NPR 2009-03-08

President Obama is urging Americans to be patient and as positive as possible in the face of a seemingly endless succession of negative economic news. Mr. Obama says the nation will make it through the current crisis. "This is a moment of challenge for our country. But we've experienced great trials before. And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure but to prosper 1, to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis." Mr. Obama speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address after a week in which major stock averages fell to their lowest levels in more than a decade, and in which the Labor 2 Department announced the third straight month of sharp job losses.

Mr. Obama said reforming the health care system to restrain costs and widen availability will be a major goal of his administration this year. But although the details of Mr. Obama's health care proposals have yet to be worked out, he's already been criticized by some Congressional Republicans for his willingness to consider some form of government-sponsored health care. Missouri Congressman 3 Roy Blunt delivered the Republicans' weekly address today as NPR's Kate Davidson reports.

Blunt said he's concerned that if the government steps in, it would eventually force out private health care plans. He said employers could simply stop offering coverage 4, hoping the government would fill in the slack. "Just imagine a health care system that looks like a government-run operation most of us are all too familiar with, the local DMV." Blunt said real competition is the key to health care. In his budget, Mr. Obama asks Congress for more than 600 billion dollars as a down payment on his push for universal health care. Kate Davidson, NPR News, Washington.

Escalating 5 attacks by religious extremists across Pakistan combined with political clashes are fueling international concerns about that country's stability. A remote-controlled bomb exploded today in Peshawar, killing 6 seven policemen and one civilian 7. NPR's Anne Garrels has more from Pakistan's capital.

Bashir Bilour, a senior minister in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, had just returned from the funeral for the dead policemen who were lured 8 into a clever trap. You can see, he said, how bad things are here. The Pakistani Taliban and other extremists have overwhelmed the Pakistani military and police in some regions, and even where they aren't in control, they've some fear. Three separate bombings killed more than a dozen people in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday. There are also reports a pilotless US drone crashed along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border where the main Pakistani Taliban leader is based. If these weren't enough, Pakistan's president and his erstwhile coalition 9 partner are locked in an increasingly bitter political battle that will take to the streets next week. Anne Garrels, NPR News, Islamabad.

Sudan's president is calling the foreign relief workers being expelled from his country spies and thieves. The UN is looking into whether those expulsions constitute a human rights violation 10.

This is NPR News from Washington.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Turkey for meetings with that country's leaders today. And she announced that the president will make a similar trip soon. "President Obama will be visiting Turkey within the next month or so." Clinton said the US and Turkey share a commitment to democracy, religious freedom and a belief in free market. The predominantly Muslim NATO ally is also seen as critical in assisting the US withdrawal 11 from Iraq and combating a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

Famed newspaper editor Jim Bellows 12 has died in Santa Monica, California at the age of 86. He helped transform struggling newspapers in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, and he helped make the show Entertainment Tonight a TV hit. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates has more.

Jim Bellows liked to say he made a career of making the second best newspapers in town livelier and more reader-friendly. A slight man with a sixth sense for the next big newspaper thing, Bellows created the now-standard political gossip column while heading the Washington Star in the early 70s. He gave the Los Angeles Times a run for its money when he ran the Los Angeles Herald 13 Examiner in the early 80s. There he created a style section that is now widely imitated by other papers. But it was his work at the New York Herald Tribune in 1960s that changed to journalism 14 forever. Bellows promoted promising 15 writers such as Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin. He hired Clay Felker to edit the Trib's Sunday magazine, which would later morph into the highly successful New York magazine. Bellows often said a newspaper had two primary functions, to print the news and raise hell. He did both for decades. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.

Daylight Saving Time begins overnight or rather 2 am Sunday, to be exact. That means people in all states except Arizona and Hawaii turn their clocks forward one hour.