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The European company Airbus reports it took a record number of orders in 2011 — more than 1,400. The surge was driven by demand for its revamped A-320 aircraft which is supposed to be more fuel efficient. Meanwhile Boeing sold only about 800 aircraft last year.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Small business owners say they're getting more optimistic about the economy, and about their own prospects. That's according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, an influential business group. And this is among several recent reports suggesting the economy is continuing to improve.

NPR's Chris Arnold has more.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Small businesses are getting more confident. And that's a good sign, says John Silvia, the chief economist at Wells Fargo.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

As they air their disagreements, the Republican presidential candidates agree on one thing: They want to repeal President Obama's health care law.

RENEE MONTAGNE, BYLINE: The biggest part of that law - a requirement that almost everybody must have insurance - does not take effect until well after the election. But any repeal effort would be complicated, because some of the law is already in effect.

INSKEEP: NPR's Julie Rovner is here to talk about how the law is changing the health care landscape. Hi, Julie.

In 1947, Vogue magazine sent Rosamond Bernier to Paris, to cover European cultural life as it recovered after World War II. She met everyone who was anybody — Pablo Picasso befriended her, Henri Matisse wooed her, Alice B. Toklas baked for her. Bernier's memoir Some of My Lives is a lively compendium of this moveable feast of art and genius – and of the author's own considerable charm.

Opponents of Wis. Gov. Scott Walker will deliver a truckload of petitions to the state's elections board Tuesday in an effort to force a recall election. Thousands of volunteers have spent the past two months canvassing the state collecting signatures.

Organizers are confident Walker will need to face an election this year in order to keep his job. Talk of recalling the governor began nearly a year ago, after he signed a bill into law that strips most public unions of collective bargaining rights.

All of the Republican presidential hopefuls take on President Obama in their stump speeches, attacking his health care plan, his jobs record and more.

But the shorthand former House Speaker Newt Gingrich uses, calling the nation's first black president the "food stamp president," is raising questions.

It's a theme Gingrich has used since Iowa, and he returned to it during a forum in Charleston, S.C., over the weekend.

Last fall, wealthy Chinese gathered at a Beijing hotel to hear a pitch by Patrick Quinn, the governor of Illinois. He wanted them to invest in a convention center project at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

"You can't have capitalism without capital," Quinn said to the group of potential investors. "So we really are interested in encouraging people from everywhere, particularly here in China ... to consider the state of Illinois as a place to make investments."

The required minimum investment: half a million dollars.

After Haiti's devastating earthquake two years ago, Americans donated large sums of money. This helped charities and aid groups save live immediately after the disaster. But it's been much harder for them to help Haitians rebuild their devastated country. In the second of two stories, NPR's Carrie Kahn and Marisa Penaloza report that its difficult to get detailed information about how organizations spend their money.

The Italian city of Florence prides itself on welcoming foreign migrants. But the killing of two Africans last month has raised new questions about racism in Italy.

With the economic crisis worsening, there are signs xenophobia could increase as Italians start to compete with immigrants for a slice of the shrinking economic pie.

On Dec. 13, a known right-wing extremist opened fire in two separate marketplaces, leaving two Senegalese dead and seriously injuring three others. The killer then shot himself.

It's often assumed that even in tough times, lawyers can find good jobs. But that proposition is being overturned by a tight legal market, and by a glut of graduates.

The nation's law schools are facing growing pressure to be more upfront about their graduates' job prospects. Many students say they were lured in by juicy job numbers, but when they got out, all they ended up with is massive debt.

Every Friday at 9 p.m., thousands of prisoners across East Texas settle into their bunks, pull out their hand-held radios and tune in to The Prison Show, the only radio show in the country that caters to prisoners and the families they've left behind.

These days, memoirs are often the target of contempt. A scathing slam in New York Times Book Review this year inveighed against "oversharing"; and in the New Yorker, the memoirist was likened to "a drunken guest at a wedding... motivated by an overpowering need to be the center of attention." If the narrative deals with socially unacceptable matters like abuse, addiction, family dysfunction, or even poverty, the scorn gets even thicker.

If you watch much TV, you probably know that the Real Housewives of New Jersey are no strangers to the surgeon's knife. And if the state's plastic surgeons get their way, those housewives may be able to save a few dollars on their next procedure.

New Jersey's legislature has voted to phase out the so-called "Botax" — a 6 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and elective procedures like Botox — and the bill is currently on Gov. Chris Christie's desk for approval.

A luxury cruise liner went aground off Italy's coast on Friday.

When Joshua Bell was 21, he recorded an iconic piece of chamber music for piano and violin — the Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck. Today, Bell is 44 and he's recorded it again. It's on his new album, French Impressions, with pianist Jeremy Denk.

All Things Considered host Robert Siegel invited Bell to listen to his old recording for a little session of compare-and-contrast.

"Do you hear the same violinist?" Siegel asks, after playing for Bell the opening bars of his 1989 recording.

Jon Huntsman billed himself as the Harley-riding, mild-mannered candidate of civility. But his moderate positions never registered with Republican primary voters and left him languishing in the polls.

Huntsman, 51, ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Monday after struggling to keep pace in a largely conservative field. He also failed to distinguish himself as the Mitt Romney alternative, unable to escape the shadow of the other millionaire former governor and Mormon in the race.

Novalima began in 2001 when four Peruvian friends, all living in different parts of the world, took to the Internet to exchange ideas. Pulling from rock, pop, salsa, reggae, dance and electronic music, they formed a collective that would soon become known worldwide for its inventive form of Afro-Peruvian roots music. Novalima released its self-titled debut in 2002, and its 2005 follow-up won the Independent Music Award for best album in world fusion.

Let's begin with Justified – because, frankly, that's the one that's got me the most excited.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been so late to events that he's forced other speakers to stall. Rival Rick Santorum was at the same event on Friday, and he gladly used the time to work the crowd.