National News from NPR

Wal-Mart's recent decision to cut benefits for new, part-time employees may be part of a trend, as companies grapple with higher health costs.

That's the view of John Rother, the new president of the nonpartisan National Coalition on Health Care, who chatted with All Things Considered host Robert Siegel about the country's growing pack of part-time workers and why companies are rolling back their benefits.

Update at 6:56 p.m. ET. French President Nicolas Sarkozy says that the next round of rescue loans will not be paid, until after Greeks vote on whether to accept the terms of the bailout package.

This is significant, because Greece has said it will run out of money some time this month and the referendum is so far slated for early December.

When Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided to put the eurozone debt deal to a referendum, he stunned the continent. Why he did it is still unknown. To try and gain some insight into the prime minister's motives, Guy Raz talks with Nick Malkoutzis, deputy editor of Greek daily Kathimerini.

An Occupy London protest aimed at highlighting social injustice, the greed of bankers, and the incompetence of politicians has ended up causing unexpected havoc within the Church of England. Two senior clerics from St. Paul's Cathedral have resigned in a row over how to respond to the protesters, who have a camp outside the landmark church. Internal divisions arose when the cathedral authorities began legal moves to evict the campers — proceedings that they've now dropped.

The Marines of Darkhorse Battalion suffered a high rate of casualties during their seven-month deployment to southern Afghanistan. Their mission was to go after the Taliban in a place called Sangin — a crossroads of insurgency and drug trafficking. At the time, officials in the military and all the way up to the secretary of defense asked why the Darkhorse Battalion was taking so many casualties. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman is reporting all week on the battalion.

In a press conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke painted a mixed picture of the economy.

The bottom line, he said is that "the pace of progress is likely to be frustratingly slow."

For a lot of farm kids, "learning to drive" means learning to drive a tractor before ever driving a car.

Here we go again with the race-card business.

Questioning the motives of those seeking the truth about the sexual harassment allegations against him when he led the National Restaurant Association, Herman Cain said he suspects critics on the political left of attacking him for racial reasons.