Vyto Starinskas / The Rutland Herald via AP

Hurricane Irene was the single costliest natural disaster in the U.S. in 2011. Much of the damage was to infrastructure like this road in in Killington, Vt.

This year will go down as the second costliest in the U.S. in terms of insured losses from natural disasters, the Insurance Information Institute said Friday. And it will set the record for number of federal major disaster declarations: 99 issued throughout 2011, up from the previous record of 81 in 2010.

"Catastrophes striking the United States in the first nine months of 2011 caused $32.6 billion in direct insured losses, nearly double the $18.6 billion in catastrophe-caused direct insured losses insurers generally incur over the first nine months of any given year," III President Robert Hartwig said in a statement. 

"The $32.6 billion figure doesn’t even include the significant insured losses which arose after the pre-Halloween snowstorm, which caused enormous damage to multiple states along the Atlantic seaboard," he added. "Coupled with other events in 2011’s fourth quarter, direct insured losses could exceed $35 billion this year."

Total losses, including those not insured, are likely far in excess of $75 billion, the institute said.

Insurance Information Institute

The institute said that even with the huge payout by insurers the industry was still healthy, with its net worth of insurers falling by only 4 percent to $538.6 billion.

As for disaster declarations, the record 99 is "nearly triple the average of 34 per year dating back to 1953," the insurance group stated.

Federal officials earlier this month noted that 2011 saw a record number of billion-dollar disasters. The largest single disaster this year was Hurricane Irene's damage to the East Coast, estimated at $7.3 billion and claiming 45 lives.

The head of the National Weather Service on Friday issued a statement of "Goodbye and good riddance" to 2011.

The number of weather-related disasters, death and injuries this year "have served as a wakeup call, a jolting realization that our society is increasingly vulnerable to the weather as a result of a growing population and sophisticated infrastructure that continues to expand," NWS Director Jack Hayes said. "And while we witnessed an unmatched succession of extremes in nearly every weather category this year, climate scientists have pointed to the likelihood that such extremes are not an anomaly but may be the new normal."

So if 2011 is second, what's first? That title is still held by 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina. Insured losses were $66 billion, with more than $40 billion from Katrina alone. 

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Left to right, Dan Greteman and his daughter Kiran Greteman, 9, of West Des Moines; David Lister of Cumming, Georgia; and Greg Finch and his children Lizzy Finch, 8, and Ben Finch, 7, of Waukee, Iowa, wait for the arrival of former Massachusetts Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney before the start of a campaign rally at a Hy Vee supermarket Dec. 30, in West Des Moines, Iowa. Despite cold wind and rain, hundreds of Romney supporters came out to see the candidate just days before the "first in the nation" Iowa Caucuses.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Marcella Yochum, center, and her son Scott Yochum of West Des Moines take shelter under a camoflauge sleeping bag while waiting for the arrival of former Massachusetts Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney before the start of a campaign rally at a Hy Vee supermarket December 30, 2011 in West Des Moines, Iowa.

• NBC poll - Romney and Paul neck and neck, while Gingrich sinks
• The latest news from the Iowa poll and what it means

Detroit's struggles with a declining population and the near-death of the U.S. auto industry are well documented, but less well known are the travails of the local Catholic church, the latest institution in this failing city to face up to downsizing. 

Reuters photographer Mark Blinch and reporter John Stoll visited two churches in the run-up to Christmas, one abandoned, another under threat of closure.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

The inside of the Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church, which closed in 2006, is seen in Detroit on Dec. 18, 2011. When a Catholic church closes, the land and buildings go back to the archdiocese. The neighboring parishes can come and take their pick of relics or ecclesiastical equipment. If a new tenant doesn't materialize, criminals sometimes do. Thieves often strip the building of copper or pluck out stained glass.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

A damaged organ at the abandoned Martyrs of Uganda Catholic Church.

The Martyrs of Uganda church, closed by the archdiocese in 2006, is today littered with rubble, collapsed confessionals and a broken organ. Moss grows on its floors. The windows are gone and support pillars are crumbling because stones have been removed.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

Chris Mitchell walks up the stairs at the St. Leo Catholic Church, which was built more than 120 years ago.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

People stand as they take part in the Sunday mass at the St. Leo Catholic Church in Detroit on Dec. 18, 2011. St. Leo, located in one of the most abandoned pockets of the nation's most depressed city, is operating on life support.

The second church they visited, St. Leo, is on life support. It remains an integral part of the community, helping to keep its neighborhood afloat with a soup kitchen as well as free medical and dental care for local residents. But it is among nine parishes earmarked for closure in the Detroit area within the next few years.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

Larry Finklea eats his lunch at the soup kitchen in the basement of the St. Leo Catholic Church.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

Jerry McCullough, left, gets a check up by Dr. Ed Jelonek, who is working on his own free time, at the Order of Malta Medical and Dental Clinic for low income Michigan residents in the basement of St. Leo Catholic Church.

