In snowy Pyongyang Wednesday morning, tens of thousands of North Koreans lined the streets to watch Kim Jong-il's funeral procession. The events spotlighted Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong-un, who was seen tearfully walking alongside the motorcade.

Although some GOP hopefuls have been informally campaigning since this time last year and Barack Obama announced his campaign for reelection back in April, the January 3rd caucus will be the true beginning for the 2012 presidential race. This year, $5.9 million has been spent on TV advertising alone in Iowa. With no heavily favored Republican candidate, the strategy for turning fundraising dollars into actual votes has yet to reveal itself.

Tens of thousands of North Korean people and soldiers lined the snowy streets of Pyonyang Wednesday for the carefully choreographed funeral procession of deceased leader Kim Jong-il. Kim's son and designated successor, Kim Jong-un, was seen walking alongside the hearse carrying his father's body. North Korea's iron-fisted leader since 1994, Kim reportedly died of a heart attack on December 17 at age 69. Funeral services are scheduled to last for two days.

Along with "supreme leader" and "our Father," Kim Jong-Il was also known as "Dear Leader." And certainly, there were few tyrants that satirists dearly loved lampooning more than the self-loving, eccentric late dictator. From "co-starring" as the singing antagonist in "Team America: World Police" to being portrayed as a wife-abducting weatherman on "30 Rock," Kim Jong-il's legacy is in large part an absurd one. Celeste Headlee remembers one of the world's most eccentric evil dictators.

In September, artist and graphic designer Megan Flood came on The Takeaway to discuss her senior project at the University of Michigan. Through audio and photographs, Living Without Doorknobs documents life in an Ann Arbor, Michigan homeless tent community called Camp Take Notice. One of the homeless men living in Camp Take Notice, Joe Gill, was a major focus of Flood's work, and his photographs of the tent community became an integral part of her project.

Human Rights Watch accused the Syrian government of hiding detainees from Arab League peace monitors who were dispatched to the country. The observers arrived in Homs, a flashpoint of anti-government activism, on Tuesday.

Most Americans probably won't start receiving the flood of presidential campaign materials until May or June of next year. But Iowans, as they do every four years, get inundated with politically-charged robo-calls, mailers, and television ads for almost a full 12 months — from late November until election night. This year, $5.9 million was spent on TV advertising alone leading up to the January 3rd caucus.

Even though the housing bubble burst nearly five years ago, local governments are only now beginning to feel its repercussions with significantly lower tax revenues. Many municipalities across the country have chosen to bridge this gap by cutting services, specifically in police departments. In 2011, there were fewer cops on patrol than there have been in 25 years. This precipitous drop coincided with a 13 percent increase in the number of officers killed in the line of duty.

What do Sony Pictures, A&W Restaurants, Saab, American Apparel, Sears, Kellogg's Corn Pops, MySpace, Soap Opera Digest, and Nokia have in common? They’re ten brands that 24/7 Wall St, a Delaware-based financial news group, says won’t survive through 2012. And it looks like some of those predictions might already be coming true — on Tuesday, Sears announced it will close more than 100 stores after lackluster holiday sales.

Kevin Keller, the first gay character in the history of the Archie comics, was introduced to Riverdale and the world in April of last year. Kevin quickly became one of the most popular characters in the comic's 72-year history, starring in his own miniseries over the summer. And now he's getting married. The January issue of Life of Archie will feature the marriage between Kevin and Clay Walker, a doctor he meets while recovering in a military hospital’s physical rehabilitation unit.

Amit Gupta first appeared on The Takeaway in October, three weeks after being diagnosed with leukemia, to discuss his experiences trying to find a bone marrow donor. Amit is of South Indian descent, and South Indians are severely under-represented in the donor pool. His friend Seth Godin, who writes for the popular blog SethGodin.com, offered $10,000 to the first person to be a donor match with Amit.