NPR News 2010-09-11 加文本

NPR News 2010-09-11

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

Firefighters are steadily working to put out smoldering homes in San Bruno, California outside San Francisco, where an explosion last night killed at least four people and injured dozens more. At least 38 homes have been destroyed. San Bruno Fire Chief Dennis Haag says fire crews have gone through most of the residences, looking for possible victims.

"(As mentioned by the lieutenant governor, we have completed) 75 percent of the property, on initial search with the rescue dogs. The other 25 percent of the residences are still too hot to enter. So, we still have to process — go through a cooling process before we let the dogs go in."

Authorities suspect a ruptured natural gas line caused the explosion. More information is expected to come out during a town hall meeting tomorrow.

In Colorado, firefighters are up against high winds as they tackle a stubborn blaze near Boulder, but Kirk Siegler of member station KUNC says crews are starting to gain the upper hand.

High winds are in the forecast through tonight with gusts upwards of 30 miles an hour expected. If winds get stronger than that, crews will be forced to ground four heavy air tankers dropping fire retardant on the flames, but fire information officer Terry Krasko says over all, firefighters are making good progress.

"Things went very very well last night. There were no new structures lost."

Almost 170 homes have been destroyed since the Fourmile Canyon fire first ignited on Labor Day. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation. For NPR News, I'm Kirk Siegler in Boulder, Colorado.

President Obama's tapping long-time adviser Austan Goolsbee to take over as chairman of the White House Economic Council, but as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, president stopped short of naming a director for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Many consumer advocates want the president to choose Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren for the new post. She came up with the idea for an agency to protect consumers from potentially costly credit cards and mortgages. Mr. Obama said only that he met with Warren this week.

"She is a tremendous advocate for this idea. It's only been a couple of months, and this is a big task standing up this entire agency, so I'll have an announcement soon about how we're going to move forward."

Mr. Obama spent much of the news conference defending his economic policies, arguing that they're moving the country in the right direction, albeit slowly. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

Ahead of the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the president's tone at today's news conference seemed to become more impassioned as he denounced protests against Islam.

"We need all the allies we can get. The folks who are most interested in a war between the United States or the West and Islam are al-Qaeda."

The president said a Florida pastor's plan to mark 9/11 by burning copies of the Koran must be taken seriously because it could cause what he called profound damage to American troops. Pastor Terry Jones suspended those plans.

This is NPR.

Transportation regulators are coming out with proposed new rules designed to minimize pilot fatigue. Addressing the issue, pilot fatigue has been a top concern for FAA and the Department of Transportation for more than a year. More details from NPR's Yuki Noguchi.

On the night of February 12, 2009, air traffic control lost sight of a Continental Connection flight bound from Newark to Buffalo, New York.

"This aircraft was five miles out, and all of a sudden we have no response from that aircraft."

The airplane came down in a residential area, killing 45 passengers, four crew members and a person on the ground. The National Transportation and Safety Board concluded that pilot fatigue may have contributed indirectly to the crash. That inspired the proposed new rules, which are mending more rest opportunities and limited the amount of duty time for pilots. The FAA said the rules were drafted with the help of industry and labor. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

More than 230,000 Japanese centenarians are officially missing. The government says Japan's eldest citizens are still listed as living, but tens of thousands of them are believed to be dead. The Justice Ministry launched a review of records in August amid rising concerns of fraud. One of the most prominent cases involved a 111-year-old man believed to be the oldest in Tokyo. When authorities went to his home to congratulate him, they found mummified remains. His relatives are accused of fraudulently receiving his pension for years.

Here's an update from Wall Street: The Dow was up 48 points at 10,463 at last check, NASDAQ up six at 2,242.

I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.