The archdiocese has cut its parish count in Detroit's city limits to 59, down from 79 in 2000. The man in charge of the downsizing is Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who says he understands what's on the line at St. Leo and other churches.

"I am very attentive to the good work that the Holy Spirit has already got us doing ... it's not my job to rip that apart, it's my job to keep these good things going in the future," he said.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

A woman walks past the St. Leo Catholic Church, which is among nine parishes earmarked for closure in the Detroit area within the next few years.

Mark Blinch / Reuters

A woman prays during the Sunday mass at the St. Leo Catholic Church.

Read John Stoll's full report, Dark holiday in Detroit as church downsizes, and see more of Mark Blinch's pictures at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida - Did you hear about the giant Lego man that washed up on Siesta Key beach? What about the man who walked into a bar, ordered a beer and disappeared for 30 minutes to rob a bank, only to return and finish his drink? Or how about the puzzling story of the baby grand piano that showed up on a sandbar near Miami?

That's Florida, where weird is an everyday event.

Vote: What was the weirdest headline of the year?

Over the past year, a 92-year-old woman fired four shots at a neighbor who refused to kiss her, a Delray Beach man cut off a piece of a dead whale that washed ashore — planning to eat it — and an 8-year-old girl gave her teacher some marijuana and said: "This is some of my mom's weed."

The piano was a mystery for about a month. On Jan. 1, 2011, the charred instrument showed up on a Biscayne Bay sandbar, a couple hundred yards from shore. A 16-year-old student eventually admitted he put it there as part of an art project. A day after it was removed, someone set up a table with two chairs, place settings and a bottle of wine.

It's still not clear how the 100-pound, 8-foot-tall Lego man washed ashore. The local tourism bureau hoped to use Lego man to promote the area, but the man who found it has placed a claim on it. He can keep it if the owner doesn't collect it before early next year. As for the bar-bank robber, he was arrested at his watering hole, not too long after the holdup.

Enough oddities have happened in the Sunshine State for The Associated Press to write an end-of-year opus about it, but editors here at msnbc.com find themselves amazed by news out of Florida every day.

Let's start with the animals.  At the Miami airport, a Brazilian trying to get through security was caught with several baby pythons and tortoise hatchlings in his underwear. A man stored his dead cougar in a freezer. A sheriff's deputy answering a call about a 7-foot gator in a country club got more than he bargained for when the beast attacked his patrol car, chomping down on the front bumper.

At least those are more tame than some of the crime stories. There was the 81-year-old man who claimed to be a doctor and went door-to-door offering complementary breast exams to women; there was the "Fix-a-Flat" butt injection scam in which a toxic concoction that promised to enhance women's buttocks was being pumped into their behinds; and there was the 92-year-old woman who allegedly fired a weapon at a man simply because he refused to kiss her.

Author Tim Dorsey, whose novels include Florida strangeness both real and fantasy, told The Associated Press the state is an odd place because of its diverse, highly transient population.

"There's pockets of strangeness all over the country, but here it's a baseline lifestyle. There, it's the aberration. There, it's the tail end of the bell curve. Here, it's the peak of the bell curve," Dorsey said.

Young people made up a large part of the peculiar tales.

In Palm Beach County, an elementary school teacher opened an end-of-the-year gift from an 8-year-old student's grandmother and found toiletries and a loaded handgun. A Tampa woman upset with her 15-year-old son's bad grades forced him to stand on a street corner with a sign that read: "Honk if I need an education."

A 15-year-old Florida Keys girl who is a big fan of the "Twilight" books and movies was afraid that her mother would get upset by the bite marks her boyfriend gave her after they acted out her vampire fantasy. She made up a story about being attacked; doubtful investigators got her to tell the truth.

Deputies arrested an 18-month-old's father after they found the man passed out in his mobile home while the toddler was in the yard picking up beer cans and drinking them.

Pasco County deputies said a woman walked into a bank with a 3-year-old boy and robbed it. A homeless man held up a Tampa bank, fled on a city bus and handed out stolen cash to passengers.

And while he didn't rob it, an unhappy Palm Coast bank customer left quite a deposit. He urinated in a drive-thru bank tube and
drove off.

In north-central Florida, an Ocala ice cream shop got rid of its costumed mascot — a waving vanilla cone — because passers-by kept mistaking him for a hooded Ku Klux Klansman.

