NPR News 2015-03-22 加文本

NPR News 2015-03-22

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

The House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack has sent a formal request asking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to turn over her email server. As NPR’s Tamara Keith explains, this marks an expansion of the committee’s investigation.

In a letter to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, the Chairman of the Benghazi Select Committee Trey Gowdy asks Clinton to give her server to a neutral third party. Earlier this month, Clinton said she used a private email account and server for all of her official communications while secretary of state. She said she’d turned over all work-related emails to the State Department and deleted the rest. But Gowdy says in the letter she shouldn’t be the sole arbiter of what is public and private. Democrat on the committee Congressman Adam Schiff put out a statement saying the committee’s request to turn over personal emails is uNPRecedented and deeply troubling. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.

Talks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program will resume next Wednesday. They were broken off today due to a death from the family of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports from Switzerland Secretary of State John Kerry heads to London to brief his European negotiating partners.

The Iranian delegation left the lakeside resort of Lausanne, saying progress had been made during these intensive talks, but urging greater political will to finish a framework agreement. Secretary Kerry, who said the sides were pushing through some tough issues in this round, will meet Saturday in London with the British, French and German foreign ministers. The European diplomat this week said the sides were pretty far from the deal with several issues outstanding. The sides will be back at the table by the middle of next week with an end of March deadline approaching to announce a framework for a final deal, which would be due by July. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Law enforcement officials in Southeast Mississippi have released some details about a case involving the hanging death of a black man there. According to the Claiborne County sheriff, the man has now been identified as 54-year-old Otis Byrd, who was found hanging by a bed sheet from a tree limb about 12 feet off the ground. FBI Special Agent Don Alway says his agency and a number of others are involved in the investigation into the death.

“Approximately three agents from the FBI, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and other state and local agencies who are out trying to identify friends and family that we can gather additional information that might help us paint a picture as to the cause of death of Mr. Byrd.”

Police identified Byrd, an ex-convict declared missing by his family two weeks ago. Officials say pending an autopsy, they hope to be able to determine whether the death was a homicide or suicide.

The Obama administration says it’s trying to rectify a situation. Roughly some 825,000 customers of the healthcare.gov system received erroneous tax returns. According to administration officials, about 740,000 corrective forms are now gone out with more to go out next week.

On Wall Street, the Dow was up 168 points. This is NPR.

Despite some holdouts who apparently did not want it going across their land, US District Court judge in Pennsylvania has ruled a 124-mile pipeline project there can continue. The judge saying the Constitution Pipeline, which wants to construct the project in order to ferry cheap Marcellus Shale natural gas to New York and New England, can go ahead even though seven northeastern Pennsylvania property owners have said no. In the ruling, the judge said the project is in the public interest and the landowners will be adequately compensated.

The nation’s oldest living female military veteran has died. Lucy Coffey was 108 years old. She died overnight in her sleep at her home in San Antonio. NPR’s Jackie Northam has this remembrance.

Lucy Coffey was working at an A&P grocery store in Dallas when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Within two years, she joined the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The war took her to the Pacific theater, New Guinea, the Philippines and finally Japan, where she spent a decade before moving to San Antonio. Last year veterans in Texas organized a so-called Honor Flight for Coffey, which brought her to Washington to visit the war memorials. During that trip, Coffey met with President Obama and spent 30 minutes with Vice President Biden. Only one other veteran, another Texan named Richard Overton, was older than Coffey by just three days. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.

Non-bruising potatoes and apples that don’t brown could be coming soon to a supermarket shelf near you. That’s after approval by the Food and Drug Administration of new genetically engineered versions designed not to experience those problems. Case approval covers six kinds of potatoes and varieties of apples.

I’m Jack Speer, NPR News.