NPR News 2011-12-21 加文本

NPR News 2011-12-21

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone.

In the House of Representatives, “the nays are 193 and the motion is opted. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.” Republicans powered through a rejection of a Senate-passed two-month extension of unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts. President Obama had worked with Senate Republicans on the compromise, and he praised them for putting politics aside.

“I need the Speaker and House Republicans to do the same: Put politics aside, put aside issues where there are fundamental disagreements, and come together on something we agree on.”

That's not House speaker of the House John Boehner sees it.

“The next step is clear: I think President Obama needs to call on Senate Democrats to go back into session, move to go to conference, and to sit down and resolve this bill as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is refusing to negotiate a longer extension with the House until members there accept the short-term version.

The late fall snowstorm pounding the Southwest and Great Plains states has now been blamed for at least six deaths. Kirk Siegler of member station KUNC reports travel has all the ground to a halt in the region.

After seeing temperatures in the 60s just a day before the blast of Arctic weather hit a lot of people by surprise, the Kansas state patrol says the southwestern portions of the state are mostly shut down. Hotels there and across northern New Mexico with near capacity were stranded travelers heading to spend the holidays in Colorado resort towns. Many roads were closed, and highway officials warned emergency travel only on those that are open. The snow and winds are expected to taper off by tonight. For NPR News, I'm Kirk Siegler in Denver.

Two New York City investment bankers are among the five dead in a small plane crash on Interstate 287 in Harding, New Jersey. Greenhill & Co. says two managing directors were aboard. The company says the wife and two children of one of them also were aboard.

The Commerce Department is reporting almost 700,000 new home starts for the month of October and 9.3% job. It is the highest level since April of 2010, but well below the 1.2 million new homes annually that economists say mark a healthy housing market.

Europe's strongest economy appears to be rebounding, giving world markets a bit of holiday cheer. German business confidence rose unexpectedly in December while German consumers were resilient in the face of rising economic risks and the ongoing debt crisis.

A big day on Wall Street, the Dow up 325 points at 12,091 in trading of two billion shares; the NASDAQ is up 77.

This is NPR News.

The body of longtime North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il lies in a glass coffin at a memorial palace in Pyongyang. As weeping mourners filled the communist north public plazas, South Korea has offered condolences to the North Korean people, but will not send a delegation to the funeral.

Teens in low-income neighborhoods are more likely than their prosperous counterparts to get the wrong information about emergency contraceptive pills. NPR's Julie Rovner has more about the findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Posing as adolescents, researchers from the Boston Medical Center called every commercial pharmacy in five cities in different regions of the US under the law, girls 17 and older may purchase emergency contraceptive or morning-after pills without a prescription. But in nearly one in five cases, teens were told they could not obtain the drug, and they were far more likely to be told that by pharmacies located in low-income areas than those in wealthier neighborhoods. When callers asked about the age cut off, they were also less likely to get the correct information from staffers at pharmacies in lower-income areas. The study appears online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Julie Rovner, NPR News.

There are New Yorkers who have been waiting for the day that when they pass, their ashes can be interred with their best friends’ remains. Now the state Division of Cemeteries has restored permission to allow the ashes of deceased pet owners to be buried with their furry companies. The new regulations stipulate that pet cemeteries may neither advertise nor charge for the service.

I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.