In unusual crime stories, two managers of a Lake City Domino's Pizza were charged with burning down a rival Papa John's as a way to increase business. Two deaf men using sign language were stabbed at a Hallandale Beach bar when another costumer thought they were flashing gang signs.

And finally, a North Naples man who was pulled over for a traffic violation called 911 and reported a shooting nearby to get out of a ticket. He still got a ticket and was also charged with making a false 911 call.

We've compiled Florida's finest headlines, including "Inventor rolls out 'handled' condom" and "Florida couple shares home with 15 skunks," here. Vote on the weirdest.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• NBC poll: Romney, Paul close in Iowa; Gingrich 5th
• Detroit churches face up to downsizing
• Butt injections, fee breast exams: Florida's 2011
• South Pole 'miracle': Record heat, plus snow, on Christmas
• $6 billion-a-year ethanol subsidy dies -- but wait …

 

It's been an interesting year for the Sunshine State. Cast your vote at the bottom of the page for the weirdest headline of 2011.

Story: As always, a year of strange headlines for Florida

A Tennessee lawmaker says it may be time to start drug-testing members of the General Assembly.

State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, told TV station WMC that lawmakers should have to take the same drug test if they impose one on welfare recipients.

Hardaway said he has heard from his constituents.

"They said to me, 'how do we know y'all aren't on drugs?'" Hardaway told WMC. "I thought, well, you don't."

He said the voters had a valid point, and he plans to file his General Assembly drug test bill if the welfare drug test issue surfaces before lawmakers, which is likely.

The second session of the 107th General Assembly will convene Jan. 10.

State Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, who plans to file a drug-testing bill, says in his own blog last week that he "would have no problem with being tested myself."

Opponents of the proposed bill say it will cost too much and would be illegal, but Campfield has said his bill will avoid the pitfalls of cost and legality and will result in the state saving a substantial amount of money, not spending more.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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• Boot Hezbollah from Twitter or we sue, group says
• Family to honor Alcatraz escapees with a trip back to The Rock
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• No snow? Big problem for US ski resorts

Al-Manar is Hezbollah's "media arm," says the group seeking to have it and other terrorist-related groups removed from Twitter.

An Israeli law center said Thursday it is threatening to sue Twitter unless the social network cuts off access to groups, including Hezbollah, that are considered terrorist organizations by the United States.

The law center, Shurat HaDin, describes itself as being "dedicated to enforcing basic human rights through the legal system," and says it has represented "victims of terrorism in courtrooms around the world."

In a letter to San Francisco-based Twitter, attorney and Shurat HaDin executive director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner wrote that "it has come to our attention that Twitter, Inc. provides social media and associated services" to such groups as Hezbollah and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab — labeled as "foreign terrorist organizations" (or FTOs) by the United States.

"Please be advised that providing social media and other associated services to terrorist groups is illegal and will expose Twitter, Inc. and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil liability to American citizens and others victimized by terrorisms carried out by Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab or other FTOs."

Shurat HaDin specifically contends that Twitter's service goes against a 2010 Supreme Court case declaring unlawful "any assistance or support" to terrorist organizations. 

The law center, which has a New York office, wants Twitter to "immediately provide us written confirmation" that it will "permanently" discontinue access to Hezbollah, "Al-Manar TV, Al-Shabaab and any other FTOs ... Absent such confirmation, we will seek all available relief and remedies against Twitter, Inc. in all relevant jurisdictions."

A spokesman for Twitter said the company does not have any comment about the potential lawsuit or the issue of allowing access to the groups. But it has long made a point of saying it does not take political sides, and favors free speech.

The short-messaging microblog network, which limits posts to 140 characters, has come under fire in recent months for being used as a tool for disruption. Some disruption is considered positive, such as the role Twitter played in helping to foment the Arab Spring. But not all disruption is lauded.

Twitter, as well as Facebook and RIM's BlackBerry phones, were all cited by British officials as the means for coordinating flash mobs and rioting last summer in Britain. More recently, in the U.S., Sen. Joe Lieberman, (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is leading an effort to get Twitter to block some accounts that are pro-Taliban.

The site, in operation for five years, has been the frequent target of legal action by activist groups and celebrities seeking to stop or pull down information they don't like. It generally refuses unless the account in question misrepresents itself as belonging to someone else.
 
Otherwise, Twitter says, it will comply only with legal U.S. court orders, and it has often clashed with law enforcement agencies that seek to go further.
 
In January, Twitter successfully appealed the Justice Department's decision to keep under seal a subpoena for account records of a member of the Icelandic Parliament with ties to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
 
Earlier Thursday, Twitter was ordered to hand over information about the account of a user active in the Occupy Boston protests. The case came to public attention after the company refused prosecutors' request to keep the subpoena secret and alerted the account holder that his information was being sought

Twitter has more than 100 million active users around the world who say they use the free service at least once a month.

An analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis, Will McCants, told NPR this week there is no research so far that shows terrorists are getting many new recruits via social media like Twitter.

"Social media is interesting as a new outlet for terrorist groups, but in terms of achieving al-Qaida's goal or the Taliban's goal of creating new recruits. ... I think it is a complete disaster," he said.

But, said Darshan-Leitner in the Shurat HaDin press release, Hezbollah "and its terrorist networks have entered the global world of social media to further their murderous agenda. Twitter’s complicit service to known foreign terrorist organizations is not only morally irresponsible, it is also illegal. Twitter needs to take responsibility for the platform it is providing to known terrorists and cease and desist immediately. Their failure to do so exposes them to severe liability."

Shurat HaDin practices what it calls "Pro-Israel Lawfare." It partners with lawyers in countries around the world to sue governments, financial institutions and companies that it says knowingly or unknowingly assist anti-Israeli terrorist organizations.
 
The group's mission, it says, is to "bankrupt the terror groups and grind their criminal activities to a halt — one lawsuit at a time."

In February, Darshan-Leitner was co-counsel in an action brought by five readers who sued former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his publishers for $5 million, alleging that in his 2006 book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Carter made "false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author's agenda of anti-Israel propaganda."

The case, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was dropped in May.
 
In September, Darshan-Leitner threatened to sue about 150 U.S. colleges for allegedly refusing to fight anti-Semitism on their campuses.

Msnbc.com's M. Alex Johnson contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• Saudi prince buys $300 million Twitter stake
• #Egypt tops 2011 Twitter hashtags
• UK sets Aug. 25 to meet with social networks about riot role
• Follow the Taliban — now on Twitter
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Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Mark Lennihan / AP

David Bowser, left, and his son D.J. Bowser visit the National September 11 Memorial on Thursday in New York. The memorial has seen a million visitors since the site opened to the public in September.

Work on a planned museum at the World Trade Center has ground to a halt because of a financial dispute, and there is now no possibility it will open on time next year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday.

The underground museum commemorating victims of the 9/11 attacks was scheduled to open in September on the 11th anniversary of the disaster, a year after the opening of a memorial at the site that has already drawn 1 million visitors.

Related: Tourist held after trying to check gun at WTC site

But in recent months, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation has been fighting with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over who is responsible for paying millions of dollars in infrastructure costs related to the project.

The Port Authority, which owned the trade center and is building the museum, claims that the foundation owes it $300 million. The foundation claims that the authority actually owes it $140 million, because of delays in the project.

The dispute has been simmering for some time, and some details of the work slowdown were reported in November, but Thursday marked the first time that the mayor and other officials have acknowledged that the fight would mean the museum will not open in 2012.

"There is no chance of it being open on time. Work has basically stopped," Bloomberg said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on a recent radio program that the Port Authority was "on the verge" of suing the foundation, but both the mayor and the Port Authority said Thursday that negotiations over the matter continue.

"I'm sure we are going to work something out with the Port Authority," Bloomberg said. "They've got a difficult budget situation. I'm sympathetic to that."

Despite security hurdles and ongoing construction, tourists from around the world have already made the memorial at the site a regular stop on their visits to New York City. Since it opened to the public Sept. 12, more than 1 million people have visited the memorial plaza, officials said.

The site now draws about 10,000 visitors a day, which would put it on pace to match or exceed the 3.5 million who visit the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building annually.

Tourists — some reverent, some just there to gawk — have long been a staple at ground zero, but until this summer the closest they could get were the high fences that ringed a bustling construction zone where the twin towers once stood.

Negotiating fences and legions of construction workers is still part of any trip to the memorial. All visitors must reserve free tickets in advance and pass through a security screening. But the hurdles haven't stopped people from coming. Memorial officials said visitors have hailed from all 50 states and 120 countries.

Anthoula Katsimatides, a memorial board member whose brother, John, was killed at the trade center, said the attention is welcome.

"It truly touches my heart and reaffirms the importance of this memorial to know a million people have already come here to honor and pay respects to my brother and the thousands of other loved ones who died in the attacks," she said in a written statement.

Visitors to the site today can walk on a tree-covered plaza and see the two massive pools that sit in the footprints of the fallen towers. Each pool is ringed by waterfalls, and a parapet engraved with the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9/11 and in a 1993 bomb attack.

Visitors can also get a close-up look on construction of One World Trade Center, now 90 stories high and on its way to being the nation's tallest building.

The original design for the rebuilt trade center included four other office towers, a transit hub and a performing arts center, as well as the memorial and museum.

