Coins DIG

"We know we don't have a blank check," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told Reuters in an interview at a temporary refuge in a tax and customs administration building.

"We have public support as long as people feel everyone is bearing the burden equally."

Papaconstantinou is trying to make the most of a weak hand in a three-way poker game involving Greece, its European Union partners and the financial markets.

Greece needs to borrow or refinance 53 billion euros ($71.52 billion) this year, including 20 billion in April and May.

The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station Friday, leaving behind a new habitation module and observation deck that virtually complete the U.S. segment of the lab complex after more than 11 years of construction.

With pilot Terry Virts at the controls, Endeavour pulled directly away from the station's forward docking port at 7:54 p.m. EST after nine days of joint activity.

"Zambo, it's been good having you, sorry to see you guys leave," station flight engineer Timothy Creamer radioed to shuttle commander George Zamka. "We'll watch and wave."

With close to 1,000 witnesses watching, a young Millard Fillmore impersonator and his equally sprite make-believe wife Abigail poured from a wooden bucket a stream of coins bearing the face of the 13th president and Moravia native.

The United States Mint Thursday released its 13th presidential dollar coin, honoring Millard

The dead fish smell of a popular diabetes drug may cause some people to discontinue its use.

Metformin, an oral drug commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, generally has few serious side effects, but gastrointestinal upset and nausea are common. Although these effects have been well documented in studies, researchers say one unique characteristic of the pills may have been overlooked as a potential cause of the nausea: their strong fishy odor.

Researchers say adverse reactions to the smell of metformin (sold generically and under the brand name Glucophage), have not been documented in medical literature, but hundreds of postings to message boards on the Internet note the strong fishy smell of the drug.

An observation that strikes a strong chord with a great many people these days is that although Democrats in Washington have certainly performed poorly enough over the past year to deserve being thrown out of power, congressional Republicans have done virtually nothing to deserve being thrown back into power. The GOP's eight years in the White House and six years in control of Congress were certainly inauspicious.

AutoNation logged an 8 percent sales increase in the fourth quarter, a sign that supports its view that a recovery in auto sales is under way.

The auto retailer, based in Fort Lauderdale, also said it expects industry sales to rise in 2010, even as Toyota's massive recall disrupts sales of the Japanese automaker's cars in the first quarter.

``The worst is over,'' Chief Executive Mike Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``We have a firm bottom and the recovery is under way.''

Why waste everyone’s time? Let’s skip the appetizers and get to the meaty stuff right now: The Morgan silver dollars poised to increase the most in value in the years ahead are the 1895, 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and the 1883-CC. Pretty bold prediction, eh? At this point, the reader now has three options: (1) Stop reading and act upon this information, (2) Stop reading and get on with life, or (3) Continue on, evaluate the analytical approach to identify the “Top Five” Morgan dollars, and then implement a variation of (1) or (2) above. If you’ve gotten this far, we encourage you to continue on with option (3).

First, a little background info on the Morgan silver dollar…

The debate over making cervical cancer vaccines available to young women is coming to the state Legislature today.

A group of anti-vaccine activists plans to attend this morning's Senate Codes Committee hearing to protest a bill that would let health care professionals give the vaccine to women younger than 18 without parental consent.

The measure, sponsored in the Senate by Liz Krueger and in the Assembly by Amy Paulin -- both Democrats -- aims to protect women against preventable cervical cancer. The legislation also notes that Planned Parenthood clinics have been seeing teenagers coming in and requesting the vaccine.

Krueger said such vaccines have a proven track record. "It has a direct correlation to preventing cancer," she said, adding the legislation wouldn't make such vaccines mandatory.

The deal, which comes as the U.S. unemployment level remains around 10 percent, would take Yahoo out of the online recruitment business, leaving Monster with only one major competitor, Careerbuilder.com.

Monster, which controls about one-third of online jobs postings in the United States, does not expect the deal to raise significant issues with antitrust regulators, since HotJobs has a smaller share of the market.