The rate of federal prosecutions is at an all-time high, showing an increase of nine percent since last year. According to a new study by Syracuse University's TRAC project, this increase is primarily related to an increase in arrests of immigration violators. We talk with John Schwartz of The New York Times and Valeria Fernández of the Feet in 2 Worlds Program about the increase, and what it signifies for the Obama administration's stance towards immigration reform.

Read John Schwartz's article in The New York Times.

• Finance Takeout: So far, the federal government and banks have done swift work disentangling public and private interests, following the massive economic rescue effort launched last year. But Newsweek columnist Dan Gross says the Fed's hardest work is just around the corner. Gross says raising interest rates and cutting ties to the housing market are tough but necessary moves to truly get back to business as usual.
  
• Politics Takeout: Time Magazine's Jay Newton Small reports on Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith's defection from the Democratic party to the Republican side of the aisle. 
• Sports Takeout: Our own Ibrahim Abdul-Matin with his second of top ten sports moments of the year: Serena Williams.

With only two days until Christmas, holiday shopping has reached a fever pitch. New York Times business and finance reporter Louise Story says a new trend is sweeping holiday giving this year: customized gifts. Whether itss designing the shoes you buy for your daughter or having your old family recipes printed as a cookbook, retailers are betting that consumers will pay extra for that personalized touch. But Joel Waldfogel isn't sure. Waldfogel is the Ehrenkranz Family Professor in the Department of Business and Public Policy at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also the author of "Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays." Waldfogel says we should put an end to buying gifts for certain kinds of friends and family: those we don't see often or know very well. His research shows that far-flung friends and family often won't enjoy your gift as much as things they simply buy for themselves.

There are new clashes in Iran this morning between opposition supporters and government forces in the city of Isfahan. Opposition supporters had gathered for a memorial service for the dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who died over the weekend. The cleric's death has re-ignited the opposition movement in Iran and there are more big demonstrations expected in the coming days. The BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne has been following the story and joins us from London.

What's behind the unique relationship that Jewish people have with Chinese food? Jennifer 8 Lee, author of "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food," says there's an long cultural history involving both of these immigrant groups, including similar immigration patterns and non-Christian schedules.

• Finance Takeout: The New York Times' Louise Story reports on the Russian internet gang that may have stolen tens of millions of dollars from Citibank, and the just-appointed White House cybersecurity head.
• Middle East Takeout: BBC correspondent Bethany Bell joins us from Jerusalem with an update on negotiations for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who's been held as a prisoner in the Gaza strip since 2006.
• Sports Takeout: Contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin talks about the NFL's about face on researching and treating concussions.

This week, al-Qaida militants made a rare appearance at an anti-government protest in Yemen, proclaiming that they were at war with the United States. This might sound like jihadi boilerplate, except that it came only days after reports of U.S. missiles struck suspected al Qaida sites in the small country on the tip of the Arabian peninsula.  Details are still murky, but if true, those strikes would mark a major escalation in the United States’ approach to Yemen.  This leads us to ask: is the U.S. fighting a secret war in Yemen?   Robert Worth, Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, helps us answer that question.  Gregory Johnsen also joins us; he's a Yemen expert at Princeton University

Pope Benedict XVI has signed a decree that shifts World War II-era Pope Pius XII one step closer to sainthood. But there are some in the Jewish community who say that Pius did little to stop the murder of some 6 million Jews by Germany's Nazi regime during his papacy, which began in 1939 and ended in 1958. Kenneth Woodward is a contributing editor for Newsweek. He covered religion for the magazine for nearly 40 years, and is the author of "Making Saints: How The Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes A Saint, Who Doesn't, And Why."

Have you ever wondered why – while you’re out holiday shopping – a dress shop might play one soundtrack of Christmas songs while a hardware store might play another? Steven Pilker, manager of Muzak’s audio architecture department, knows the answers.  For our continuing series, "Remixing the Holidays," Pilker explains what all the retail noise is about...and shares the three songs that must be on every holiday soundtrack, regardless of what the store sells.

The FBI is reporting that crime fell nationally in the first six months of 2009, when compared to the same time last year. The decline happening in the midst of a terrible recession and high unemployment. With those factors, people usually expect crime to increase... So what's going on? To help answer that is New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. And while crime went down nationally it also rose someplace you might not expect it to – Seattle, WA. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee from SeattleCrime.com looks at why Seattle's crime is rising.