Two towers and the transit hub are under construction. On Thursday, the memorial foundation set up a board of directors for the planned performing arts center, for the first time. The board includes trade center developer Larry Silverstein, Disney executive Zenia Mucha and Brookfield Properties co-chair John Zuccotti.

More than $100 million was set aside for the center by a downtown rebuilding agency and architect Frank Gehry was hired to design it, but private fundraising never began. Only one of four arts organizations originally chosen to anchor the center is still planning on moving in and officials say construction wouldn't begin for several years.

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Seth Perlman / AP

Corn is delivered by the truckload to ethanol plants like this one owned by Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur, Ill.

America's corn farmers have been benefiting from annual federal subsidies of around $6 billion in recent years, all in the name of ethanol used as an additive for the nation's vehicles.

That ends on Jan. 1, when the companies making ethanol will lose a tax credit of 46 cents per gallon, and even the ethanol industry is OK with it -- thanks in part to high oil prices that make ethanol competitive.

Ethanol output and exports reached record highs this year, and a federal law assures ethanol a longer-term share of the motor fuel market.

"Like all incentives it was put in place to help build an industry and when successful, it should sunset," the Renewable Fuels Association said in a statement last week.

What the industry doesn’t want to see, however, is an end to a separate tax credit for ethanol made not from corn but non-foodstuffs like switchgrass, wood chips and even the leaves and stalks of corn.

Known as cellulosic ethanol, no one is selling it just yet due to its higher R&D and production costs. But the industry hopes to soon, and the production tax credit is up to $1.01 per gallon.

The industry earlier this month asked Congress to extend that credit, set to expire on Dec. 31. 2012, for five years but lawmakers did not act before recessing last week.

In the case of corn ethanol, the writing had been on the wall for months. The subsidy's death was confirmed last week when Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, tax legislation that did not extend it.

Subsidized since 1979 as a homegrown fuel cleaner than gasoline, corn ethanol had plenty of opponents, environmentalists among them.

Environmentalists question the cleaner energy premise -- adding factors like tractor diesel emissions and fertilizer runoff make it dirtier, they say.

"Corn ethanol is extremely dirty," Michal Rosenoer, biofuels manager for Friends of the Earth, said in heralding the tax credit's demise. "It leads to more climate pollution than conventional gasoline, and it causes deforestation as well as agricultural runoff that pollutes our water."

Opponents also see corn ethanol, which now takes a larger share of the U.S. corn crop than cattle, hogs and poultry, as a factor in driving food prices higher.

"The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables," Rosenoer added.

Environmentalists do support cellulosic ethanol in principle since it doesn't compete with corn as a foodstuff.

But there's a nearer-term battle brewing over corn-based ethanol. A 2005 law requires that 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be produced by 2012 -- 6.25 billion gallons were produced in 2011. A 2007 revision gradually increases that to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

So far most of that renewable fuel has been corn-based ethanol.

"We will now also turn our attention to ending other federal policies that support dirty corn ethanol, including the Renewable Fuel Standard," said Rosenoer.

Some environmentalists say that standard could be a useful tool to incentivize clean ethanol.

The standard needs "to be strengthened and improved over time" to avoid "being taken over by corn-based biofuels," Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in his blog last week.

Greene's fear is that the standard might be weakened by those opposed to measuring a fuel's emissions of gases tied to global warming and its impact on land use.

As for tax credits, Greene told msnbc.com that the his group would like to see "a technology-neutral, performance-based tax credit that pays more" the cleaner a fuel is.

Short of that, the NRDC is OK with extending the cellulosic tax credit beyond the end of next year -- and figures lawmakers will take that route since it is an easy one. "Given the current dysfunction in Congress this seems pretty likely," Greene says.

The ethanol industry, for its part, stresses it's only trying to jump start cleaner energy. "Unfortunately," the Renewable Fuels Association stated last week, "the same mentality does not extend to century-old tax subsidies supporting 20th century petroleum technologies."

Officials announced Thursday that more than 1 million visitors have viewed the September 11 memorial in the four months since its opening.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Visitors view the the September 11 memorial on Thursday in New York City.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Guests visit the September 11 memorial in New York City on Thursday.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

A maintenance worker cleans panels containing names of the victims of the terrorist attacks on Thursday, Dec. 29 in New York City.

The anticipated museum at the site is still under construction and expected to open on September 11, 2012. 

It's been almost six months since a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of murder in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. Since then, the court of public opinion has continued to question the verdict and the case the prosecution presented.

One very important person involved in that case was Dr. Jan Garavaglia, or Dr. G, as she's known to fans of her TLC series "Dr. G: Medical Examiner." Six months after the disappearance of Caylee, with only skeletonized remains, hair, duct tape and a few weathered objects to work with, Garavaglia concluded that "the cause of death will be listed as homicide by undetermined means."

