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With no fanfare, Congress moved to undo large parts of the popular law known as the STOCK Act, and President Obama has signed the watered-down measure into law. Insider trading is still illegal, but disclosures of large stock trades by staffers will be harder to get than under the original law.

Republicans claim Thomas Perez struck a quid pro quo deal with Minnesota that may have cost the federal treasury as much as $180 million. Perez says he acted ethically.

For perspective on why Democrats and Republicans in Washington have not been able to work together to avoid a countdown to the fiscal cliff, All Things Considered host Robert Siegel talks with Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Ornstein says a big part of the problem is how Republicans in Congress have behaved like a parliamentary minority.

For the first time since the Dec. 14 mass shooting, the children and educators are gathering. A nearby school building that was empty has been transformed into a new Sandy Hook Elementary. Twenty children and six adults were killed by a gunman who then took his own life.

The author of Swamplandia! has a new collection of short stories called Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the stories are daring and devastating, and with them Russell establishes herself as one of the great American writers of our young century.

The Senate held its first hearing on an assault weapons ban Wednesday, with activists pushing for tighter gun regulations sharing a table with gun-rights activists. They are seizing on public outrage over the December gun massacre at a school in Connecticut.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the automatic budget cuts that go into effect Friday will shave 0.6 percent from the economy's annual growth rate. That might not be a big worry if the economy were growing at 3 or 4 percent. But growth is a paltry 2 percent, so the impact may be noticeable.

Republicans delayed a vote on President Obama's defense nominee, saying they wanted more answers about the attack in Benghazi, Libya, last year. In recent months, Benghazi has become a sort of catchword. To Republicans, it symbolizes everything bad about the Obama administration.

Baseball fans and collectors are bidding on baseball history: a bloodstained sock worn by Curt Schilling in the 2004 World Series. The sock had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but Schilling was forced to put it up for auction after his video game company went bankrupt.

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, lawmakers will consider whether to approve the report, which human rights groups are pushing to be made public. It's part of an ongoing fight over whether harsh interrogation methods, which critics compared to torture, were effective.