NPR 2012-05-12

 The head of JP Morgan Chase is doing a lot of apologizing today, saying he and other bank executives have a lot of egg on our face. CEO Jimie Dimon is under scrutiny 1 by federal regulators and customers after he announced that the bank which managed to weather the 2008 financial crisis better than its peers had suffered a 2 billion dollar trading loss and that figure could get bigger . In a conference, Cole Dimon said it was inexcusable.

These were Greece's mistakes, they were self-reflected we're accountable and we haven't violated our own standards and principles by how we want to  upgrade the company. This is not how we want to run the business.
 
 
The loss was the result of a failed hedging strategy that leading many critics to ask if Morgan Chase learned anything at all from the banking 2 practices that cause the economy to run to ground just a few years ago. 
 
 
Well, Greece is stalking a political impasse 3. The socialists 4 of the third party to announce they have been unable to build a coalition 5 government, without a deal, new elections have to be held next month. Sunday's vote failed to give any one party enough parliamentary seats to govern alone. It was widely described as a reflection of the people's anger over the country's decision to impose a strict cost cutting program to receive a massive bailout from its European and IMF lenders.
 
 
Syrian State Media reporting that the Syrian military has foiled a suicide bomb plot in the northern city of Aleppo. Forces say they have killed the bomber 6. The report came a day after two suicide bombers 7 attacked the Syrian capital, Damascus, and killed at 55 people.
 
 
Consumer confidence is at its highest level in more than four years in the US. NPR's ** reports the Thomson Reuters University of Michigan preliminary index for May unexpectedly climbed to 77.8.
The survey suggests consumers are more optimistic about the economy. Mark Vitner is a senior economist 8 at Wells Fargo. He links that feeling to job growth and falling fuel costs.
I think that the dropping gasoline prices is an unexpectedly blessing 9 for many consumers and they really take it to heart.
Perhaps because of that, extra-income consumers are packeting from cheaper gasoline price. The survey shows they are more willing to buy big ticket items such as, cars and computers. Vitner says that's a good sign.
In the economy recoveries, that's generally where the economy gets a lot of list promises that the consumers became the makeup 10 for purchases that were postponed 11 when times were less certain. 
The data also suggests consumers expect inflation to slow down. **, NPR News, Washington. 
 
 
US stocks mixed with the Dow off 16 points at 12,893 in trading of 2 billion shares; NASDAS is up 10 points at 2,943; and the S&P 500 down slightly at 1,357.
 
 
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The trail of confessed Norwegian killer 12 Anders Behring Breivik was interrupted today  when one of the victims' relatives threw a shoe at him. Teri Schultz reports the act got mixed reactions inside the courtroom.
Hayder Mustafa Qasim, traveled from Baghdad to Oslo to be presented at the trial of the man accused of shooting his brother and 68 other people last summer in an anti-immigrant rampage. While autopsy 13 details were being read out in the court, Qasim suddenly took off his shoe and threw it at Breivik, screaming you, killer, go to hell. The shoe hit one of the defense 14 attorneys and  Qasim was removed from court and taken to the hospital to undergo an evaluation 15. He tells Norway's Daily  Aftenposten that Breivik ruined his families life by killing 16 his brother and that he isn't sorry for his actions which reportedly made some of the spectators in the court clapped and cheered and made others cry. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz.
 
 
Federal agents have searched the Connecticut home of a reputed mobster, who, authorities believe, has information about an unsolved art heist. As ** of member station WNPR reports, authorities  found something but it was an artwork.
For over 20 years, authorities have been searching for paintings worth half a billion dollars, including some by ** and **. They were stolen from Boston's Elizabeth Stewart Gardner Museum 1990. The FBI searched 75-year-old Robert Gentiles' Manchester Connecticut property. They believe he has the information about the heist. But what they did remove were boxes of evidences and two weapons from his property. Gentiles' lawyer says they won't find any paintings. Last month, Gentiles pleaded not guilty to federal weapons, and prescription 17 drug charges. For NPR News, I'm ** in Hartford.