NPR 2010-12-09

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

A Baltimore man is in federal custody 1 for allegedly plotting to blow up a military recruitment site in Maryland. The Justice Department says the suspect, Antonio Martinez, is a 21-year-old Muslim convert. He was nabbed in a sting operation that was months in the making.

With just weeks to go before lawmakers head home for the holidays, President Obama is urging the Senate to get moving on ratification 2 of the new US-Russia nuclear arms pact 3.

"I am confident that we are going to be able to get the START treaty on the floor, debated and completed before we break for the holidays."

And the president recruited additional help from Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski. At their joint 4 news conference at the White House today, Komorowski said the treaty, known as START, would be an investment in a safer future. He says he also wants to help reset 5 relations between Russia and the US.

Many Wall Street economists 7 are upgrading their growth forecasts for next year. Danielle Karson reports the package of tax cuts President Obama and congressional Republicans are hammering out would pump billions of dollars into the economy, as well as add lots of red ink to the federal budget.

The plan would extend tax cuts and unemployment benefits, and it would cut employee payroll 8 taxes, giving households, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, an extra $130 billion in disposable income. Analysts 9 say all that will jump-start economic growth, but the plan would also add as much as a trillion dollars to the deficit 10 over the next two years. Wells Fargo chief economist 6 Stuart Hoffman is in trouble by all that red ink.

"We will need to reduce the budget deficit, but the time to do that is not in 2011 when the US economy is being in, what I call, a half-speed economic recovery."

The tax-cut plan's promise of economic growth has been good for Wall Street lifting stock prices, but worries about the ballooning deficit push down the prices of government bonds. For NPR News, I'm Danielle Karson in Washington.

After some financial institutions choked off funding access to Wikileaks, the group's supporters are fighting back. They have launched cyber attacks on various targets including MasterCard days after it cut ties with Wikileaks' founder 11 Julian Assange. The attacks also targeted prosecutors 12 in Sweden, who're trying to get Assange extradited from Britain to face sex crimes charges Assange describes as "politically motivated". Wikileaks is under fire for releasing vast amounts of classified documents and cables without US authorization 13.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up slightly three points at last check at 11,363; the NASDAQ Composite Index up 11 now at 2,609; S&P 500 up four at 1,228.

This is NPR.

Chile's president is describing as inhumane the overcrowding at a prison where more than 80 inmates 14 died today in a fire. NPR's Juan Forero reports President Sebastián Pi?era is pledging to build more prisons.

The San Miguel prison, south of the capital Santiago, held nearly 2,000 inmates, twice as many as it was built to house. Officials said at least 83 prisoners had died after rioting inmates set fire to the prison's Tower 5. The firefighting units that responded reported that they were summoned to the fire from a caller using a cell phone inside the prison. Many of the inmates who died were asphyxiated 15, and 14 others were so badly burned that officials say their fate is uncertain. Those outside the prison could hear prisoners screaming as the fire spread. Frantic 16 relatives, who'd arrived early because today is visiting day, even tried to climb the prison walls to help their loved ones. Juan Forero, NPR News.

Parts of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania are facing a fourth day of storms that have dumped several feet of snow. The Syracuse area has seen four feet since last weekend, and the region is bracing 17 for more snow tomorrow. Europe is also getting an early dose of a wintry mess. A second major snowstorm in a week is blitzing France. It has caused several flight cancellations at both airports in the French capital.

Here's an update from Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to make gains up seven at 11,366 in moderate trading; the NASDAQ Composite Index up a fraction at 2,609; S&P 500 also up.