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Many people mark the end-of-year holidays by heading home to reflect on the past year with close friends and family. But what do you do when the home you knew is no longer there to return to? All Things Considered looks at how victims of Hurricane Katrina are redefining the concept of home.

Residents in Port Arthur, Texas, are thankful there was not more destruction in their town, which took a heavy blow from Hurricane Rita. With an intact seawall assuring that a catastrophe would be avoided, there was still considerable damage in the town.

AIDS activists are charging that groups promoting abstinence are undermining condom distribution in U.S.-funded programs overseas. They blame a stronger emphasis on abstinence in President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, while the administration says there's been no shift in its focus.

At the heart of country musician Jon Randall's new CD, Walking Among the Living, there's a bit of family history. The singer-songwriter's "North Carolina Moon" is an update of a tune that his father began to write when Randall was still in high school.

As Iraqis prepare for parliamentary elections, U.S. and Iraqi army commanders are gearing up for a massive security operation on polling day, Dec. 15. The top U.S. military commander in Iraq traveled around the country this week, focusing on election security.

After Hurricane Katrina, stories surfaced of rescue helicopters being fired on in New Orleans -- and murders in the Superdome. Many of the stories turned out to be false. How do rumors get started -- and is there any way to control them?

When rock singers want to learn how to use their voice without ruining their vocal chords, they often turn to Melissa Cross, otherwise known as the "Scream Queen." Cross teaches metal, punk and hardcore performers how to growl, bark, bellow — and scream.

The Turnaway Study followed nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions, interviewing them regularly for years to understand the impact on their mental and financial wellbeing.

Kenya's president reshuffles his Cabinet, angering members of his ruling coalition and plunging the East African economic power into a political crisis. Some want to move up elections scheduled for 2007.

Mark David Chapman murdered musician John Lennon in New York City 25 years ago this Thursday. Independent producer Jon Kalish recalls reporting the former Beatle's death in 1980.

How do you know when you're instant messaging with a computer worm instead of one of your "buddies?" Security experts say it's getting harder to tell the difference. A malicious new computer worm initiates a chat with its victims and invites them to click on a link -- which allows it to spread to their IM buddies.

Filmmaker and photographer Gordon Parks has died. He was 93. Parks captured black America as a photographer for Life magazine, and then became Hollywood's first major black director with the hit Shaft. He also wrote fiction and was an accomplished composer.

Tens of thousands of cases of silicosis have been filed by a few doctors and lawyers across the nation. Defendants say these cases are being manufactured for money, that there is no medical basis for these lawsuits and that the entire process is a fraud. Recently, a federal judge agreed. Part two of Wade Goodwyn's report.

An American patrol found 18 bodies -- all males -- in an abandoned minibus Tuesday night on a road between two notorious west Baghdad neighborhoods. The bodies of at least 23 people have been found dumped throughout Baghdad in the last day.

The United States plans to transfer about 600 Afghan prisoners to the custody of the Afghanistan government. The detainees are being held at Guantanamo Bay and at a U.S. air base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The sentencing phase of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial continues in Virginia on Tuesday. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Moussaoui, the only man charged in the United States for his involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Noah Adams discusses the case with Slate legal analyst Dahlia Lithwick.

The cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain leads the Oscar pack with a total of eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Heath Ledger. Madeleine Brand talks with Claude Brodesser, host of the public radio program The Business, about the Academy Award nominees announced Tuesday morning. The awards ceremony will be held March 5 in Los Angeles.

Reclusive director Terrence Malick's new movie, The New World, tells the story of Captain John Smith and the beginnings of the English presence in the Americas. Critic Bob Mondello says The New World is in some ways a reflection of Malick's career -- languid in pacing, with beauty in every frame.

In the past two days, police in Baghdad have found the bodies of more than 80 men -- some shot, some strangled, most with their hands bound -- raising fears that Shiite militias are running death squads to avenge Sunday's bombing in the capital's main Shiite district.

Last week, in a case from Dover, Penn., a judge ruled that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design in public schools. Supporters of intelligent design say the ruling won't deter them from raising questions about the theory of evolution.

In Pakistan, authorities are looking for a missing reporter. Hayatullah Khan was kidnapped on Monday by militants after reporting the death of a top al Qaeda commander.

In Africa, almost a half-million children died last year of AIDS. Hundreds of thousands of others are in need of treatment. But very few get it because the barriers to treating children are even greater than those for adults.

Blood tests and a letter have led to questions about the death of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died in his jail cell on Saturday. Milosevic recently said in a letter that he believed he was being poisoned. He faced a possible life sentence over a war crimes trial at the United Nations tribunal in The Hague.

Israeli forces blast their way into a Palestinian prison in the West Bank town of Jericho. The action was taken in an attempt to capture Palestinian several militants, including a man convicted in Israeli courts of killing an Israeli Cabinet minister. The targets of the siege refused to come out despite Israel's threats to kill them.

The eccentric Southern tradition of "eephing" is described as the hillbilly equivalent of the hip-hop "beat box" vocal style — a kind of hiccupping, rhythmic wheeze that started in rural Tennessee more than 100 years ago.