It was Garavaglia's determination that allowed prosecutors to move forward and charge Anthony with murder, but many believe the "undetermined means" part of that also allowed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

According to NBC news correspondent Kerry Sanders, that may be because of what's called the "CSI"-factor, "an expectation among jurors today that a medical examiner will present high-tech, flashy, convincing forensic evidence."

But in an upcoming TLC special, Dr. G will try to piece the forensic case back together and explain why the jury dismissed some of her findings. She'll also fire back at a defense expert who, during the trial, took the stand and referred to the autopsy she performed as "shoddy."

"My job is not to determine who did it," Garavaglia explained during a Thursday morning interview on TODAY. "My job is to determine what happened. So I feel very strongly that we could say this was a homicide — death by the hands of another. My job is not to point the finger at one person or another."

But now that her job on the case is over, she is able to share her personal perspective on that.

"Well, obviously we always have to look at the last person who was seen with the child — the person who is legally, morally, ethically responsible for the child," she said, alluding to Caylee's mother. "What stories do they give? What happened? We never did get anything from (Casey) on what happened. Yet we found (Caylee) with duct tape, discarded in the woods. That tells a lot."

In her television special, Garavaglia intends to make the point that there simply wasn't more that the forensic evidence could have revealed.

"These were very dry bones," she explained. "Information that's coming out makes it seem like we could do this test or that test or that we could expect DNA. You wouldn't expect that. These are bones that don't have anything left on them."

Which is why, ultimately, she believes "we'll never know what happened until the perpetrator states what happened."

As for the information she'll present on "Dr G: Inside the Caylee Anthony Case," which airs Sunday night on TLC, Garavaglia wants to make one thing clear: she's simply providing information about the case, not profiting from it.

"First of all, I'm not making a penny off of it," she insisted. "I never wanted to. Anything I make from that show, because it's part of my regular series, will go to children's charities. I really just did it to get away from the hype and be able to explain why you could say that the duct tape was there in less than just little sound bites."

What do you think of Garavaglia's post-trial comments? Will you tune in to her show to hear what else she has to say?  Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

Also in the Clicker:

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Let it snow: words that skiers and employees of resorts around the country are fervently repeating as flakes resist falling on slopes from California to New England.

“It’s been a slow start for us,” said Ethan Austin, spokesman at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, the largest ski area east of the Rockies. The resort had little snowfall in December, so they’ve been relying on snow-making equipment to keep their slopes open, Austin said.

“Right now we don’t have a whole lot in terms of natural snow, around 25 to 30 inches,” he said. “That’s quite a bit below average.” The resort currently has 28 trails open; 65 to 70 open trails is typical for this time of year.

Across the country, at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in California, the snowmakers are on as well, said spokeswoman Joani Lynch. “We are, safe to say, off to a slow start.”

It’s all the more painful for skiers spoiled by the 2010-2011 ski season’s bumper crop of snow, which broke records at some resorts. “We have 1 to 2 feet right now, mostly man-made snow,” Lynch said. “We had a very, very dry December -- just 2 inches. We got 200 inches last year just in December.”

The economic impact of low snowfall may not be significant for many destination resorts, because most, especially in the West, have invested heavily in snow-making machines that do a decent job, said Ralf Garrison, director and senior industry analyst at the Mountain Travel Research Program in Colorado. Most resorts have also worked at expanding non-slope activities such as dining and entertainment options, from spas to ice skating to nightlife, making it easier to entertain guests when snow is low.

“The economic salvation of the mountain resort industry is based on destination guests who travel from afar and make reservations significantly in advance,” Garrison said. “If there’s an adequate man-made [snow] product, destination guests find that adequate.”

Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, said that while many resorts are relying on man-made snow, ski areas in Arizona, New Mexico and southern California are doing well, which is almost an inversion of the normal pattern for this time of year. Ski areas in other parts of the country have had four or five years in a row of adequate to great snow, so most will be able to wait for a big dump or two to kick-start the slow beginning of this season, he said.

“This is not the first time nor will it be the last to have this happen,” Berry said. “We’re a weather dependent industry.”

At Mount Bachelor in central Oregon, a storm forecast for mid-week and New Year's weekend is raising hopes the season might be turning around.

“With this storm coming through, we’re getting rain at bottom and snow at top and accumulating,” said Mount Bachelor marketing director Andy Goggins. “That’s where we’re fortunate to have the tallest resort peak in the Cascades at 9,000 feet. We’re just crossing our fingers it will cool off more.”

Luckily, they’ve been able to maintain a consistent level of snow, Goggins said. “We’ve had a 3-foot snowpack for the month of December and only lost a couple of inches. We have a lot of acres open.”

