NPR 2009-07-25

President Obama expressed regret today for saying the Cambridge police acted stupidly when they arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates last week. NPR's Scott Horsley has more.

The President spoke 1 by telephone with the police sergeant 2 who arrested Gates and called him "an outstanding police officer and a good man." The president's comments earlier in the week added fuel to a fiery 3 national conversation over whether Sergeant James Crowley acted properly in arresting Gates, a prominent African-American scholar outside his own home. Mr. Obama said the attention sparked by the case simply illustrates 4 the sensitivity that still surrounds race relations. "In my choice of words, I think, I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning 5 the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated 6 those words differently." Mr. Obama said he hoped this would encourage everyone to spend more time listening to each other and less time flinging accusations 7. Scott Horsley NPR News, Washington.

Treasury 8 Secretary Timothy Geithner was on Capitol Hill today where he told lawmakers he welcomes debate on how to strengthen oversight 9 of the financial system to prevent another economic meltdown from occurring. However, he said stakeholders would need to move quickly. In a testimony 10 before the House Financial Services Committee, Geithner defended the administration's plan even though some federal regulators are pushing back against the proposal someway will strip them of their consumer protection duties. The administration is calling for a separate agency to focus on that mission. Geithner said the current system has consumer protection oversights 11 spread amongst too many agencies and is also often too slow to respond.

President Obama is announcing at a White House ceremony this hour that he will sign a major United Nations Human Rights Treaty. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.

Three years ago, the United Nations passed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As a model, the UN used the major disability civil rights on the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the US said it would not sign the UN treaty. That reluctance 12 ended when President Obama summoned disability leaders to the White House to celebrate the 19th anniversary of the American law. And there he announced that he would instruct his ambassador to the United Nations to sign the UN convention, and he will ask the Senate to begin the ratification 13 process. Last year, a presidential council on disability policy concluded that the UN convention would have little impact on existing disability law in the United States. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.

Ousted 14 Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, in a show of defiance 15, walked under a border chain today to take a few symbolic 16 steps back into his country, nearly a month after he was removed in a military coup 17. Zelaya, who briefly 18 crossed the border today from Nicaragua said he was forced to take action after US-backed talks failed to reach a negotiated settlement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Zelaya's actions reckless.

On Wall Street today, the Dow was up 23 points.

This is NPR.

A plane crash in Iran has left at least 17 people dead and at least 20 others injured today. That's according to Iran's official state news agency, which reports the Russia-made plane with more than 150 people on board was landing in northeastern Iran when it exploded into flames and went off the runway. Initial reports are the plane's tyres failed and it skidded 19 into a wall. The crash is the latest in a series of mishaps 20 involving Iranian airliners 21, many of which are aging. A crash earlier this month killed 168 people.

The self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, Arizona's Joe Arpaio has begun a three-day crime and immigration sweeping 22 in Phoenix 23. Arpaio's department has already been investigated for alleged 24 racial profiling during similar sweeps last year. Arizona Public Radio's Gillian Ferris Kohl reports.

Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies reportedly arrested 39 people in the first few hours of the sweep. In a statement released by his office, the sheriff said eight of those taken into custody 25 were suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Arpaio has run several sweeps in Maricopa County in the past year aimed at rounding up illegal immigrants for arrest and eventual 26 deportation 27. Those sweeps drew widespread criticism, charging Arpaio's department with racial profiling. Arpaio denies the allegation and accuses the Justice Department of targeting his office's efforts to combat illegal immigration in Maricopa County. That includes Phoenix, which has one of the highest concentrations of undocumented immigrants in the country. For NPR News, I'm Gillian Ferris Kohl in Flagstaff.

Shares of software giant Microsoft took a hit today, that's after the company announces its first annual sales decline in more than two decades. For the just completed fiscal 28 year, the company says sales sank three percent.