National News from NPR

Standing in line at the drugstore or Costco might lead you to believe that just about everybody is taking a drug for high cholesterol.

And it's true that drugs to fight cholesterol, such as Zocor, now generic, and Lipitor, which is about to be, are the most frequently prescribed in the nation.

News nuggets like these are holiday classics:

-- "42.5 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a four percent increase from the 40.9 million people who traveled one year ago," the AAA says.

Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact.com and Washington bureau chief for The St. Petersburg Times, wrote about about how candidates at Tuesday night's GOP debate rated on PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter for PolitiFact.com and It's All Politics:

It looks like former dictator Manuel Noriega will spend his last days in a Panamanian jail cell.

"A Paris appeals court ruled Wednesday to grant an extradition request from Panama so the elderly ex-military strongman can serve out sentences given after he was convicted in absentia there, in the latest phase of his complex legal odyssey," The Associated Press reports.

The good news: Americans' personal income grew 0.4 percent in October from September, the Bureau of Economic Analysis says. It's the best gain in seven months and could mean consumers will have enough money in hand to make the critical holiday shopping season a pretty good one.

The news that Jerry Sandusky is being investigated in two more cases of alleged child sex abuse will likely mean that the former Penn State assistant football coach will be remanded to jail before a Dec. 13 preliminary hearing about the case, his lawyer says.