NPR 2010-08-07

The unemployment rate holds steady at 9.5%, with job growth lagging in July. But President Obama says things are looking up in the private sector 1.

"(But the) fact is, we've now added private sector jobs every month this year."

Mark Zandi, chief economist 2 with Moody's Economy.com, says in order for the jobless rate to drop, it needs more than the 71,000 jobs created in the private sector last month.

"That's not enough to forestall 3 further increases in unemployment because you have more than that coming into the workforce 4 looking for a job every month."

And this report has been affecting US stocks which had seen a steady decline today.

BP could someday tap the same oil reservoir that's wreaked 5 havoc 6 in the Gulf 7 of Mexico this summer. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports the company plans to kill its blown-out well, but could later drill in the same deepwater lease.

Analysts 8 believe there could be as much as four billion dollars worth of crude remaining in the reservoir, and BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles doesn't rule out the possibility of drilling elsewhere in that same pool.

"Clearly there is lots of oil and gas here and we'll have to think about what to do with that at some point. What we've always stated is the original well - the well that had the blowout - and the relief wells would be abandoned, and that's what we're doing."

Engineers have cemented the blown-out well from the top in a so-called "static kill" this week. Next, BP will use a "bottom kill" to plug the well from deep below the Gulf floor. Suttles says a relief well for that procedure should be complete in the next ten days. Debbie Elliott, NPR News.

Federal investigators 9 are joining a Missouri probe into a fatal highway accident. St. Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann tells us why the National Transportation Safety Board is getting involved.

NTSB Vice 10 Chairman Christopher Hart says the agency chose to investigate this accident because it involves school bus and construction zone safety. Both areas are of concern to the federal government. Hart says investigators will consider whether a seat belt could have saved one of the victims, 15-year-old Jessica Brinker. She and other members of the John F. Hodge High School band were traveling in two school buses to an amusement park when the accident occurred. The school is located about 100 miles southwest of St. Louis. Another driver involved was also killed. Government investigators will not be assigning blame. The initial investigation's expected to take about seven to ten days with a full report available in 18 months. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Lippmann in St. Louis.

Solicitor 11 General Elena Kagan's being honored this afternoon, a day before she's to be sworn in to the US Supreme 12 Court. At a reception hosted by President Obama today, Kagan talked about keeping links to the Democratic Party in check.

"Now, once I put on that role, I'm only going to vote with them when they have the better of the argument, which, let's be frank, is not in every case."

That's Elena Kagan to be sworn in tomorrow in the US Supreme Court.

This is NPR News.

The city of Hiroshima in southern Japan is commemorating 13 the 65th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack. Lucy Craft reports from Tokyo that Hiroshima's annual memorial drew some high-profile figures.

For 65 years, a moment of silence and then the sounding of a bell in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park has become the ritual for paying respects to victims of the atomic bombing in 1945. But this year, calls for the total elimination 14 of nuclear weapons by 2020 were bolstered 15 by the first-time presence of a US official, American Ambassador John Roos. In all, a record 74 countries paid their respects this year along with Ban Ki-moon, the first appearance here by a UN secretary-general. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, an A-bomb survivor 16 and a leading anti-nukes activist 17, said it's time for Japan to take the lead in nuclear disarmament. For NPR News, this is Lucy Craft in Tokyo.

Amtrak says the widespread disruptions from this week's derailment should be done by tomorrow. Spokesman Cliff Cole says several major services along the East Coast were affected 18 with a number of cancellations.

"It affected thousands of passengers who use our service."

Several major cities including New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami were affected.

US stocks were seeing a slide significant earlier today on news of a weak jobs report. At last check, Dow Jones Industrial Average down 21 points at 10,653, NASDAQ Composite Index also losing ground, down five points at 2,288, S&P 500 down four at 1,122.

I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.