Ongoing Coverage:
Europe
4:55 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Europe Wants Assurances For Latest Greek Bailout

Credit Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP/Getty Images
In Athens on Tuesday, Greek pensioners marched in protest against new austerity cuts. The eurozone insists Greece must stick to hugely unpopular austerity measures agreed to in return for a 130 billion euro debt bailout.

The European Union says Greece has made some progress, but not enough, to merit the new bailout it desperately needs to avoid default and keep the euro as its currency.

Greeks are increasingly bitter about the austerity measures the EU is imposing on them. And Greece's EU partners are losing trust that the Greeks will implement them.

Now, talk is growing about contingency planning if Greece fails to meet the bailout conditions and defaults.

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Shots - Health Blog
4:52 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Scientists Debate How To Conduct Bird Flu Research

Credit Cynthia Goldsmith / CDC
H5N1 avian flu viruses (seen in gold) grow inside canine kidney cells (seen in green).

Scientists working with bird flu recently called a 60-day halt on some controversial experiments, and the unusual move has been compared to a famous moratorium on genetic engineering in the 1970s.

But key scientists involved in that event disagree on whether history is repeating itself.

"I see an amazing similarity," says Nobel Prize winner Paul Berg, of Stanford University.

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Movie Interviews
4:33 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

'Undefeated' A Tale Of Football Team's Struggles

Melissa Block talks to TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay, co-directors of the documentary Undefeated. Their film follows an inner-city high school football team in North Memphis, Tennessee, for a season and profiles their coach and players. It documents the struggles they have on and off the field.

The Two-Way
4:29 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Robert Rubin: Economic Future Is Most 'Uncertain' He's Ever Seen

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin says the U.S. economic outlook is the most "uncertain" he has seen in his lifetime.

Given that he was born during the Great Depression (1938), and lived through the Cold War, the 1970s' inflation, a brutal 1980-82 recession and the recent global financial crisis, that may be saying a lot.

Rubin, who was President Clinton's Treasury secretary, is now co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. He spoke Wednesday in Washington, D.C., at a conference called "American Competitiveness: What Works," sponsored by General Electric.

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It's All Politics
4:16 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Obama's Manufacturing Push Meets Skepticism From Experts

Credit Susan Walsh / AP
President Obama extolled U.S. manufacturing at Master Lock in Milwaukee as some experts said a return to the nation's industrial past may not be the best path forward.

Manufacturing is as American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie. Who could be against Americans making more of what they consume and exporting more to the rest of the world?

Which is why President Obama was hardly taking a political risk Wednesday by going to a Master Lock factory in Milwaukee and extolling the company for repatriating manufacturing jobs from China.

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Politics
4:14 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

State senator seeks public funding for religious schools

Credit David Shane / Flickr
Missouri state Sen. Scott Rupp is sponsoring legislation to abolish language in the Missouri Constitution that prohibits public funding for religious groups to operate schools.

 

A Missouri state senator says religious groups should not be barred from receiving state funds to operate their schools.

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Politics
3:57 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Mo. State Senate works to delay filing

Credit File / KBIA
The Missouri State Senate is expected to send the bill to the House on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012.

The state Senate is moving quickly to try to postpone Missouri's candidacy filing period because of uncertainties over the state's new legislative districts.

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Middle East
3:31 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Iran Ups The Ante With More Nuclear Moves

Credit Iranian Presidency / AFP/Getty Images
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) listens to a nuclear expert during a tour of the Tehran Research Reactor on Wednesday. Iran announced that for the first time it has produced the fuel plates that power that reactor.

Iran has unveiled significant developments on two important components of its nuclear program: the centrifuges used to enrich uranium and the uranium used to fuel a research reactor.

The country has made no secret of its work in these areas. But the news on Wednesday suggests that Iran may be making progress in its nuclear program.

Iran also announced that it is cutting off oil sales to several European nations, only to reverse itself hours later.

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Energy
3:17 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Many Jobs May Be Gone With The Wind Energy Credit

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 10:01 am

The wind power industry in this country has grown fast in recent years, but that could come to a screeching halt.

The industry depends on a federal subsidy to keep it competitive with other forms of electricity. It's a tax credit wind farms get for the power they produce. That credit expires at the end of the year, and it's not clear whether Congress will renew it.

The tax credit was initially created to encourage wind energy, since it is a clean and secure source of electricity. But these days the argument is all about jobs.

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Shots - Health Blog
3:16 pm
Wed February 15, 2012

Kids Listen When Parents Say No To Teen Drinking

Credit iStockphoto.com
But what if Mommy says no?

Parents are divided on how best to handle teenage drinking. Should they prohibit it outright, or let teenagers drink with parental supervision?

Some parents think they might as well say OK, since the kids will drink anyway.

But researchers in the Netherlands have found that parental disapproval can be a powerful force to keep teens from succumbing to the impulse to drink.

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