NPR News 2013-02-11 加文本

NPR News 2013-02-11

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Korva Coleman.

Power is slowly being restored to residents in the Northeast after the blizzard that left three feet of snow in some places. As NPR’s Tovia Smith reports, clean-up could take days.

The big dig continues. And in coastal communities, the big drain, icy water surged over sea walls, onto streets and into homes. Hundreds of thousands remain without power, and about 1,000 residents are keeping warm in shelters. Carbon monoxide poisoning killed two people in Massachusetts who were in cars with tailpipes blocked by snow. And state Senate President Therese Murray is urging caution indoors as well.

“People using their generators inside the house, dumb. It’s gonna kill you. And people really have to be careful with the built-up of that gas. We don’t want to see anybody else die.”

Much of the clean-up has to be done by hand, especially around the many cars abandoned on roads.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says the White House has more explaining to do about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya last year. Speaking today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Graham has threatened to hold up the confirmations of two cabinet-level nominees unless President Obama complies with his demand.

“I don’t think we should allow Brennan to go for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed as secretary of defense until the White House gives us an accounting.”

But Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island criticized, saying Graham has the right to push for new Benghazi information, but not to jeopardize nominations over it.

“To try to find information, to ask legitimate questions, as Senator Graham is doing is completely appropriate, but then to turn around and say I’m gonna to disrupt essentially the nomination of two key members of the president’s cabinet. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Senator Reed also appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation.

New Orleans police are asking for the public’s help in finding a man suspected of shooting four people on Bourbon Street. Eileen Fleming of member station WWNO reports a bystander recorded the confrontation on a cell phone.

Police say Bourbon Street was packed with Mardi Gras revelers in costumes when a man opened fire. The video shows two men arguing with another, who was shot three times. Two women and another man were also shot. Their injuries are described as less serious. Crowds remained along Bourbon Street after the shooting. New Orleans is in the build-up to Fat Tuesday, when celebrations peak ahead of Ash Thursday. The Christian tradition of fasting during Lent is then in effect until Easter. For NPR News, I’m Eileen Fleming.

The US State Department is condemning a rocket and mortar attack yesterday on a refugee camp in Iraq. At least six people died near Baghdad’s airport, several were wounded.

This is NPR.

The International Organization for Migration reports nearly 350,000 people are still living in squalid camps three years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports IOM plans to relocate thousands of them to safer places this year.

IOM reports it will provide rental subsidies to more than 36,000 Haitians to encourage them to move out of 50 high-risk camps to safe housing. Spokesman Chris Lom says there are 450 makeshift camps dotted around the country.

“They are home to about 87,750 families. And many of them of course are makeshift, insanitary and very dangerous to live in.”

The operation is able to go ahead, thanks to a multi-million-dollar contribution from the European Commission. Lom says the program offers displaced families the opportunity to make a fresh start after losing their homes three years ago.

The family of late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has released a report contradicting the findings of an earlier report on the child sex abuse scandal involving his former assistant Jerry Sandusky. The family’s commissioned report says the earlier investigation was fundamentally flawed and incomplete and was a rush to injustice. The first report was commissioned by Penn State and was led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. He says that his report and investigation were accurate, and he found that four Penn State officials, including Paterno, failed to stop a child sexual predator.

I’m Korva Coleman, NPR News.