NPR 2011-08-11

 President Obama is meeting with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in the aftermath of the central bank's decision to offer extremely low interest rates for two more years, though the announcement caused the market to rally yesterday. By the day, all that went up in smoke as the market slid yet again, and attention shifted back to the economy. On Wall Street, floor trader Keith Bliss 1 says the Federal Reserve admits it's in no position to rescue the US economy.

 
"The Fed is basically out of bullets. It's similar to those Hollywood movies where you see the guy fire all his bullets, and now the only thing he has left to do is throw his gun. I think that's where we are with the Fed right now."
 
We're seeing the Dow down more than 300 points, 2.7%, at 10,920; NASDAQ down 2.2%; it's at 2,426.
 
And Europe had it even rougher than Wall Street. Average prices across the Continent dropped about 5%. NPR's Tom Gjelten says concerns about the condition of French banks prompt a sell-off.
 
First, it was Greece, then Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy, now France, a country that had its AAA credit rating reaffirmed just last weekend. But French banks have invested in some of their risky 2 government debt that set the root of the current problems here. The price of shares in French banks plummeted 3 today, and the French government now has to worry about losing its credit standing 4. The European problems seem never-ending. Analysts 5 here say at this point, Germany is the only country whose finances remain strong. The question is how long the Germans will continue to shore up their neighbors. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Madrid.
 
A suspected US drone strike hit a compound in North Waziristan, one of Pakistan's tribal 6 agencies. There are reports that as many as two dozens suspected militants 7 may have been killed. NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from Islamabad the strike comes just days after Pakistan called for "clear terms of engagement" in the US-Pakistan relationship.
 
Neither the Pakistani army nor the local administration would confirm the attack. But local residents, speaking on condition that they'd not been named, said that between 15 and 18 people were killed when missiles fired from a drone struck the village of Khawra, just outside Miran Shah, the main city of North Waziristan. Disputing initial reports, the sources claimed that those killed were locals not militants. Typically, there are no public investigations 8 into claims of civilian 9 deaths. But they are increasingly straining US-Pakistan relations. Wednesday's attack is the largest since July 12th, when US drone missiles reportedly killed more than 48 militants. Julie McCarthy, NPR News, Islamabad.
 
Let's take another look at those numbers. The Dow down 330 points now, nearly 3%, at 10,912; NASDAQ is off more than 2%; it's at 2,430; and the S&P 500 down 2.2% at 1,146. 
 
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The US military says it has taken out the Taliban insurgents 10 who downed a US helicopter over the weekend killing 11 38 people, most of them American forces. Marine 12 Corps 13 General John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, says international forces tracked down the insurgents and killed them in an early Monday morning air strike.
 
New York City reportedly will require public school students as young as 11 to take sex education. The New York Times says that for the first time in nearly 20 years, middle and high schools will reinstate the program, starting this year.
 
The nation has a new poet laureate. The Library of Congress says Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Levine will succeed W.S. Merwin in the one-year post this fall. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports the 83-year-old Levine worked in auto 14 factories in Detroit as a young man.
 
As a kid, Philip Levine hated the 'prissy' poetry they taught in school. He started writing poems at 13, but he modeled his rhythms on the preachers he heard on the radio.
 
"Detroit, at the time, was probably half-Southern. And every Sunday morning you could turn on these guys - and both white and black - and they would belt out language like I never heard. I loved it."
 
Levine, who's won virtually every major prize for his work, including a Pulitzer and two Guggenheims, is celebrated 15 for evoking 16 the richness of ordinary American life. Here is a reading from his poem "Call It Music."
 
"The perfect sunlight angles into my little room above Willow 17 Street. I listen to my breath come and go and try to catch its curious taste, part milk, part iron, part blood, as it passes from me into the world."
 
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.