A hand-painted banner decrying drastic cuts to the health care budget is draped on the main entrance of the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece.
The economic crisis in Greece is strangling the country's hospitals, where budgets have been slashed by more than half. As a result, nearly all doctors in both public and private hospitals have seen their pay cut, delayed or even frozen.
"On top of that, we lack basic supplies to do our jobs," says Vangelis Papamichalis, a neurologist at the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece and a member of the doctors union here. "We run out of surgical gloves, syringes, vials for blood samples and needles to sew stitches, among other things."
The advantages to making products in the U.S. are starting to stack up — and companies are taking notice. Among them are Apple, which announced Thursday it plans to start producing some of its Mac computers here instead of in China, and General Electric, which is making big investments at home.
Four years after the biggest economic meltdown since the great depression, the effects are still being felt across the country. And besides the basic toll on the economy, the government’s response to the crisis has also caused some to reconsider the role of everything from corporate bailouts to the so-called safety net of social programs. In this week’s commentary series The Moral Is, Fresno State Business Professor Ida Jones says our problems require a new approach.
When Bayard Winthrop founded American Giant, he set up manufacturing in San Francisco. The sweatshirt company focuses on the details and skips over the distributors. Winthrop tells host Guy Raz how making the clothing in America actually helps his bottom line.
In a startling move, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appears to have reversed a controversial presidential decree that granted him extraordinary powers and launched weeks of protest. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is in Cairo. She's covering that story and joins us now. And, Soraya, tell us what's going on.
Dave Brubeck died this week, a day short of his 92nd birthday. The pianist and composer was jazz for millions around the world, building blocks of chords that mixed classical influences with contemporary harmonies and opposing rhythms.
Dave Brubeck and saxophonist Paul Desmond created fresh sounds in the 1950s, with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Their 1959 collaboration, Take Five, may be the best-known jazz composition of all time.
NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg grew up with the sounds of Dave Brubeck, and has a Brubeck memory that's dear to her.
Abandoned and flooded cars sit in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., on Nov. 2. It's estimated that it could cost auto insurers $800 million to deal with all the claims from the storm.
Hurricane Sandy wrecked hundreds of thousands of cars all along the New York and New Jersey shorelines, and could cost auto insurers around $800 million. That's not their only problem; disposing of these water-damaged vehicles is not so simple.
If you have comprehensive coverage on a damaged car, the insurance company gives you a check and the car disappears from your life. But then what?
An empty container ship waited near the Port of Los Angeles during the eight-day strike by members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The stoppage put a halt to most of the work at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
Originally published on Tue December 11, 2012 12:04 pm
When clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached an impasse in talks with management over job security last week, they took what has become something of a rare step: They went on strike.
