NPR 2009-01-15

The House today has voted to expand the government-sponsored State Children’s Health Insurance Program known as SCHIP for another four and a half years at a cost of 32. 3 billion dollars. By an overwhelming vote of 289 to 139, House lawmakers voted to increase the Federal tax on cigarettes by another 61 cents a pack. House speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a tough economy the measure is needed. "At a time of economic crisis, nothing could be more essential than ensuring that children of hardworking families receive the quality health care they deserve." The measure would provide the additional four million children of working families including children of legal immigrants with health care. Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to begin writing a similar bill on Thursday.

Commerce Department today reports retail 1 sales in the US dropped sharply in December. They fell 2. 7%. It was the sixth consecutive 2 monthly decline. NPR's Yuki Noguchi has more.

The pullback on spending during the holidays proved much more severe than analysts 3 had anticipated. December sales declined 9.8% from the same period last year. And November sales were lower than previously 4 reported. The Commerce Department revised its figure in November from a 1.8% decline to a 2.1% decline. For all of last year, retail sales were down slightly, but the biggest drop in sales came from gasoline stations, which saw a nearly 36% decline. Auto 5 dealers 6 saw a decline of almost 25% during the year. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

The State Department has been talking to Israeli officials to find out why Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been claiming he got the Bush administration to abstain 7 from Security Council vote on Gaza. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more.

Olmert told Israelis that he interrupted a speech President Bush was making and insisted that the US should not vote for the Security Council resolution that calls for a ceasefire. The Israeli Prime Minister said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left feeling pretty embarrassed. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says that is just not true. "The description of events, as reported, is fiction, 100% fiction." He said US officials have been talking to Israelis about Mr. Olmert’s comments but haven't spoken directly to the Prime Minister about it. Secretary Rice also denied Olmert's account. She spent several days working on the language after the resolution but said she abstained 8 from the vote because she thought it was premature 9. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced he is taking a medical absence until the end of June. The announcement apparently 10 was made in an email that went out to employees today. Last week Jobs said he had a hormone 11 deficiency. It was behind his recent dramatic weight loss. It is not clear why he has now decided 12 to take the leave of absence from the company.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 248 points to close at 8, 200. The NASDAQ lost 56 points.

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A Federal judge has ordered the military to release one of its first Guantanamo Bay detainees, a 21-year-old man, who has been accused of being a terrorist and held since the age of 14. US District Judge Richard Leon said today that Mohammed el Gharani, a Chadian national, who's lived in Saudi Arabia, should be released from the US prison in Cuba forthwith. The military had accused el Gharani of working with the Taliban to fight US forces in Afghanistan. However, the judge ruled those allegations were based on testimony 13 from other Guantanamo Bay detainees which he deemed unreliable.

A leading Italian rabbi has accused Pope Benedict  XVI of turning back the clock on 50 years of Catholic-Jewish dialogue, an editorial in a Jesuit journal. He announced  Italian Jews will boycott 14 the Church's annual celebration of Judaism, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome.

Venice chief rabbi Elia Enrico Richetti said the Vatican's reintroduction of a prayer during  Holy Week which Jews considered disrespectful is the reason for the boycott. Pope Benedict has relaxed Jews' restrictions 15 on the old Latin Mass that has been celebrated 16 before Second Vatican Council reforms in the 1960s. That brought back a prayer recited during Holy Week, the cause for the conversion 17 of Jews. Rabbi Rochetti said if we add to this Pope's recent statements on dialogue, said to be useless because the superiority of the Christian 18 faith is proven anyway. Then it is clear we are moving toward the cancellation 19 of 50 years of church history. Jewish groups are also irritated by recent papal statements glorifying 20 Pope Pius XII, the wartime pope accused by many Jews and non-Jews alike of turning a blind eye to the holocaust 21. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.

Crude oil closed at $37.28 a barrel today.