NPR 2010-04-15

President Obama has met with the bipartisan leadership of Congress at the White House. They discussed financial re-regulation legislation. As NPR’s Mara Liasson reports, the parties sound as though they are moving farther apart, not closer together on the bill. 

The president said he’s confident the bill will not lead to more taxpayer 1 bailouts for Wall Street as the Republicans of charge. In fact, Mr. Obama said the purpose of the bill is to make sure there are no more “too big to fail” banks, but right after the meeting, the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell came to the White House driveway and blasted the Democrats 2. 

“It’s a bill that actually guarantees future bailouts of Wall Street banks. And in fact, if you look at it carefully, it will lead to endless taxpayer bailouts to Wall Street banks.”

But Democrats say Republicans are making the charge about bailouts to cover up the fact that in this debate Republicans are siding with Wall Street which is lobbying hard against the Dodd bill. Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House.

The Senate has failed to extend long-term unemployment benefits for Americans who’ve been out of work for more than six months. Democratic senators needed 60 votes to block a Republican filibuster 3. They have 58. Republican say they don’t want to add to the costs of the deficit 4 by paying for these unemployment benefits. They say this bill should be paid for by cutting something out of the bill.

Former vice 5 presidential nominee 6 Sarah Palin headlined a rally today in Boston. Thousands of Tea Party activists 7 have gathered on Boston Common. It is a short distance from the side of the colonial Tea Party in 1773. From member station WBUR, Sonari Glinton reports.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin may have been the guest of honor at Boston’s Tea Party rally, but it was President Obama who was the main topic of conversation. Palin took on the president’s agenda point by point: health care, the stimulus 8 program, the proposed financial regulatory overhauls 9, and even his campaign slogan.

“Is this what their ‘change’ is all about? I want to tell ’em, nah, you know, we’ll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion, and you can keep the change.”

Absent from the Boston Tea Party rally was the junior senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, whose election was seen as benefiting from the movement. The next stop for the Tea Party Express—a rally tomorrow on Tax Day in Washington. For NPR News, I’m Sonari Glinton in Boston.

At least 400 people have died in rural western China from a powerful earthquake today. The tremor 10 struck Qinghai Province earlier in the day, toppling buildings and triggering landslides 11. Survivors 12 are using shovels 13 and their hands to dig through rubble 14 to find other survivors. Estimates suggest at least 10,000 people are hurt. The Chinese government is mounting a relief effort, but the epicenter of the quake is so remote. It will take time for a great deal of aid to arrive.

On Wall Street before the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 105 points at 11,125.

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Officials from the Pentagon say Iran could build a nuclear weapon in about a year. But the vice chairman of the Joint 15 Chiefs of Staff says it would take longer than that for Iran to build a delivery system of missile to use with the weapon. General James Cartwright told the Senate Armed Services Committee today Iran would also need time to test any weapon it builds.

Gay rights groups are criticizing the Vatican over a statement from a Catholic cardinal 16 in response to criticism over how Catholic Church leaders are dealing 17 with the sex abuse scandal. The cardinal claimed pedophilia is linked to homosexuality. NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports.

In a televised press conference in the Chilean capital, Santiago, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s number two, said many psychologists and psychiatrists 18 have shown there’s no relationship between celibacy 19 and pedophilia, while others have demonstrated the link between homosexuality and pedophilia. Gay groups from Latin America to Europe condemned 20 Bertone’s claim. Italy’s biggest homosexual association, Arcigay, described it as shocking and irresponsible. And a Chilean gay group said neither Bertone nor the Vatican has the moral authority to give lessons on sexuality. A statement today by the Vatican spokesman appeared to take its distance from Cardinal Bertone. Father Federico Lombardi said it’s not church authorities’ brief to make general statements of a psychological or medical nature, which should be left to specialists. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News.

Voters in Poland will probably go to the polls June 20th to choose a new president. The country’s late President Lech Kaczynski was killed last weekend in a plane crash along with head of Poland’s leading opposition 21 party and 94 other people.