The political message of the Schäuble plan is that Greece will be the last bail-out ever. As preparations for a bail-out reach an advanced stage, the German public reaction has become progressively more hostile. If the Schäuble plan had already been in place, Greece would already have headed to the exit. It is hard to conceive of a situation under the plan where a country simultaneously fulfills the criteria for aid, and needs it.

They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave.
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On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men's teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand years ago. They were killed during the Dark Ages, when Vikings frequently invaded the region.

She was the best student her adviser had ever seen (or so he said); it seemed like a dream when she was admitted to a distinguished doctoral program; she worked so hard for so long; she won almost every prize; she published several essays; she became fully identified with the academic life; even distancing herself from her less educated family. For all of those reasons, she continues as an adjunct who qualifies for food stamps, increasingly isolating herself to avoid feelings of being judged. Her students have no idea that she is a prisoner of the graduate-school poverty trap.

Ben Bernanke has been confirmed to a second term as head of the Federal Reserve.

Although he was Time magazine's Person of the Year , Bernanke's confirmation had been in question because of criticism of his approach to bank regulation before last year's financial crisis.

The final vote was 70-30 -- a record number of votes against a Fed chairman.

Iran hanged two of 11 people sentenced to death over their role in anti-government protests, the state-run Iranian Students News Agency said.

Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were executed today after their sentences were upheld by a Tehran appeals court, ISNA said, citing the Tehran prosecutor’s office.

A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu's office.

Unlike previous recessions, the current downturn was not caused by Federal Reserve tightening and therefore couldn't be reversed by lowering interest rates. President Obama was correct to conclude that boosting economic activity required a fiscal stimulus.
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The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday.