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In today's tough economy many people are doing whatever they can to make it through one more mortgage payment or survive other financial hardships that have reached their doorstep. Desperate times often call for desperate measures, and for some retirees that means selling their pensions for a lump sum payment.

A second uprising seems to be developing in Cairo. Protesters in Tahrir Square, angry with the military-led transitional government, increased in number recently as police clashes with them have become more violent. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan talks with reporter Merrit Kennedy about the situation in Egypt.

Monday was to be the deadline for the Congressional Budget Office to release its analysis of the deficit-cutting proposal the supercommittee is to vote on no later than Wednesday. But there's not even an outline of an agreement.

The financial markets will be keeping an eye on Italy this week. The country is plagued by high debt and rising interest rates, and the new government faces steep fiscal challenges. Italy is a country of small and medium-sized businesses, and the debt crisis is making it much tougher for them to hang on.

Many brick-and-mortar retailers have tried to sell on the web. And now one of the biggest e-commerce companies is setting up a brick and mortar store — if only a temporary one. eBay is opening a pop up shop in a busy commercial area of London next week with that hope that people will stop by and make online purchases.

Video shot by Occupy protesters shows people linking arms and sitting down to block a sidewalk on the campus of California Davis. A campus police officer steps up with an oversized spray can and calmly douses them with pepper spray. Two campus police officers have been placed on administrative leave, the university says.

Brace for a negative response from financial markets and prepare for more political battles in the coming year if the so-called supercommittee concedes later today that it couldn't agree on how to cut future budget deficits.

Neil Parry was arrested at an airport in Darwin, Australia, and was accused of stuffing drugs into bottles of shampoo. Parry spent three days in jail, but has now received $100,000 in compensation. Testing of the bottles of Pantene shampoo and conditioner showed they actually contained: just shampoo and conditioner.

The debate hasn't been settled, but there's a new challenge to the claim by one group of scientists that they had measured particles moving faster than was thought possible.

Louis Freeh led the FBI from 1993 to 2001. Before that he was a U.S. District Court judge. He did not attend Penn State.