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The country's creditors demanded the controversial levy in exchange for $13 billion in rescue money. The proposal has triggered scorn from Cypriot politicians who condemned it as unfair, bringing in doubt its approval in parliament.

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As independent financing and filmmaking becomes more accessible, conservatives are turning to movies to get their message out to a larger, younger audience. It's an attempt to get the conservative story out to a broader demographic.

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The war has cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, and there are many who will live with its legacy forever. Now, as it tries to stabilize without U.S. combat troops, the conflict in neighboring Syria could threaten its security.

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A Swiss woman cycling with her husband is the latest high-profile sexual assault victim in a nation that's facing intense pressure to increase its protections for women.

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Americans aren't just the world's top wine market. Increasingly, they're also producers. The number of U.S. wineries has climbed from 400 to 7,000 since the 1970s. And some of those local wines are "stunning," says wine expert Jancis Robinson.

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In his short time in the Senate, Tea Party Republican Ted Cruz has already made a mark — and in doing so, he's simply ignored a tradition of new senators being seen, not heard. Cruz's sharp elbows have some colleagues wincing and others hoping he'll run for president.

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At their annual conference, conservative activists chose the Kentucky senator as their pick to be the next Republican presidential nominee. The vote came ahead of the keynote speech by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a rising star in the GOP.

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As a member of Parliament, she is now at times working alongside the government, a development that could cost her backing from her traditional supporters.

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Legislation passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee inspired a few extreme examples for and against it. But the battle might just get tougher on the Senate floor, particularly for the proposed assault weapons ban.

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A small plane crashed into a parking lot near a South Florida airport Friday afternoon, killing all three people onboard and burning about a dozen cars. No one on the ground was hurt.

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The bill, which would ban abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, is a direct challenge to Supreme Court decisions.

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Go looking for animal products, and you will find them everywhere, including pharmaceutical drugs. That's the word from a new guide to animal-derived products in everyday products written by two German "professional vegans."

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Go looking for animal products, and you will find them everywhere, including pharmaceutical drugs. That's the word from a new guide to animal-derived products in everyday products written by two German "professional vegans."

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Google's announcement this week that it will kill its Reader product on July 1 prompted moans of despair from those who rely on the free RSS service to monitor headlines. To illustrate the level of dependency they've come to feel, some are comparing the move to Google abandoning search.

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In his first major speech since he lost the presidential election, Mitt Romney got the kind of heady reaction he drew from the party faithful in those days after he roundly beat President Obama in the first debate.

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The ruling deals a blow to the Obama administration's surveillance practices. This ruling affects demands popularly known as "national security letters" that allowed the FBI access to phone, financial and electronic records without court approval and in secret.

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But it's likely that the Higgs Boson, a subatomic particle thought to give everything its mass, will be known by the moniker for a long time, Dick Teresi explained.

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Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman's endorsement of same-sex marriage, coming less than two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court hears a pair of challenges to same-sex marriage bans, is being characterized by gay rights activists and others as historic.

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During match week, med students learn if, and where, they will go for a residency program. It's a nerve-wracking process, but it's supposed to give students an advantage – allowing them to have the same ability to rank their favorite programs as hospitals have to choose the best applicants.

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Last winter, filmmakers and brothers Joe and Harry Gantz decided to document the lives of eight families in Portland, Ore., living outside of the middle class during this economic downturn.

The filmmakers found their families by teaming up with the nonprofit social services organization 211 in Portland, monitoring and recording calls from families in need of social services. The film, "American Winter," turned out to be a very vivid snapshot of what life was like for many formerly middle-class families. Families that, amid the deepest valley of the economic downturn, were having trouble keeping it all together.

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Harry Gantz said that a lot of the parents featured in the documentary tried to shield their kids from seeing the family struggle.

"But of course, the children can't be shielded from the water being turned off," he said. "So it affects them in deep, emotional ways, and has long-term impact on them in terms of their education, their self-worth -- all the things that parents worry about their kids having."

"This stress is what these families deal with every day, all day, and it filters down to the kids," said Joe Gantz. "And it really makes the quality of life really diminished."

In making the film, the brothers spent a lot of intimate time with the families -- in- and outside of their homes. The filmmakers said the families let them in because it was a way of showing the rest of the world what they were going through.

"I think a lot of these families feel like the world doesn't care about them," said Harry Gantz. "It's a full-time job not only to work, but also to navigate the social service system."

"We made the film because we felt that there was this economic discussion going on at every level, but it wasn't taking into consideration what was happening with real families all across this country," said Joe Gantz. "And we felt that if people could see how families were struggling, it would be easier to kind of connect with what's really going on in this country right now."

"American Winter" airs on HBO on Monday, March 18 at 9 p.m.