But it’s nothing like last season, he added wistfully: “We got pretty spoiled last year with all the snow. At this date last year, we had a 77-inch base depth, compared to 32 inches now.”

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J Pat Carter / AP file

Short sales up, foreclosures down. That's because in many cases a short sale may be the lesser of two evils for banks and homeowners versus a foreclosure.

It's a tarnished silver lining for people at risk of losing their houses and homeowners in neighborhoods blighted by bank-owned properties, but the robosigning scandal that slowed the foreclosure process to a crawl appears to have increased lender interest in short sales. 

"Foreclosure sales are pretty devastating," said Faith Schwartz, executive director of Hope Now, a resource for homeowners facing foreclosure. "We'd much prefer a modification, but if [homeowners] don't quality, then the next best alternative is deed-in-lieu or short sales." 

Short sales, in which the lender agrees to let the owner sell the home for less than the amount owed on the mortgage, and foreclosures both climbed in 2010, but while short sales rose by 26,000 this year, the number of foreclosures fell by 255,000, according to Hope Now. Short sales, along with deed-in-lieu of foreclosure deals in which the lender takes the deed essentially as payment for the mortgage, still upend families, torch credit ratings and hurt neighboring property values, but they're far less toxic than foreclosures.  

Short sales are better for homeowners. They can stay in their homes, and the quicker process means they can begin rebuilding their credit sooner. Credit scoring firm Fair Isaac Co., which developed the FICO score, says foreclosures and short sales slash the same number of points from a homeowner's credit score. Homeowners with short sales may be able to obtain a loan sooner than foreclosed homeowners, though, which can improve their credit.

In some states, mortgage lenders can pursue a delinquency judgement against homeowners for the difference between the amount due on the mortgage and the purchase price at a foreclosure auction. A delinquent homeowner engaging in a short sale has an opportunity to negotiate away the bank's right to sue for that judgement.

The biggest plus for banks is that they stand to make more from a short sale than a foreclosure. According to foreclosure specialists RealtyTrac.com, the average price of a foreclosed home in the second quarter of 2011 was $164,217, while the average price of a short sale was $192,129.

Besides yielding less, foreclosures also cost lenders more in legal and administrative resources. "The incentives against foreclosing are even larger now," Karen Dynan, co-director of the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution, said via email. "Servicers are facing enormous staffing constraints because they are trying to deal with so many distressed properties, so it is probably even harder now to find the staff to do the paperwork for the foreclosure."

Lenders are also spending more on due diligence, she said. "Servicers and lenders are being heavily scrutinized right now so they probably are more worried than ever about making a mistake in a foreclosure that could subject them to legal liability in the future."

Neighborhoods also benefit from short sales rather than foreclosures. "Short sales typically sell at less of a discount than foreclosure sales do," Jed Kolko, chief economist at real estate website Trulia.com, said via email. "Also, foreclosed homes often sit vacant while short sales are re-occupied more quickly. For both these reasons, short sales tend to depress neighboring property values less than foreclosures do."

Another issue that plagues foreclosures is vandalism, either from opportunistic criminals preying on vacant homes or from disgruntled homeowners. "It's often not a friendly process so you frequently have cases where people deliberately vandalize homes," Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said.

Some economists worry that the drop in foreclosures is less an indication of lenders' willingness to compromise and more a function of a huge backlog of foreclosures that haven't been processed. "Foreclosures are going to be a drag on the market for along period of time," Baker said. Until these distressed homes are resold and assimilated back into the market, real estate prices can't stabilize. 

Baker added, though, that lenders facing years' worth of legal wrangling and costs to execute a foreclosure may be more willing to accept a buyer's offer in a short sale. 

The other caveat is that short sales aren't an option for all distressed homeowners. Short sales are contingent on the ability of sometimes multiple lenders to agree on a price that a buyer is also willing to pay. For people who took out multiple mortgages or have other liens, this presents a challenge. "It's just a little more complicated when you have more parties involved," Schwartz said.

Related story: Real estate recovery in limbo until 2013, experts say 

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The industrial plant that houses the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis., is for sale for $14.2 million, real estate listings show. The company was closed after problems with contamination and sterility in medical wipes and other products.

Federal health officials have given a green light for a first step toward reopening for a Wisconsin business shut down after making and distributing contaminated medical wipes blamed for illnesses and deaths nationwide.

Food and Drug Administration officials on Wednesday said they’ve approved a so-called “reconditioning plan” submitted by H&P Industries and the Triad Group of Hartland, Wis. The plan, required under terms of a June court order, stipulates how the sister firms will be allowed to rework more than $6 million of seized medical supplies so that they’re safe for use -- or destroy products that can’t be repaired.

