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When it comes to polls, Newt Gingrich is a strong frontrunner. New surveys in Iowa and South Carolina show him lapping the rest of the Republican presidential field and holding strong double digit leads.

But when it comes to money, the essential for running an effective modern campaign, Gingrich is still not a top-tier candidate.

With the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucuses set to kick off the "real" battle for the party's presidential nomination, there's word that:

One-size-fits-all health insurance premiums that don't take into account how much an employee earns strike many people as unfair.

Why should someone who makes $30,000 a year pay the same premium for health care coverage as his boss, who pulls down three times that amount?

Yet most companies continue to keep employee contribution rates the same for all employees, regardless of how much they're paid. Why don't they switch?

This is a story of David and Goliath — except it's kale versus chicken. Vermont folk artist Bo Muller-Moore is fighting charges of trademark infringement from the Atlanta-based fast-food chain Chick-fil-A.

Muller-Moore runs a T-shirt business from his Montpelier, Vt., studio around the phrase "Eat More Kale." He got the idea 10 years ago from a farmer friend who wanted to promote local agriculture — and sell more kale.

Each year Muller-Moore sells thousands of T-shirts, and at $25 a pop he makes enough to support his family.

Good morning.

Our early headlines were:

-- Dozens Of Bodies Scattered After Deadly Bombings In Afghanistan.

-- Coal Company Reportedly Set To Pay $200 Million In W. Va. Disaster.

As NPR's Scott Horsley reported for Morning Edition:

"President Obama will try Tuesday to follow in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt when he delivers an economic speech in Osawatomie, Kan., the same city where Roosevelt issued a famous call for a 'New Nationalism' more than 100 years ago.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. Things got ugly at a city council meeting in Gardner, Kansas. Councilman Dennis Pugh told a fellow council member to shut up, then stormed out.

Pugh later drove to the councilman's house, where he tackled him and took his video camera. Now charged with battery, Pugh has resigned. The dispute began at a meeting to discuss whether videotaping council meetings would add civility.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

A Nome, Alaska, man went on a long drive and got stuck in a snowbank with no provisions — except cans of beer, frozen solid. Rescuers found him alive three days later. He had cut the lids off the beer and eaten the stuff like cans of beans.

The complicated effort to assign blame for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history took another legal twist Monday when BP went to court to accuse Halliburton of "destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement slurry that went into drilling the oil well," The Associated Press writes.

"The owner of West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine is reportedly ready to pay $209 million to settle civil and criminal claims resulting from the explosion that killed 29 people last year," NPR's Howard Berkes reports.

He adds that:

A suicide bomb detonated today in the midst of a crowd of Shiite worshipers in Kabul has left about 50 people dead. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports from there that witnesses say dozens of bodies were scattered around the gate of a mosque.

Al-Jazeera says the Afghan ministry of health reports more than 100 people were injured.

Another four people were reportedly killed and more were injured in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif by a similar attack. Al-Jazeera adds that:

The 2008 financial crisis made it clear: Americans save too little, spend too much and borrow excessively, says Princeton professor Sheldon Garon. In Western Europe and East Asia, governments aggressively encourage people to save through special savings institutions and savings campaigns.

Garon has just released a new book, Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves. He discussed his findings with NPR:

The owner of West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine is reportedly ready to pay slightly more than $200 million to settle civil and criminal claims resulting from the explosion that killed 29 people last year.

The settlement was first reported by the Charleston Gazette, and some details were confirmed by NPR. A private briefing about the settlement is scheduled Tuesday morning for the families of the victims. A public announcement is set later in the morning.

President Obama will try Tuesday to follow in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt when he delivers an economic speech in Osawatomie, Kan., the same city where Roosevelt issued a famous call for a "New Nationalism" more than 100 years ago.

For Obama, this is a "connect-the-dots" speech. White House spokesman Jay Carney said it's a chance to show how the president's various economic proposals — from stricter banking oversight to payroll tax cuts — fit together, as Obama prepares for a re-election battle.

Part of a monthlong series

Coming after Gen X and Gen Y, the next generation of young people have been called "Gen Wrong Place, Wrong Time." With unemployment and college costs both sky-high and the housing market in collapse, young people today are facing extraordinary economic uncertainty.

Perhaps nowhere is that more clear than in a small town like East Millinocket, Maine.

A hearing that will determine the sentence for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich begins Tuesday. The ex-governor, convicted on corruption charges, is expected to testify.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.

Let's talk, now, about the reported settlement in last year's deadly coal mine disaster in West Virginia. Details are expected later this morning, but NPR and other news organizations have confirmed some elements of a $200 million settlement that involves civil and criminal penalties levied against the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

And I'm Linda Wertheimer.

The first official results are to be released Tuesday in last week's controversial election in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The incumbent president is reported to have received a plurality of the vote, but opposition candidates are crying fraud. They have asked to annul the election, and there is concern that protests will break out in the streets.

Take a look at this picture:

A pretty bumblebee you're thinking, but that is actually a very rare bee called Cockrell's Bumblebee and this past August scientists rediscovered it. The last time it was seen in the wild was 55 years ago.

NPR's Chris Joyce filed this report for our Newscast unit:

Protesters headed to the streets and snipers opened fire in Taiz, Yemen today. As The New York Times puts it, the clashes "threatened a day-old cease-fire agreement" and threw into question whether a power transfer agreed to by Yemen's president in November would mean much for the country.

The Times describes the scene:

Scientists have discovered a planet not too much bigger than Earth that's circling a distant star that's much like our own Sun. What's more, this planet is in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" around that star — a region that's not too hot and not too cold. That's the kind of place that could be home to liquid water and maybe even life.

The planet, known as Kepler-22b, is the first near-Earth-sized planet to be found smack dab in the middle of the habitable zone of a twin to our Sun.

A little-noticed trial in Maryland could affect how many dirty tricks voters will see in the upcoming elections — things like anonymous fliers or phone calls telling people to vote on the wrong day, or in the wrong precinct, or that they can't vote at all if they have an outstanding parking ticket.

The tactics are often illegal, but it's rare for anyone to get caught, let alone end up in court.

Hidden in the soil of Illinois and Iowa, a new generation of insect larvae appears to be munching happily on the roots of genetically engineered corn, according to scientists. It's bad news for corn farmers, who paid extra money for this line of corn, counting on the power of its inserted genes to kill those pests. It's also bad news for the biotech company Monsanto, which inserted the larvae-killing gene in the first place.

When businessman Herman Cain left the Republican presidential race over the weekend, he said he would endorse one of his former rivals.

One likely recipient of that endorsement: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Like Cain before him, Gingrich is trying to establish himself as the conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. And Cain and Gingrich share a long history of mutual admiration.