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Toothbutter: noun. Butter spread so thickly as to reveal teeth marks upon biting.

The fact that this word exists in the Danish language should help to explain what politicians were up against when they introduced the "fat tax" just over a year ago. This is a country that loves it some butter (and meat, and all things dreadful to the arteries).

President Obama meets with labor leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss how to steer clear of the so-called fiscal cliff. It's the first of many meetings aimed at avoiding automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the beginning of the new year.

A week ago, the president proved again that he and his team are good at winning elections. The question now is whether he can translate victory at the ballot box to success in shaping policy.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne, with news from the world of Oz.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE WIZARD OF OZ")

JUDY GARLAND: (As Dorothy) There's no place like home.

The city of Long Beach, on Long Island's Nassau County was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, with entire neighborhoods ravaged by floods and wind. It seemed unlikely that the high school's football team would get to finish its season. But the Long Beach Marines saw action over the weekend.

Officials in Washington are still trying to make sense of the sudden resignation last week of CIA Director David Petraeus. More details are emerging about the extramarital affair that brought Petraeus down. It came to light following an FBI investigation, which was not focused originally on the CIA director but soon led to him.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Let's look now at the impact of some shocking revelations on the other side of the Atlantic. Britain's media has had a pretty rough year. First, the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch's popular tabloid News of the World. Now the esteemed BBC is in trouble. Over the weekend, the head of the BBC resigned, plunging the world's largest public broadcaster into its second crisis within weeks. NPR's Philip Reeves has more.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

With the election settled, Washington, Wall Street and much of the rest world, it seems, are focused on whether Congress and a reelected president can avoid the fiscal cliff. To tell us what's at stake, we turn now to David Wessel. He's the economics editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "Red Ink," a new primer on the federal budget and the deficit.