Today was supposed to be the day the US and Iran made a deal

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NEED TO KNOW:

Today was supposed to be the day that the United States and Iran came to an agreement over Iran's nuclear program. The agreement was supposed to be that Iran would severely limit its nuclear enrichment activities and the United States would lift its crippling economic sanctions.

But negotiations are hard, especially when the two sides have hardly spoken in 35 years. There's a lot of mistrust that has to be set aside to reach a deal. Yet despite it all, Iran and the United States are very close to a deal. They are so close, in fact, that no one is going to allow an artificial deadline to stop them.

What might stop them, however, are the uncertain positions of those who are not sitting at the negotiating table. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for instance, appears to be backtracking on some crucial elements of an original agreement made in April. And any final agreement will eventually have to be approved by the US Congress — no one knows for sure how that will go.

The longer it takes to make a deal, the longer critics will have to build an argument against it. So time is of the essence. That's also true for average Iranians, who have been suffering under the weight of mighty sanctions for years now. Inflation is out of control and Iranian buying power is almost nil. With a deal, that could all change very quickly.

But the remaining issues to be worked out are complicated. What will be the scope of international inspections? How quickly can or will the sanctions be lifted? While a deal is close, the negotiations are a long way from over.

WANT TO KNOW:

Egypt seems to be as authoritarian as ever. People can be locked up for pretty much anything. Human rights activists, journalists and political opponents live under the threat of torture and death.

The country's military-led government, which took power in a 2013 coup from Egypt's first democratically elected president, has brought with it a return to the bad old days of former President Hosni Mubarak, whose three decades in power were marked by totalitarian control.

The police have always played an important role in this effort to control the population. They use arbitrary arrest, torture and fear as tools. And, according to a human rights group, in the last year the Egyptian police have been responsible for some 272 deaths. These include deaths in custody as well as killings during confrontations on the street, writes GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Laura Dean.

The United States has a similar problem with police brutality. In just the past six months, American police have killed 545 people. Accounting for a larger population in the United States, those numbers are comparable. In both countries the outrage is palpable. But whether anything will actually change is another question.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Nazi-sponsored artwork is available, for sale, and fetching millions. And this has Germany in an uproar.

"I have no idea what kind of person is prepared to spend money on these objects," said Birgit Maria Sturm, an art historian at the Federal Association of German Galleries and Fine Art Dealers in Berlin. "It’s beyond me."

But they do. "The Warrior," a 10-foot bronze neoclassical nude by Nazi sculptor Arno Breker, is an example of the overblown Aryan masculinity idolized by the diminutive Fuehrer. Its estimated black market value is $9 million. Even above-board Nazi art sales fetch a high price. Fourteen paintings and drawings by Hitler himself recently went for $448,000 at auction in Nuremberg.

So who is buying this stuff? Anonymous buyers of Hitler's paintings hailed from Brazil, China, France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.