NPR 2010-10-15

The young Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb a US airliner 1 on Christmas Day has waived 3 his right to a speedy trial. As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, the young man is acting 4 as his own attorney.

The last time he was in court, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab fired his court-appointed attorneys and said he wanted to represent himself. Today was his first day doing that. Allegedly he told the FBI that he had been trained by al-Qaeda in Yemen to bring down the plane, and there's been some speculation 5 that he might plead guilty to some of the charges against him, because he asked how he might do that the last time he was in court. This time, he didn't mention any plea agreement. The judge asked if he would waive 2 his right to a speedy trial, and he said he would. Abdulmutallab is 24 years old and has no legal training, so he has a standby attorney who will help him with the case. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.

President Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting today, told an audience the policy preventing gays from serving openly in the military will end on his watch. Earlier this week, a federal judge ordered the military to immediately suspend and discontinue any investigation 6 or other proceeding 7 to dismiss gay service members. A gay rights group says one branch of the service, the Air Force, has already taken that step. According to a lawyer involved in the government's handling of controversy 8 over the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, the Obama administration will ask a federal judge to allow the policy to continue pending 9 an appeal. The lawyer's saying his client, Log Cabin Republicans, has been told the Justice Department plans to seek a stay.

The foreman of the 33 miners rescued Wednesday after ten weeks trapped underground in Chile says democracy was the secret to his success. But as Richard Reynolds reports, in the early days the men's lots were far darker.

Luis Urzua is credited with keeping his team together during the ordeal 10. He spoke 11 out repeated votes taken by Los Treinta y Tres or the 33, as they became known. But other miners say the early days before those aboveground even knew they were alive were difficult. There was a two-day supply of food available to the men that in the end lasted 17 days. The men shed as much as a pound a day on the limited diet. At one point, the men began to assume they would never be rescued and began to make jokes about cannibalism 12. There are reports of endless squabbles and even fistfights. Once the first drill managed to complete a five-inch hole through to the miners' refuge, spirits began to immediately improve. For NPR News, I'm Richard Reynolds in Copiapo.

The number of people filing unemployment benefits ticked up last week, the Labor 13 Department announcing today first-time jobless claims rose by 13,000 to 462,000. The rise was the second in these many months. Jobless claims through much of the year have been stuck in a fairly narrow range, with few employers seeing much reason to create new jobs. At the time, some are continuing to lay off workers.

The jobs numbers did not play well on Wall Street today. The Dow was down a point to close at 11,094; the NASDAQ lost five points; the Standard & Poor's 500 dropped four points today.

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A group representing some of the nation's largest CEOs is becoming far more pessimistic about the prospects 14 for the US economy. The Business Council says based on its poll of CEO sentiment, it finds only about a third of its members who took part in the group's latest survey believe their industry will improve over the next six months. That's down from two thirds back in May, when the last poll was taken. The group, which represents 150 chief executives from large US companies, was almost evenly split over the outlook for the broader economy.

Georgia is the second state to ban some students heading for college from several universities there. As NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, this happens if they are in the country illegally.

Beginning next fall, public colleges in Georgia will have to check the legal residency of all applicants 15 and prevent students who can't prove their legal residency in the US from enrolling 16 in the state's five most elective schools including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. The state's Board of Regents, which oversees 17 higher education, voted 14 to 2 in favor of the ban after a widely publicized story of a young undocumented college student, who had received in-state tuition to attend college just outside Atlanta. She now faces deportation 18. Republican lawmakers want the ban to include all postsecondary institutions in Georgia, but immigrant rights groups are threatening to challenge the proposal in court. Only South Carolina has a similar ban. A growing number of states are reviewing this issue, as more and more students who were brought to this country illegally graduate from high school and apply for financial aid to attend college. Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.

Shares of web company Yahoo moved higher today on speculation that online firm AOL with a group of private equity 19 firms may be preparing to launch a bid for the company. Wall Street Journal reported on its website after the close of trading yesterday AOL and Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group plan to bid on the company.