NPR News 2013-12-16 加文本

NPR News 2013-12-16

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Barbara Klein.

A 17-year-old high school student remains hospitalised in critical condition after another student shot her yesterday at Colorado’s Arapahoe High School. Arapahoe County Sheriff, Grayson Robinson, says in addition to brandishing a shotgun, the shooter was well-armed.

The individual also had a bandolier of multiple rounds of shotgun ammunition strapped across his body, and he was also armed with a machete, a very large knife. The individual also carried a backpack with him as he entered the school. We now know as a result of our investigation that inside that backpack were three incendiary devices.

Robinson says the 18-year-old gunman purchased the shutgun legally.

Meanwhile, Newtown, Connecticut today marked the first anniversary of the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 children and six educators dead. Bells rang out at 9:30 this morning the time that Adam Lanza shot his way into the school.

A 1,000-mile storm system that hammered the Midwest is dumping heavy snow in New England and it’s tangled up travel. NPR’s Sam Sanders reports more than 1,200 flights throughout the country are called off.

Flights in airports throughout the Northeast and Midwest have been canceled with most in Chicago and New York. Mark Duell is with FlightAware, a website that tracks commercial airlines. He says travel issue expects hold up this weekend.

At Chicago, they’ve canceled just up to 200 flights which is about 10% of the schedule and at New York, they’ve canceled 350 flights which is about 40% of the schedule. There's definitely going to be tens or hundred thousand people who were displaced.

Duell says if you are dealing with the flight cancelation, it’s best to get straight to an airline's website, because their phone lines could be overwhelmed. Snow is expected through Sunday morning in New England and New York state. Sam Sanders, NPR News.

Members of Nelson Mandela’s family are holding an overnight vigil in the South African village of Qunu on the eve of his funeral. Qunu is Mandela hometown, his coffin was handed over to the family today after being transported through crowds gathered at the roadside. As the BBC’s Mike Wooldridge reports.

Nelson Mandela came home today after final ceremonial send-off from an airbase near Pretoria where his body had been lying in state. The military plane that brought him here to the town of Umtata was received with formal ceremony too. But as a hearse containing Nelson Mandela’s coffin draped in the South African flag, set off for Qunu where the funeral would take place. The people of the eastern Cape took over to give him their send-off. A farewell for the local herds boy who fought apartheid and became president and who they saw as their own.  The BBC’s Mike Wooldridge.

This is NPR.

The Obama administration says healthcare.gov’s error rate for transmitting health insurance applications to insurance companies has plunged. It also says the website will be unavailable as of midnight Eastern Time tonight until noon Eastern Time tomorrow as it undergoes extended maintenance. Application and enrollment tools as well as the federal data services hub will not be accessible.

The federal government has decided to send help to California in the wake of a major and destructive wildfire as Bob Hensley reports it’s a reversal of an earlier decision.

The so-called Rim Fire burned 400 square miles in and around Yosemite National Park. The fire erupted in mid-August. It took firefighters more than two months to extinguish what turned out to be one of the worst wildfires in California history. The estimated losses to property, business and public infrastructure was in the tens of millions of dollars. In early October,  Governor Brown asked for federal disaster aid. But officials of FEMA ruled the fire didn’t merit from Washington. So Brown appealed directly to President Obama and the White House sent word to the governor that federal assistance would be forthcoming. Officials determined a hunter who started an illegal camp fire was responsible for the disaster. For NPR News, I’m Bob Hensley, in Modesto, California.

China says it has joined the US and the former Soviet Union in landing a spacecraft on the moon. Chinese state media says it’s the first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly 40 years. A soft landing doesn’t damage the craft or the equipment it carries. China says a will undertake a lunar rover three-month exploration of the moon.

I’m Barbara Klein, NPR News, in Washington.