Imagine volunteering for the U.S. Army, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, just when you are about to head home after an honorable job well done, your commanding officer hands you a memo telling you that you have to stay. It’s called a “stop-loss” order and right now 13,000 soldiers cannot exit the military because of orders like this. Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Jeremy Wilson joins The Takeaway to talk about his experience with stop-loss.



Watch Robert Gates announce the end of stop-loss in the Department of Defense video below.

Yesterday, Ed Liddy, the CEO of embattled insurance giant AIG, went to Capitol Hill to face down a wasps' nest of angry congressmen determined to make him justify the large bonuses company executives received. Todd Zwillich of Capitol News Connection swings by to give us his account of AIG's harrowing day on the Hill.

The Fed announced its new plan to help stimulate the economy yesterday calling for roughly $1 trillion to be spent on the mortgage market and treasury securities. Maya MacGuineas is the Director of the New America Foundation’s Fiscal Policy Program and the President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and she joins us to talk about the Fed's new plan.



Curious exactly how money is made? Watch this clip from How It's Made explaining the process.

If you’re a gentleman of a certain age, it’s a fact of life: You need to get tested for prostate cancer. But two new potentially landmark studies show men may be HURTING rather than helping themselves when they get those tests. We ask Gina Kolata, health reporter with our partner the New York Times, to explain these startling results and why you may think twice before getting your prostate tested.

For more, read Gina Kolata's article, Prostate Test Found to Save Few Lives, in today's New York Times.

These findings may decrease the prevalence (and money spent) on ads such as this one by Prostaid Calgary:

Over one million French workers are expected to join the country's second nationwide strike in two months. They are protesting French President Sarkozy's handling of the economic downturn. As unemployment has reached almost two million, organizers predict the protest will be even bigger than the last one in January. For more we turn to Hugh Schofield, the BBC's Paris correspondent.

When there's a mini-mall on every corner, food stocked in every grocery store, and every creature comfort just a short jaunt away, it's hard to believe that our world could ever crumble. But our next guest Neil Strauss looks at 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic downturn and sees a world on the edge. He wrote a book called Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life and he joins us with tips on how to survive any global meltdown.

In the 1990s, Sweden was facing a financial crisis that is eerily similar to what the U.S. now faces. To recover from that, they nationalized the banks and bought up the bad debt. The man who led that charge and brought Sweden back to financial stability was Bo Lundgren, the former minister for fiscal and financial affairs, who is now the director general of the Swedish National Debt Office. Mr. Lundgren is set to testify in front of the Congressional Oversight Panel today to discuss how he helped nationalize the Swedish banking system and turn around their economy. Before he goes to the Hill, he stops by The Takeaway.

Bank nationalization or Viking economics? For another look at the Swedish banking model watch this clip from The Colbert Report.

Veteran journalist Steve Coll has turned his investigative skills on the SEC’s relationship with Wall Street, the secret history of the CIA and the legacy of the Bin-Ladens. Now he is taking on a great civic feat and endeavoring to read all 407 pages of the stimulus plan. He’s been blogging as he goes, in what reads like a combination of explanatory journalism and travelogue. Steve Coll is the president of the New America Foundation and staff writer for The New Yorker. He has come up for air this morning to give us the lowdown on his journey through this colossal document.

We're spending $275 billion dollars on a federal housing market bailout plan. But is this money going to fix the problem which has created ghost towns of abandoned or empty homes across the United States? Richard LeFrak is chairman and CEO of LeFrak Organization, a real estate builder and developer joins The Takeaway. He has a provocative idea what might actually fix the housing mess: giving immigrants legal residency in exchange for buying up our homes.

Reports coming out today that communist authorities in North Korea have detained two American journalists. A South Korean newspaper and a TV station said the two Americans — both women — were arrested on Tuesday near a river on North Korea's border with China. For more we are joined by John Sudworth, BBC Correspondent in Seoul, South Korea.

An ambitious social experiment will launch later this year that will test Americans’ ability and willingness not just to give, but to give to one another. Kiva, an online micro-lender that has so far worked only in developing nations, will be launching here in the U.S. Americans have been more than willing to give small loans to businesses in Africa and South America. But will they loan to one another? To help answer that question, The Takeaway is joined by Premal Shah, the president of Kiva.

As Israel prepares to inaugurate a new right-wing government, it is facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades. Its actions in Gaza and its election of a right-wing government have led to an increasing sense of global isolation as many countries turn a cold shoulder to the nation. Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times, joins us for a look at Israel's plans for global PR.

For more, read Ethan Bronner's article, After Gaza, Israel Grapples With Crisis of Isolation, in today's New York Times.