NPR 2008-09-26

After a summit at the White House today between top congressional leaders, the president and both presidential candidates as well, a proposed 700-billion-dollar financial bailout deal now appears to be in some flux 1. NPR's Debbie Elliott has more.

Congressional negotiators had announced an agreement in principle with the Bush administration the Treasury 2 would get authority to buy bad debt from financial institutions with oversight 3, curbs 4 on executive pay and foreclosure mitigation. But key Republicans are not on board. After the White House session, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the banking 5 committee, said it is not a done deal. "That agreement is obviously no agreement." Earlier House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that lawmakers are hearing from angry constituents 6. "Taxpayers 7 are justifiably 8 concerned and vocal 9 about it. They do know, by and large, though, that we must intervene." Debbie Elliott, NPR News, the Capitol. 

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, after today's White House meeting, said despite the disagreement on some aspects, he believes there's a quote "a sense of urgency on the part of everyone that something should be done". In an interview on CNN, Obama said while the sides have made progress, he said there were still items to be worked out. "I think that there is gonna have to be some discussions between the president, Secretary Paulson, House Republicans, perhaps Senate Republicans although they have been, I think, working well with the Senate Democrats 10, to figure out what exactly they want additionally to see." On the topic of Friday's scheduled presidential debate, Obama said he believes they should go ahead as planned. Republican John McCain has asked for the debate to be postponed 11 until there is agreement on the administration's proposed bailout bill.

A top European diplomat 12 says it could take years to resolve the dispute between Russia and Georgia over separatist regions. But he is more hopeful now that Russia would at least let in some outside observers. NPR Michele Kelemen reports.

Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb is the current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which used to have a few observers on the ground in South Ossetia before the conflict over that breakaway region in August. Stubb has been trying to persuade Russia to allow eight military observers back into South Ossetia, and he said he came away from his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a bit more hopeful. "But let's be frank, I mean Russia has been in the driving seat in this conflict from the beginning in many ways." The US said it was a mistake for Russia to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Stubb told NPR he didn't want to play the blame game, and he said it could take many years to negotiate an end to the territorial 13 dispute. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the United Nations.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industry Average gained 196 points, closing at 11,022. The NASDAQ was up 30 points today. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 23 points.

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US military officials are confirming today that Pakistani troops fired on two American reconnaissance helicopters near the Afghan-Pakistan border, and that ground troops then also exchanged fire, while no injuries were reported. The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions with US recently stepping up cross border operations in the area in an effort to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban troops. A US military spokesman says the helicopters were on routine patrol when they came under small arms fire. The Pakistani military said its troops were only firing warning shots after the helicopters crossed into Pakistani territory.

Researchers have found a safer way to make stem cells that could some day be used for therapies. NPR Joe Palca has that story.

Scientists have been extremely excited about a new way to make cells that are as promising 14 as human embryonic 16 stem cells for developing treatments for disease, but do not require destroying a human embryo 15. The technique involves inserting a cocktail 17 of four genes 18 into the cells. Somehow these four genes can convert a normal skin cell into a cell that behaves like an embryonic stem cell. But the technique has a potential problem. The four genes are themselves known to cause cancer. Writing in the Journal of Science, researchers at the Harvard Medical School have found a way to eliminate these genes after the desired stem cells are created. The approach involves infecting the cells with a virus that only turns on the genes temporarily. Stem cells made this way should be safer to put into patients. Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.

Crude oil futures 19 prices ended the session higher. The near month contract for benchmark grade crude was up $2. 29 a barrel today to close at just over 108 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.