Joseph Capriglione

Former New Orleans Saints assistant coach Gregg Williams is being called to New York to discuss an alleged bounty fund he employed with his players. The fund rewarded players for game-ending injuries inflicted on an opposing team’s players, and targeted superstars such as Brett Favre and Kurt Warner. The fund reached its height in 2009, the year the Saints won the Super Bowl. Williams is alleged to have maintained when he ran the Washington Redskins’ defense as well.

Recent reporting by our partner The New York Times raised fresh concerns over the safety and well-being of the workers that staff Apple's supplier factories in China. Apple now says that it has requested an independent labor group to audit the conditions at its suppliers' factories, with the first inspections under way starting yesterday.

This week marks the 136th Annual Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. It's the biggest and longest-running, continuously held canine show in the country. Sarah Montague is a senior producer and the Westminster Dog Show correspondent for our co-producer WNYC. She's been covering the event for the past 12 years and tells us about the culture of America's most beloved dog show.

It was another decisive victory for Mitt Romney as he easily took Nevada this weekend. Things appear to be looking up for the on-again, off-again Republican front-runner. This month's Primary schedule favor the former Massachusetts governor. But with a long road ahead to the Republican National Convention in September, it's still possible that Romney's key GOP antagonist Newt Gingrich could regain his momentum.

Current polling has Mitt Romney ahead in Nevada. The primary schedule for February (not to mention lack of debates) leaves Newt Gingrich at a severe disadvantage. Is there any time left for Newt to get his momentum back? Where does the campaign go from here and will Gingrich really stay in the race until the Republican National Convention as he's repeatedly promised?

If you've got a copy of the Dictionary of Regional English, you know that "hotdish" is a casserole-style meal popular throughout Minnesota. A "quahog" is common word for "clam" in New England. And "Euchre" is a card game beloved by Midwesterners of all stripes. Next month the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, will be released by the Harvard University Press.

On Wednesday, American Airlines declared that it would lay off 13,000 workers or 15 percent of its workforce. The company is attempting to emerge from bankruptcy, which it filed last November. Along with the layoffs, the company is seeking to cut employee pensions and some health benefits. AA CEO Tom Horton called the decisions "painful" but said in the end, the moves would preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have otherwise been lost.

Back in February 1982, then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad unleashed his troops on the city of Hama in an attempt to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. The Massacre lasted for a month and tens of thousands of Syrians lost their lives. Now the Syrian people are rising against the current president Bashar al-Assad in hopes of ending a 40-year dictatorship of the Assad family.

Google recently announced a new privacy policy that has users and privacy advocates up in arms. Effective March 1, this new policy will consolidate information from users' various products — from Gmail to YouTube to the Android mobile phone operating system — in order to "better tailor its services" for customers. But the move could potentially violate a users' privacy simply to better target advertising. Estimates say between 50-75 percent of the world's internet users utilize at least one of Google's products.

The escalating tension between Israel and Iran over the latter's nuclear program has been at the center of many foreign policy debates and diplomatic talks over the past decade. Proponents of an Israeli strike say it's needed for to preserve Israel's national security while detractors say such an attack would precipitate World War III. 

Rick Perry is out, Rick Santorum actually won Iowa, and Newt Gingrich's second wife says he asked for an open marriage before he filed for divorce. The four remaining candidates debated in Charleston one last time before this weekend's South Carolina primary. We take a look back at what was arguably the wildest day of the 2012 Presidential campaign thus far.

George W. Bush made significant gains in attracting Hispanic voters, traditionally a strongly Democratic voting bloc, during his time in office. But those gains disappeared in 2008 when Barack Obama won more than two-thirds of the Latino vote. Despite the unpopularity of his administration's deportation strategy, Latin voters support Obama more than his Republican rivals. Realizing that they are missing a portion of the electorate that continues to grow, the GOP has initiated a Hispanic Outreach Effort for the 2010 election.

On Wednesday the Obama administration denied a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline project. TransCanada, the company behind the proposal, hopes to build a 1,700 mile pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Canada to the refineries lining the Gulf Coast along Texas. Although it will cost $ 7 billion to build, TransCanada claims the project will create ten of thousands of jobs. Environmentalist are most concerned about the water supply in ecologically sensitive in Nebraska's Sand Hills region, which TransCanada claims it has addressed by creating a new proposal that circumvents the Sand Hills.

Some years just seem to have less impact than others. But 2011 held the Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, Occupy Wall Street, protests against austerity measures and the ousting of Berlusconi, as well as the end of the Iraq War. Which events of the past year will make it to the history textbooks, and which will be esoteric stories we confuse our grandkids with?

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.

A woman has never been elected to Congress or held the governorship in Iowa. The only other state to hold this dubious distinction is Mississippi. Several studies point to cultural factors, such as the state's older population and evangelical lobbying groups. But nearly a century after women's suffrage and three years after Iowa legalized gay marriage, the Hawkeye State's problem seems to lie deeper.

The week starts out on an ominous note as the Congressional "super committee" charged with reducing the national debt announces that they will not reach a deal. What went wrong during their negotiations, and where do we go from here? How will markets react? Also, the Euro crisis rages on as another government falls in Spain with the election of a new Conservative party. Finally, another GOP debate, the start of the holiday shopping season, and Thanksgiving traditions from Takeaway guests.

On Monday, Politico reported that Herman Cain was accused of sexual harassment by two female employees while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. The women left their jobs after reaching settlements with the industry group. Cain vehemently denied the accusations later in the day at the National Press Club in Washington, but went on to make contradictory statements about the incidents on Fox News.   

The White House is planning to boost its military presence in the Middle East when the final troops leave Iraq at December's end. The new plan comes in light of the Iraqi government's refusal to allow American forces to remain in the country after the previously agreed-upon deadline, which goes into effect at year's end. The additional combat units would be stationed in Kuwait, and the U.S. views them as a hedge for stability in the event of a collapse in security in Iraq or a move of aggression by Iran.

A federal judge signed off on the $1.25 billion settlementbetween U.S. Department of Agriculture and African American farmers who say the agency discriminated against them by denying them loans and other forms of assistance. The case dates back to 1997 and gives tens of thousands of plaintiffs a chance to have their day in court. The Takeaway is joined by Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association president Gary Grant, whose organization has been leading the fight for this compensation for more than a decade.