Search results for

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak says that Iran's nuclear program should be stopped.

The U.S., Canada and the U.K. are expected to impose new sanctions aimed at halting Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, discuss whether stronger sanctions and diplomacy will work.

Over the course of the 20th century, everyone from John Wayne to Superman told Americans to buy savings bonds. But these days, fewer and fewer people are buying them. Starting this January, banks will stop selling them.

The failure of the congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee extends fiscal uncertainty and pushes a debate over the Bush-era tax cuts into a presidential election year. Congress could try to reverse automatic budget cuts set for 2013 — but President Obama has already warned against that approach.

The panel's inability to tackle its assigned responsibilities should have come as no surprise, some political observers say. In fact, failure may have been built into the process from the beginning.

President Obama Monday put the blame for the supercommittee's failure squarely on congressional Republicans — and their unwillingness to consider higher taxes on the wealthy. Obama also threatened to veto any effort to escape from the automatic spending cuts agreed to in August without a balanced plan to reduce the deficit. Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Scott Horsley for more.

The retailer's prepaid debit card is catching on with people who've been burned by extra charges at big banks. The card costs a flat $3 a month and doesn't allow overdrafts. Banks have lobbied against Wal-Mart's entrance into the financial sector, but "their worst fears came true," one analyst says.

Efforts to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge have dragged on for years, and the survivors are now elderly men. A trial that began this week could well be the last opportunity to put them on trial.

As Egyptian protesters continue battles with police and troops in Cairo, the casualty figures are rising steadily. Many of the wounded are being treated in makeshift clinics on Tahrir Square. Protestors say they will not stop until they've driven the ruling military council from power as they did Hosni Mubarak in February.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said Egypt's ruling military council would hand power to a civilian government no later than July, and that presidential elections would be held by June 30. The address was rejected by tens of thousands of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square who are pushing for a "second revolution."