NPR 2008-11-14

The Senate Banking 1 Committee held a hearing where lawmakers expressed frustration 2 about the continually changing Treasury 3 Department program to help financial institutions. NPR's Yuki Noguchi has more.

Banks testified on how they are spending funds they've got through the government's 700-billion-dollar rescue plan. But even before the executives testified, Senators let loose their criticisms of the plan. Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd took aim at the administration's failure to accelerate the rate at which troubled mortgages are being worked out to save more people's homes. "It is still confounding to me why the Secretary of the Treasury and others refuse to understand this is the heart of the problem. And until we address this, this problem is not going to go away. “Representatives from Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan told the committee their banks plan to ramp 4 up lending to borrowers. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

The head of domestic automaker Chrysler is saying that without an alliance with another automaker in the US or abroad and some sort of federal funding, the company may not be able to ride out the current economic crisis. Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said today the automaker has yet to announce how much it might seek in its second government bailout in 30 years. He said that would depend on liquidity 5 needs and Chrysler's business plan. Nardelli suggested Detroit automakers might be able to share production and sourcing arrangements as a way to cut costs, as the government also takes equity 6 stakes in the companies.

President-elect Barack Obama is resigning a seat as the junior US senator from Illinois effective Sunday. More from NPR's David Welna at the Capitol.

President-elect Obama's resignation from the Senate becomes effective the day before his colleagues there are to meet in a post-election lame-duck session. In a written statement, Senator Obama did not explain why he chose the day he did to step down from his Senate seat, he simply said it had been one of the highest honors and privileges of his life to have served the people of Illinois and the US Senate. The Democratic governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich will appoint a replacement 7 to serve the remaining 2 years of the President-elect's Senate term. Senator Obama is leaving the Senate 65 days before he is to be sworn in on the steps of the US Capitol as the nation's 44th president. Vice 8 President-elect Joe Biden who was also just reelected to his Senate seat from Delaware has not yet announced when he will formally leave the Senate. His successor will be named by Delaware's Democratic governor. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.

The post office is feeling the heat from the weak economy. The US Postal 9 Service announced today that it ended its current fiscal 10 year   2.8 billion dollars in the red. Postmaster General John Potter said today the agency is making sharp cutbacks in hours and overtime 11, but he said there were currently no plans for layoffs 12. The Post Office says all told 9. 5 billion fewer items were mailed during the fiscal year that ended in September.

On Wall Street today, investors 13 moving back in the market to buy up beaten-down shares sent top stocks soaring today. The Dow was up 552 points. This is NPR.

A UN aid agency said today it has run out of food supplies for 750, 000 Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, that's after Israel blocked deliveries by the world body. Palestinian officials also shut down Gaza's only power plant as Israel kept commercial crossings with the coastal 14 territory closed for a tenth day. Israel has blamed the closing and partial blackouts in Gaza on cross-border rocket attacks by Palestinian militants 15.

Astronomers 16 say they have snapped pictures of planets orbiting other stars. 2 teams are unveiling the provocative 17 images today. NPR's Richard Harris has more.

Since 1995 scientists have used clever methods to detect more than 300 planets orbiting nearby stars, but getting an actual picture has been quite a trick. Now one group from UC Berkeley says it has taken a picture of a planet that sits next to a giant cloud of gas that surrounds a star called " Fomalhaut ". Another group of astronomers says it has images of 3 objects orbiting a distant star. These newly discovered planets are all giant balls of gas like Jupiter though most are likely to be much larger, in the solar system they inhabit much younger than ours. Still, it's another step in the search for planets like our own elsewhere in the universe. The new findings are published online by Science Magazine. Richard Harris, NPR News.

The number of adult Americans who smoke has fallen below 20% for the first time on record though health analysts 18 say the death toll 19 from cigarettes remains 20 high, or nearly half a million people a year dying as a result of smoking. Officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say around 19. 8% of US adults just over 43 million people were smokers 21 in 2007.