Most Ponzi schemes are short lived. Financial watchdogs, investors or the FBI normally sniff out the crook and the scheme collapses. But that's not the case with Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff, who was arrested late last week and accused of putting on one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in the history of Wall Street. Diana Henriques of The New York Times wrote Sunday's piece, "The 17th Floor, Where Wealth Went to Vanish"

The Illinois General Assembly meets today to consider how best to remove Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich and how to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Amanda Vinicky, statehouse reporter for Illinois Public Radio, joins The Takeaway with an update from the state capital.

A raging outbreak of cholera has struck thousands in the troubled African nation.

After months of unrest in Thailand, the country's parliament has elected the leader of the opposition Democrat party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, as the new prime minister.

With a president, vice president and a secretary of state nominee all coming from the U.S. Senate, three state governors will have the chance to choose their replacements.

More details have come to light on possible connections between the congressman and disgraced governor Rod Blagojevich, D-Ill.

Trader Bernard Madoff has been accused of cheating investors of $50 billion.

Traditionally Christmas is a time for family, food, and friends. But unlike Thanksgiving, Christmas doesn't have a set menu of turkey and all the fixings. Every family has its own unique rituals that span the globe and reflect family history, roots, and experience. Chef Rocco DiSpirito and his mother, Nicolina, joined The Takeaway to share their family's holiday traditions.

ROCCO'S RECIPE

Struffoli
My Aunt Margaret gave me her recipe, which we love to eat at the holidays.

Ingredients:

• 9 eggs
• Approximately 3/4 cup olive oil
• 5 1/2 cups of flour, or more
• Vegetable oil for frying

To decorate:

• 1/4 cup of honey
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• Confetti sprinkles
• Sliced almonds

Instructions:

1. Beat together the eggs and oil.
2. Add flour into bowl, then knead for 20 minutes or longer, until soft. (it should be like a ball).
3. Break off a small piece of dough and covering the remaining dough. Roll the piece into a long narrow strip, and then cut the dough into pieces less than a half inch long. Repeat with remaining dough.
4. Using a heavy-bottomed frying pan, fill halfway up the sides with vegetable oil. Place dough pieces inside pan, without letting them touch. (Do not overcrowd, put in a only a handful in at a time; you may have to work in batches.) If oil starts to foam, the oil is too cool; raise the temperature. Cook until lightly golden brown.
5. To decorate, combine approximately 1/4 cup honey and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of sugar in a 12 inch frying pan. Cook on high heat until it boils. Add cooked pieces of strufoli, mixing until they are covered with the honey-sugar mixture.
6. Remove from frying pan and immediately mold strufoli into desired shape, traditionally a wreath. Keep cool water nearby for when hands become too warm.
7. Decorate with confetti sprinkles and almond slices.

View more recipes by Rocco DiSpirito »

The price of gas is dropping, but statistics show Americans are clocking fewer miles on the road.

An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq ("Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders", the New York Times, Dec. 14, 2008) depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.