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As President Obama spends his first 100 days in office, NPR is launching a project called "100 Days: On the Road in Troubled Times." NPR's David Greene will spend most of the next hundred days roaming the U.S. and, with help from listeners, relaying stories about the recession. Greene kicks off the tour in frigid northern Michigan.

In his new book, Food Matters, Mark Bittman writes about the environmental impact of industrial farming — and how individuals can make a difference by cutting down on the amount of animal products they consume.

By most countries' standards, China's economy is flourishing. It grew almost 7 percent in the last quarter and 9 percent for 2008. Still, that was a slowdown, snapping a five-year streak of double-digit growth. China is the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan.

Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee will question Attorney General nominee Eric Holder at his confirmation hearing Thursday. Holder has strong support in the Senate, but some Republicans on the panel say they will ask him about aspects of his private legal practice and some of his decisions while serving as deputy and acting attorney general under President Clinton.

The nation's unemployment rate shot up to 7.2 percent last month. It's the highest level in nearly 16 years. Governments and businesses cut more than half a million jobs in December. For all of 2008, the economy lost 2.6 million jobs.

News from Somalia usually involves violent warlords or pirates hijacking ships off the coast. Other than that, average Somalis don't have much of a voice. The rapper K'Naan is trying to change that, and in the world of hip-hop, he's become an artist to watch.

It was an unusually strong year for great unknown artists. While bigger, more established bands continued to attract the most attention, smaller, lesser-known acts made the most memorable music of 2008. All of the great unknown artists featured here made music that was inspired, original and heartfelt.

GMAC is the most recent beneficiary of a government bailout. As the financing arm of General Motors, it supplies funding for auto dealers to buy inventory and credit for consumers to buy cars. It is also a major player in the home mortgage market.

One of the best years for kids' music in recent memory includes releases from artists with feet firmly in both kid-friendly and adult-oriented worlds. Old favorites went in new directions, while emerging artists gave a glimpse of the future of a genre as diverse and unpredictable as kids themselves.

This has been a strong year for African music, with two big trends emerging: the continuing integration of African music into the U.S. and European mainstream, as well as the ongoing unearthing of treasures from Afropop's "golden era," particularly the '70s.