From NPR News

This week on Fresh Air, we're marking the year's end by revisiting some of the most memorable conversations we've had in 2011. This interview was originally broadcast on November 28, 2011.

"U.S. prosecutors are preparing what would be the first criminal charges against BP PLC employees stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history," The Wall Street Journal reports this morning, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Under orders from GOP Gov. Nikki Haley, state employees must answer the phone saying: "It's a great day in South Carolina." Two Democratic legislators want to ban the cheery mandate. They say no sunny hellos as long as unemployment is more than 5 percent in the state.

Former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania performed at a Philadelhia comedy club Tuesday night. He joked he'd already been in comedy for 30 years. But he added in politics, it's sit-down comedy rather than standup.

At NPR's Baghdad bureau, Isra' al Rubei'i has long worked as a reporter and translator. She submitted this short piece of fiction about a man standing before a judge — a character, who she says represents the Iraqi experience.

Steve Inskeep has business news.

Steve Inskeep has the Last Word in business.

Linda Wertheimer talks to Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET, about Dump GoDaddy Day, a protest against the company for its initial support of proposed legislation to curb online piracy. SOPA is short for the Stop Online Piracy Act. GoDaddy is one of the largest accredited Internet domain registrar in the world.

Every year, thousands of Americans suffer severe injuries using the saws. But after a series of reports by NPR, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has started crafting new safety rules for table saws.

After Gingrich failed to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, Mitt Romney compared Gingrich's campaign to a well-known I Love Lucy episode. Gingrich stopped at an Iowa chocolate factory Wednesday but things didn't get out of hand like they did in the TV episode. Instead, Gingrich challenged Romney again to a series of one-on-one debates.

The year 2011 was tumultuous for stocks. The eurozone crisis and a U.S. credit downgrade kept investors nervous, but one industry held steady, even faring better than in prior years: technology.

The economic fears and hopes of the electorate in early-voting states like New Hampshire will play a significant role in determining who emerges from the pack of Republican presidential candidates.

And despite the Granite State's financial stability, lots of Republican voters see cloudy skies ahead.

In the TV drama The Good Wife, a political spouse forges her own path after her husband is disgraced by corruption and scandal. Real-life married couple Robert and Michelle King are the creators of the Emmy Award-winning CBS series. And the Kings are the latest Hollywood insiders to share their TV and movie recommendations with Morning Edition in our series, Watch This.

By and large, it's a lighthearted list. "We don't really watch too much tragic Ibsen drama," Robert tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "Everything has to have a bit of bitter humor in it."

Despite a sluggish economy, it's been a good year overall for the auto industry. But among the Detroit Three, there's been a clear standout.

Part of a series

New Orleans has long been known as one of America's hardest luck cities, struggling over the years with poverty, crime and corruption and tragic disaster. But the city's darkest days have sparked a surprising new entrepreneurial spirit.

Residents Billy Bosch and Matt Mouras, for example, are trying to launch a nutritional beverage company and are getting a leg up by Idea Village, a non-profit that helps nurture the city's entrepreneurs.

No mountain captures the popular imagination like Everest. The world's highest peak, towering out of the Himalayas, has frequently proved deadly to those who have tried to reach its summit. The most famous of its victims was the first Englishman to attempt a climb: George Mallory. In the early 1920s Mallory took part in the first three expeditions up Everest, dying on his third attempt.

NASA is hoping that two probes scheduled to arrive on the moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day will shed new light on our closest celestial neighbor.

The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (Grail A, and Grail B) probes will study the moon's uneven gravitational field. One quote from the AP's story about the probe caught our attention. The AP spoke to Maria Zuber, the mission's chief scientist, who said:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took a swipe at GOP rival Ron Paul and his isolationist foreign policy positions while campaigning in Iowa Wednesday, but he later told reporters he would support the outspoken Texas congressman if he were the Republican Party nominee for president.