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Earlier this month, the Justice Department created a special task force, putting a veteran mob prosecutor in charge. Analysts say putting criminal prosecutors in charge instead of environmental prosecutors could mean something important for BP and other likely targets.

It was a strange and wonderful year for young adult fiction, says critic Maggie Stiefvater. This list rounds up five magical books for young adults and grown-ups alike.

Just how do trees die? It seems like a simple question, but the answer still eludes scientists. And understanding forest ecology is increasingly important as the effects of climate change begin to take root.

Writer Eloisa James gathers the best of 2012's romance subgenres. Expect lots of heat, in the most unexpected places and with some unlikely people: From the military to the paranormal, and from Shakespeare to steampunk, James' picks for the year skip across oceans and genres.

Climate change is exaggerating the normal swings in weather. For the American Southwest, that means more intense waves of heat, drought and fire that could wipe out trees that have stood for centuries. It's already revamping the ecology of the landscape.

Yes, the gingerbread house is still here, and so are magic winter strawberries. But this is a world where young women and small children are delicacies, too. They're fattened for roasting, sliced up for serving, and cut up into stew.

In a federal gun trafficking investigation dubbed Operation Fast and Furious, hundreds of guns allegedly flowed from the U.S. to Mexico. Republicans say some of those weapons can be traced to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. In hearings on Capitol Hill this week, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to explain what he knew, and when.

Last weekend, English soccer fans were looking forward to a sporting feast. They ended up taking part in a nationwide communal vigil, focused on an African-born player's fight for life.

The famed neurologist talks to Fresh Air about how grief, trauma, brain injury, medications and neurological disorders can trigger hallucinations — and about his personal experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s.

In her new book, Self-Inflicted Wounds, Tyler writes about her dalliances with failure and humiliation on the long road to success. She says it wasn't easy being the geeky, tall, black girl who loves science fiction and video games. But it was worth it.

It's a rich week for fiction, with new novels from Ann Patchett and Jennifer Weiner, and a debut by Chad Harbach that marries a literary sensibility with a love of baseball — plus Jorie Graham's new poetry collection. In nonfiction, Erik Larson is back with the story of an American ambassador in Germany in 1933.

In Power Concedes Nothing, civil rights attorney Connie Rice describes brokering peace between the Los Angeles Police Department and minority populations.