NPR News
On Capitol Hill, Geithner Defends Policies
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended Thursday the administration's handling of the financial crisis, as he again urged Congress to pass a regulatory overhaul that has been months in the making. Geithner faced tough questioning on the bailout of insurance giant AIG and Wall Street bonuses. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady even demanded Geithner's resignation.
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Breast Cancer Advocates Not Buying New Guidelines
Studies show that testing women in their 40s could save a small percentage of lives. But to some public health officials, it isn't worth the possible harm the excess testing causes. Cancer survivors and advocacy groups say the screening tool isn't perfect, but it's worth the risk.
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Revived La. Parish Faces Fight Over Race
St. Bernard Parish is attracting more minorities to the largely white parish. Longtime residents want to bar low-income housing, saying it will destroy the neighborhood and discourage former residents from returning. Now a federal judge has weighed in.
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Senate Health Bill Strives To Balance Many Interests
Majority Leader Harry Reid added new taxes and modified major provisions from earlier Senate committee bills. The bill is expected to go to the Senate floor.
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Sen. Kerry's Daughter Arrested On Suspicion Of DUI
Alexandra Kerry, 36, was stopped by officers on a Hollywood street at about 12:40 a.m. Thursday and tested positive for driving under the influence, police say. She is the eldest daughter of the Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee.
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Postal Service Cancels Letter To Santa Program
The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.
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South African Runner Will Keep Gold Medal
Caster Semenya will keep her 800-meter gold medal from the world championships in Berlin, but the results of her gender tests will be kept confidential, the South African sports ministry says.
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Economic Indicators Signal Slow Growth Ahead
A forecast of economic activity for the next six months edged up less than expected in October, signaling slow growth next year. The Conference Board says its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3 percent last month. Economists had expected a larger increase.
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GOP Uses Mammogram Study To Attack Health Bill
Republicans are suggesting that the new guidelines for breast cancer screening reinforce their nightmare scenario about health care rationing under President Obama's proposed overhaul. The political brouhaha comes as the Senate is about to take up its health care overhaul bill.
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New Karzai Term, But Same Old Problems
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was inaugurated in Kabul on Thursday for a new term amid tight security and ceremonial flourishes. But his second term is already beset by severe doubts that he will be any more effective at tackling the country's rampant corruption.
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Recovery In Developed Economies Gathering Pace
Recovery will accelerate next year due to "substantial improvements" in financial markets and fast-growing Asian countries, but is likely to remain fragile, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. The OECD more than doubled its estimate for 2010 growth in its 30 member countries to 1.9 percent, from the 0.7 percent forecast in June.
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New Weekly Jobless Claims Unchanged
New jobless claims were unchanged last week at 505,000, matching analysts' expectations, but the four-week moving average of claims dropped to its lowest in almost a year, the Labor Department said Thursday.
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Reid Introduces Senate Health Care Plan
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has unveiled the Democrat's bill overhauling health care. It costs less than the health care bill the House passed earlier this month, and its expansion of insurance coverage is somewhat more limited.
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Obama Ready To Keep Pressure On Pyongyang
President Obama wraps up his trip to Asia with a stop in South Korea, where leader Lee Myung-bak joked that Obama had saved the best for last. The two men discussed a range of issues, including free trade and the ever-present nuclear threat from North Korea.
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GOP Governors Meeting Decidely Upbeat
The Republican Governors Association is holding its annual meeting this week in Austin, Texas. Thanks to recent election victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans are feeling good again. They plan to use those wins to help the party rebound in 2010.
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McCann, Stiles Win National Book Awards
The 60th annual National Book Awards were handed out Wednesday night in New York. Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a novel about daring, luck and mortality in 1970s New York, won the fiction prize. T.J. Stiles' biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, The First Tycoon, was the nonfiction winner and Keith Waldrop's Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy won for poetry.
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Newly-Inaugurated Karzai Vows To Fight Corruption
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai promised Thursday to prosecute corrupt government officials and end a culture of impunity, speaking during an inauguration closely watched by the international community for signs that his administration is moving beyond the cronyism and graft of the past five years.
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'Let The Great World Spin' Wins Book Award
Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a novel about daring, luck and mortality in 1970s New York, won the fiction prize Wednesday night at the 60th annual National Book Awards. T.J. Stiles' biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, The First Tycoon, was the nonfiction winner.
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Judge: Corps' Negligence Caused Katrina Flooding
Flood victims argued the widening of a navigation channel maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers and subsequent loss of protective wetlands turned the channel into a speedway for the hurricane's storm surge. A federal judge in New Orleans agreed and awarded damages of about $720,000 to four people and a business.
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