room. So like Robert, they see themselves as the guardian of the traditions of the house and the honor of the house. He resists the forces of change. ... I think change is coming, but he can't cope with it very well. ... As Elizabeth was saying earlier, for some people, a static situation is a secure situation. That is his security. ... People like this are fairly institutionalized — as institutionalized as a long-term prisoner. Our lives are dictated by gongs and bells, and the rhythm of the day, [which] is dictated to us by the people upstairs. We live to serve them, and to make their world perfect, and Carson takes immense pride in that. ... And quite a bit of status goes with it, as well, so for a man of presumably fairly low birth, he's attained considerable status. And he'll protect that — and protect the family at the same time."

On the evolving character of Thomas, the malicious footman

Rob James-Collier: "The more I play Thomas, I've started to think about why he is how he is. And I think it's definitely rooted in his sexuality. We must remember this was a time when being [gay] was illegal, and it was also 'against God.' And it was a more Godly time back then. So you have society condemning anything to do with homosexuality, describing it as foul and twisted — and if society's being negative and aggressive toward you, I think it's only human nature to maybe react to that, as a defense mechanism, and be aggressive back toward society."

Joanne Froggatt: "He really explores Thomas' journey ... and you do really feel for him in Season 3. I think it's more explained why he is the way he is."

Television

Quiz: Are You Down With Downton?

Makes 6 to 8 servings

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 pounds cubed wild boar leg or shoulder

Salt and pepper

1 large onion

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and rib removed, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cinnamon stick

1 dried bay leaf

2 cups red wine

1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Wide-noodle pasta, such as pappardelle

Grated hard cheese, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano

In a Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Season boar meat with salt and pepper, and brown. Remove meat from pan and add onion, carrot, celery and jalapeno. Cook until lightly browned, then add garlic, bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Cook 2 minutes, then add crushed tomatoes.

Once tomatoes have been incorporated, add red wine and stock. Return browned meat to the pot. Cook uncovered over low heat about 2 hours or until meat is extremely tender. The longer it cooks, the more tender the meat will become. You don't want it to be falling apart. Think of it like a pot roast. If the mixture becomes too dry, add some water to ensure it keeps the consistency of a hearty sauce. When ready to serve, remove bay leaf and cinnamon stick.

Serve on top of a wide pasta such as pappardelle with grated hard cheese.

The drama over the fiscal cliff and the familiar up-against-a-deadline dysfunction of Congress has largely overshadowed the leave-taking of some Capitol Hill originals.

So we wanted to remember a few true congressional trailblazers whose long Washington careers are ending. They include the first openly gay member of Congress, a leader of the libertarian movement, the first Jewish candidate to run on a major party presidential ticket, and the most fervent supporter of a U.S. Department of Peace.

While many members of Congress are departing by choice (like GOP Tea Party godfather Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who is taking a high-paying think tank job) or by loss (like eight-term Rep. Leonard Boswell, an Iowa Democrat who lost to a fellow incumbent in a redistricting battle), these are some we won't soon forget.

HOUSE

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Elected to the Massachusetts House in 1972, the irascible, irrepressible Frank co-sponsored that state's first gay-rights bill. "He was willing to speak out and be public about his sexual orientation when he was the only one," Lois Pines, who served in the state house with Frank, told us at the Democratic National Convention.

In the U.S. Senate, Frank was an advocate of affordable housing, a lighting rod for GOP criticism for co-writing the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, and survived a 1990 House reprimand for fixing a male prostitute's parking ticket.

But his legacy will likely always be best defined by traits he saw defining him as a perpetual outsider, including and especially his sexual orientation.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas

In his own words: "There is only one kind of freedom, and that's individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator, and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it."

In India today, the public prosecutor formally charged five men with murder and rape in the case of a 23-year-old student whose December assault and death has united the country in anger and sorrow.

Now, police are pressing for a closed-door trial in what will be the city's newly inaugurated court designed to fast-track cases of sexual violence against women.

Today, the prosecutor said that five men have been formally charged but a sixth who police say is a juvenile will not be tried along with them. While the five adults face the death penalty if convicted, the maximum punishment allowable under law for the juvenile would be three years in prison.

The House of Representatives voted 257-167 late Tuesday to pass a Senate-approved compromise deal that stops large tax increases for 99 percent of Americans, and delays massive spending cuts for two months.

The bill now goes to President Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.

NPR's S.V. Date is reporting on the deal for our Newscast unit. Here's what he says:

"The eventual deal was hammered out by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden. It passed the Senate with overwhelming, bipartisan support.

"But passage in the House came only after Speaker John Boehner abandoned a longstanding Republican requirement that a bill could only come to the floor if a majority of Republicans supported it."

Suddenly, the new year is looking a bit brighter — at least in the eyes of most economists and investors.

On Day 1 of 2013, Congress voted to veer away from the "fiscal cliff" by passing a package of provisions that avoided broad tax hikes and big spending cuts. And on Day 2, stock prices shot up.

"There's a lot of relief," said Mark Hopkins, senior economist with Moody's Analytics. "The worst-case scenario has been averted."

Yes, there will be new budget battles in February, after President Obama has had his second inauguration and the 113th Congress has gotten itself organized.

But for now at least, Americans can take some comfort in having more policy certainty about taxes. And that helps businesses with their planning for the new year, according to John Canally, an economist for LPL Financial, an investment-adviser consulting firm.

"People now know for certain what their tax rates will be," Canally said. "Financial markets don't like uncertainty. So today's rally is about people thinking: 'OK, now I know the landscape.' "

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