But the public won’t be allowed to know exactly how the firms intend to fix the problems with products distributed to hospitals, clinics, stores and homes in the U.S. and around the world, the FDA has ruled.

The agency has denied an msnbc.com public records request for copies of two reconditioning plans submitted by the firms. In a letter, officials said release of the documents would disclose trade secrets and confidential commercial information and could interfere with law enforcement proceedings.

The approval of the reconditioning proposal comes a year this month after the death of a 2-year-old Houston boy, Harrison Kothari, from an infection caused by the same bacterium detected in alcohol prep wipes made and distributed by H&P Industries and the Triad Group.  At least 11 deaths, including Harry’s, have been tied to alcohol prep wipes, including those made by the Wisconsin firms, FDA records show.

The plan approval also comes nearly a year since those firms launched a global recall of tens of millions of wipes, swabs and other products at the FDA’s urging because of potential contamination with Bacillus cereus bacteria and other organisms.

For Shanoop and Sandra Kothari, parents of the Houston toddler, it makes a difficult anniversary even tougher.

“You’ve got something hanging over you that’s not anything but a constant reminder of the loss,” said Jim Perdue, the Texas lawyer representing the Kotharis in a lawsuit filed in February.

Harrison Kothari, 2, died Dec. 1, 2010, after contracting a meningitis infection caused by Bacillus cereus. His parents blame tainted Triad wipes for the death.

H&P Industries officials and lawyers did not respond to msnbc.com requests for comment about the company’s future plans. Nor would they comment on industrial real estate listings that show that the firm’s 285,000-square-foot plant at 700 W. North Shore Drive in Hartland is for sale for $14.2 million. A representative for The Dickman Company Inc. on Wednesday said the site was an active listing.

The FDA has a mixed record with enforcing good practices at the Wisconsin medical supply plant and other manufacturers of medical wipes. Records obtained by msnbc.com showed officials failed to issue warning letters or demand other sanctions despite documented problems with sterilization and contamination dating back to 2009, and nearly a decade earlier. When officials finally did investigate, they demanded seizure of more than $6 million in H&P Industries products and, later, the plant closure.

H&P Industries was only the first medical supply firm to recall potentially tainted products this year. In September, Professional Disposables International Inc., or PDI, of Orangeburg, N.Y. voluntarily recalled all lots of five different kinds of non-sterile alcohol prep padsbecause of potential contamination with Bacillus cereus.

In April, Rockline Industries of Springdale, Ark., recalled nearly a million units of baby wipes, including brands sent to Walmart and Winn Dixie Stores because of potential contamination with Enterobacter gergoviae, a bacterium that can cause serious infections in babies and people with compromised immune systems. As first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rockline Industries had similar trouble with contamination dating back to 2006, but the FDA took no enforcement action.

The FDA’s crackdown on H&P Industries and the Triad Group came only after msnbc.com reports sparked the interest of Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who demanded explanations from the FDA after residents of their states said they were sickened by bacterial contamination from alcohol prep wipes, swabs and other products recalled by the Wisconsin firms. 

Under terms of the consent decree agreed to by H&P Industries and the FDA, the reconditioning plans are supposed to describe specific steps for correcting bacterial contamination and other violations.

The family-owned firms, run by brothers David R. Haertle and Eric C. Haertle and their sister, Donna L. Petroff, were shuttered in June after world-wide recalls of alcohol wipes and swabs and povidone iodine products found to be potentially contaminated with dangerous bacteria, including Bacillus cereus.

The consent decree lays out specific steps the company must follow in order to resume operations, including revamped quality assurance steps and new management to oversee it.  If the firms fail to comply, the company and its individual officers can face steep fines and other sanctions. But it doesn’t reveal how the company plans to meet those demands.

The firms face at least 10 lawsuits in several states filed by families who claim contaminated alcohol pads led to serious infections and, in at least three cases, deaths. The Kotharis were the first to seek legal action.

Other alleged deaths include a  69-year-old Alabama woman, Ruby Hutcheson, who died in August days before she was scheduled to give a deposition in her suit against H&P Industries. The family of a 66-year-old Illinois man, Garry Rockett, also claimed in a July lawsuit that he died in 2009 after being treated for cancer using contaminated Triad wipes.

The latest lawsuit was filed in November by a 57-year-old Washington, D.C., multiple sclerosis patient who said he developed a Bacillus cereus infection after using tainted wipes made by H&P Industries and the Triad Group and supplied by Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals. William Preston West Jr. is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages; his wife, Carolyn B. Gleason, is seeking $1 million.

See msnbc.com full series: Tracking Tainted Wipes

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