NPR News 2013-09-25 加文本

NPR News 2013-09-25

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Speer.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has blocked two long-shot moves by GOP Senator Ted Cruz, aimed at having the Senate approve without changes the stopgap spending bill passed by the House to keep the government operating past the end of this month. NPR's Craig Windham reports Reid says the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate because it includes a provision that would defund the president's health care law.

To keep Reid and the Democrats from removing the defunding provision, Cruz is likely to try to stall consideration of the House measure with a filibuster, and he's urging his GOP colleagues to join him.

“It is our obligation to our constituents to do everything we can to prevent the majority leader from funding Obamacare with just 51 votes.”

To sustain a filibuster though, Cruz will need the support of at least 40 other senators. There are 46 Republicans in the Senate, but a number of them, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, say they will not support the effort by Cruz and other Tea Party-backed conservatives to hold up the stopgap spending bill. Craig Windham, NPR News, Washington.

Officials in Kenya now say the security forces there are in control of nearly all of the upscale shopping mall, where militants opened fire over the weekend leaving more than 60 people dead and many more wounded. Kenya’s foreign minister said today they are “very certain” there were few if any hostages still inside the Westgate mall. Members of a Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab began shooting people on Saturday. It’s still not clear if gunmen may still be inside that facility.

Wall Street is still getting over its shock at the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to delay cutting its bond purchases. Steve Beckner of Market News International says one key Federal Reserve bank president says there should be a two-part test for quantitative easing to scale back.

Not only must labor markets improve, says New York Fed chief William Dudley, the economy must show enough forward momentum to make him confident improvement will continue. The vice chairman of the Fed's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee says the drop in the unemployment rate overstates labor market improvement, and he says the economy isn't growing fast enough to sustain sufficient job creation to keep the rate heading down. Only when Dudley sees better numbers, will he be comfortable cutting the 85-billion-dollar monthly bond buy. Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher says the Fed should do so now. Atlanta's Dennis Lockhart suggests it's not yet time. For NPR News, I'm Steve Beckner.

Smartphone maker Blackberry, which has found itself increasingly under the gun in terms of falling sales, has now since agreed to be acquired by a consortium for 4.7 billion dollars. The consortium is being led by Fairfax Financial Holdings, a property and casualty insurance company, offered nine dollars a share in cash to Blackberry; comes as the company's reporting quarterly losses upwards of a billion dollars.

Stocks after an erratic showing last week gave ground to begin the new trading week. The Dow was down 49 points at 15,401; the NASDAQ fell nine points; the S&P 500 lost eight points today. You’re listening to NPR.

The death toll as a result of recent flooding in Colorado has now risen to eight. That's after authorities there announced the discovery of the body of a 79-year-old woman along the banks of the Big Thompson River over the weekend. The woman's name was not being released, but authorities say she was one of three people listed in missing and presumed dead. Vice President Joe Biden was in Colorado meeting with that state's governor today.

Number of unauthorized immigrants living in the US has stopped declining. NPR's Ted Robbins says a new report indicates the first change in that trend since the recession.

The Pure Research Center says the total number of unauthorized immigrants is 11.7 million, still below the 2007 high at more than 12 million, but up from numbers during the recession. The halt in the decline is not statistically significant, but it may be politically significant in any immigrant debate. The study's author Jeff Pasellx says fewer Mexicans are crossing the border illegally, and more people are arriving legally from other places.

“The non-Mexicans are disproportionally people who come on temporary visas and overstay.”

Central Americans, Asians, South Americans and people from the Caribbean now make up about 40% of all unauthorized immigrants in the US. Ted Robbins, NPR News.

Officials at the Dallas Zoo say Patrick, the gorilla, has anger issues. He's now going to be sent off to South Carolina for therapy. Officials in Dallas say the decision comes after the 430-pound male lowland gorilla beat one female gorilla and sneered at others. South Carolina Zoo is known for working with gorillas with behavior problems. Zoo officials say Patrick has no trouble with humans. Because of his was cranky behavior though, he's been kept in his own habitat separated from the other gorillas at the zoo.

I'm Jack Speer, NPR News in Washington.