NPR 2010-06-26

President Obama is praising congressional negotiators for working out a deal on an overhaul 1 of the rules governing Wall Street, and he is carrying his victory to Canada.

"This weekend in Toronto, I hope we can build on this progress by coordinating 2 our efforts to promote economic growth, to pursue financial reform, and to strengthen the global economy."

Mr Obama spoke 3 before leaving for Toronto for a summit devoted 4 to financial matters. He says the deal represents the strongest overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression. It still needs final congressional approval.

Officials are worried that a storm system brewing 5 in the western Caribbean could disrupt efforts to contain oil from BP's blown-out well in the Gulf 6 of Mexico. National Weather Service says there is a chance the storm can strengthen and hit the Mexico-Texas border next week. The top government official overseeing the spill response, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, says he's watching the weather closely.

"We have a very robust 7 hurricane contingency 8 plan that has been produced by our incident commanders. In general, our threshold to start taking action is 120 hours before gale-force winds are forecasted."

Investors 9 are worried about the storm's potential to make it more difficult to contain the spill. In Europe, BP shares fell sharply, down more than 6% today after hitting a 14-year low.

The administrator 10 of the 20-billion-dollar oil spill cleanup fund, Kenneth Feinberg, is cautioning against making fraudulent claims against BP. He says legitimate 11 damages should be paid quickly, but those that aren't should not.

"There is absolutely no sense at all driving BP into bankruptcy 12. That would be a disaster, a disaster."

Feinberg was speaking in Louisiana today.

At least three more American service members have died in Afghanistan. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports from Helmand province on a bloody 13 day that included the discovery of the bodies of 11 men, some of whom have been beheaded.

NATO military officials say one American service member has died following a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan on Thursday. Two more Americans died on Friday -- one in an explosion and one in an insurgent 14 attack. NATO didn't provide further information on the deaths, pending 15 notification of the service members' families. The deaths bring the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month to more than 80, including nearly 50 Americans. Afghan police in the southern Uruzgan province reported a grisly discovery in a farmer's field -- 11 bodies, some beheaded. Police say the men were Hazaras, a minority ethnic 16 group whose members are mostly Shiite Muslims. Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan.

On Wall Street, stocks at the close finished mixed, the Dow down four points at 10,147, the NASDAQ down six or rather up six points at 2,223.

And from Washington, this is NPR News.

For those web users who are not thrilled by ".com" or ".net" sites, Teri Schultz reports that the global Internet authority that grants naming rights will now allow ".xxx" after a year's long battle against it.

For a decade, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, has rejected the creation of the ".xxx", a sort of immediately identifiable red-light district for Internet users to wander through. But at its annual summit held in Brussels this year, ICANN admitted it had not been objective in its handling of the proposal made back in 2000 by Stuart Lawley of ICM Registry LLC. Lawley says ICANN's repeated refusal to allow the adult erotica zone was due to pressure from Christian 17 groups and governments trying to stop the spread of porn. He now expects to make $30 million a year by selling ".xxx" sites for 60 bucks 18 each.

He says he will donate $10 of each sale to a non-profit he set up to combat child pornography. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.

A day after he won the longest professional tennis match in history, American John Isner has lost his second-round match at Wimbledon. Isner looked tired from the outset, losing in straight sets to Thiemo de Bakker of the Netherlands. After the match, Isner said he knew it was going to be a tough day.

"When I went out there and hit that first serve, I knew, and it didn't have, you know, it didn't have much behind it. I knew I was in for some trouble. On top of that, I'm playing a really good player who is on top of his game. So, bundle those up together, just, it wasn't, you know, a recipe for success."

Isner held serve 69 consecutive 19 times in the final set of his record-breaking match against Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, who had lost his first four service games today.

I'm Giles Snyder, NPR News from Washington.