NPR 2008-11-08

President-elect Barack Obama held his first news conference today after meeting with a group of economic advisors 1. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.

President-elect Obama held the meeting with the advisors ranging from Warren Buffett to former Treasury 2 Secretaries. Earlier in the day the Labor 3 Department reported the tenth straight month of job losses for the economy.

"In total, we've lost nearly 1. 2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed 4. Tens of millions of families are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills and stay in their homes. Their stories are an urgent reminder 5 that we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime, and we are gonna act swiftly to resolve them. “That said, President-elect Barack Obama said he is moving with "deliberate haste" with the emphasis on "deliberate". He said he didn't want rush key cabinet appointments, he did though called for the swift passage of another fiscal 6 stimulus 7 package. Chris Arnold NPR News.

For General Motors, time is becoming a precious commodity. That's because with a weak economy that has driven down car sales, the automaker has been burning through cash just to stay afloat. The world's biggest automaker announced today for its just completed third quarter, it posted adjusted losses of 4.2 billion dollars. Csaba Csere is editor of Car and Driver, he says there are some in Detroit wondering whether GM will survive. "They are facing bankruptcy 8. GM has been losing market share more or less continuously for 30 years. And they've shrunk to a level where they really cannot afford to shrink any more. " Struggling automaker said today it could run out of cash next year if U. S. economic slump 10 continues. No. 2 Ford 9 also reported large losses for the three months ending in September.

West Virginia Democrat 11 Robert Byrd is stepping down as chairman of the Senate Appropriations 12 Committee. The longest-serving senator ever made the announcement today under growing pressure from colleagues worried about his frail 13 health. More from NPR's David Welna.

It's no secret that Senator Byrd's Democratic colleagues had been hoping he relinquishes 14 his chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Byrd who turns 91 this month has been hospitalized several times in the past year. And he has to rely on fellow committee members to manage four debates on spending bills. With nearly all the current years’ appropriations yet to be passed, and with the added task trying to pass another economic stimulus bill, Byrd finally dropped his resistance to giving up the gavel. But he still plans to serve on the spending panel as he has for the past half century. During that time he steered 15 billions of Federal dollars to projects in his state of West Virginia. Majority Leader Harry 16 Reid says the new Appropriations Chairman in January will be 84-year-old Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.

On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 248 points to settle at 8943. But for the week, the Dow was down more than 4%. The NASDAQ gained 39 points today.

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Syria's president has now joined his counterpart in Iran and sent a congratulatory note to U. S. President-elect Barack Obama. President Bashar al-Assad's telegram to Obama comes just weeks after the Bush administration ordered the U. S. helicopter raid in the Syria near the Iraq boarder that has strained relations between the two countries. U. S. officials have maintained the raid targeted the Militant 17 leader, while Damascus has claimed 8 civilians 18 died in that attack. U. S. has recently accused Syria of not doing enough to halt the flow of  militant fighters from Syria into Iraq.

Russia says it is studying U. S. proposals on a US missile defense 19 system and on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. That announcement comes two days after Moscow threatened to station new missiles on its western boarder. NPR's Moscow Correspondent Gregory Feifer has more.

Russian News Agency's reported a Foreign Ministry 20 official as saying Moscow has received new proposals from Washington over plans for a U. S. missile shield in Europe. Russia is furious over the plans, saying it would be forced to react by setting up new missiles sites and electronic equipments to jam the American system. Moscow and Washington also have said they want talks on a new nuclear arms reduction agreement to replace the START treaty that expires at the end of this year. And an aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said preparations are underway for Medvedev's first talks with President-elect Obama on the sidelines of a financial summit meeting in Washington later this month. Gregory Feifer, NPR News, Moscow.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell says he has no plans to accept the job of the Obama administration at least until his term as governor ends in January of 2011. Rendell's concerned that if he would step down that he might lose that position to a Republican.