NPR 2011-04-13

House and Senate leaders are working to line up the votes they'll need to pass a budget that funds the rest of the fiscal 1 year. NPR's Audie Cornish reports voting is expected to begin on Thursday.

Conservatives in the House from Tea Party favorites Mike Pence and Michelle Bachmann to the head of the Republican Study Committee Jim Jordan have indicated they will not support the compromise budget deal. Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor says he expects there will be enough support to pass the bill before the current stopgap measure covering the government's operating expenses runs out this week, but Cantor says he has heard from those who were disappointed.

"I'm frustrated 2 too, you know. We, the House position was 61 billion. But this is the best deal we could have gotten given the situation that we were served up by the Democrats 3 being in charge of the Senate and the White House."

The bill would cut more than $38 billion from this budget year, which ends in September. Audie Cornish, NPR News, the Capitol.

Well, the government's latest snapshot of the US trade deficit 4 reveals it is shrinking, but NPR's Tamara Keith explains that's not necessarily a good sign for the US economy.

In February, US exports fell, but imports fell by even more. Ben Herzon is a senior economist 5 at Macroeconomic Advisers 6. He says these declines were unexpected and helped narrow the trade deficit.

"But the deficit declined a little bit, but, you know, there was weakness exhibited on both the export side and the import side."

This weakness prompted Herzon's firm and several other economic forecasters to lower expectations for economic growth in the first quarter.

"Today's trade report is another indicator 7 suggesting a temporary lull 8 in the pace of recovery in the first quarter."

Tomorrow, we'll get another closely watched indicator, retail 9 sales. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.

US stocks are still in the red, falling as much as 1% earlier today on disappointing earnings 10 from ALCOA and worries about what Japan's nuclear crisis will mean for global markets. Senior economist Hugh Johnson says it's to be expected.

"They basically are saying let's reduce our exposure to stocks, and that's particularly true since everybody, individuals and institutions, have had such good profits in 2009, 2010 and early 2011."

At last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 118 points or nearly 1% at 12,263 in trading of three billion shares, NASDAQ was off 27 again nearly 1% at 2,745, and the S&P 500 off ten at 1,314.

Just a moment ago, we mentioned Japan. Well, Japan is urging people not to panic over the government's decision to raise the rating of its nuclear crisis to 7, the highest level on the international scale. Officials believe the Fukushima Daiichi plant has emitted a lot more radiation than they originally thought since last month's earthquake and tsunami 11.

This is NPR News.

The Pentagon is investigating two deaths by friendly fire. A Marine 12 reservist and a Navy medic were killed in southern Afghanistan last week reportedly by a missile from a US drone.

A prominent organization of African-American journalists will not be at the next UNITY 13 Conference, known to draw an unprecedented 14 number of minority journalists to a single event. It's fueling concerns about the amount of coverage 15 newsrooms planned to dedicate to minority-related issues. NPR's Alex Kellogg reports the latest development follows a recent study that finds that even though the number of journalists in newsrooms has increased overall, the percentages of Black, Asian, Latino and native American journalists are down for a third year in a row.

The National Association of Black Journalists is one of the largest and most powerful journalistic organizations in the country. But this week, it decided 16 to pull out of UNITY. UNITY holds the popular conference every five years. The next is scheduled to occur in Las Vegas in 2012, but NABJ says it won't be there because the conference no longer provides enough revenue. NABJ also claims that it's been prevented from holding positions of power at next year's convention. UNITY was founded in 1994. It brought together journalism 17 organizations representing Asian Americans, Hispanics, native Americans and Blacks. NABJ's decision comes just days after a report found the number of minorities in newsrooms has declined for the third year in a row. Alex Kellogg, NPR News, Washington.

Jury deliberations are over in the case of a white man charged with burning a predominantly black church in Massachusetts within hours of President Obama's election in 2008. Michael Jacques faces several charges, and he could get up to 60 years in prison if convicted.