NPR 2010-10-29

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

Investigators 1 appear to be contradicting claims by Halliburton that its cement job was no responsible for the BP blowout that led to a historical oil spill in the Gulf 2 of Mexico. NPR's Jeff Brady says the news led to a sharp drop in Halliburton shares this afternoon.

The chief council for the national oil spill commission says in a letter that test result last spring should have raised questions about the cement used to seal BP's well. Halliburton was contracted by BP to cement the well. It blew out April 20th, killing 3 11 workers and eventually releasing more than 4 million barrels of oil into the water. BP has previously 4 identified the faulty cement make it is a possible cause of the accident, but the company declined to comment on this latest development. A spokeswoman for Halliburton says the company is reviewing the commission report. Jeff Brady, NPR News.

Distraught his survivor 5 of Monday tsunami 6 of Sumatra recounts ordeal 7 on TV 1. Many hundreds more share a similar account of massive waves sweeping 8 away loved ones into the sea. The death toll 9 has climbed to at least 370. Hundreds are still missing. In another part of the seismically 10 active region, Indonesians are also grieving the deaths of dozens of people in a volcanic 11 eruption 12 that struck just 24 hours after the tsunami. From Djakarta, Julie Simon reports on the uncertainty 13 confronting thousands of evacuees 14.

Tens of thousands are displaced and living in government camps. The camps are not far from the holy Buddhist 15 Temple, Borobudur, in Java. Some of evacuees eat instant noodles for dinner tonight, but others await donations of water and food. The evacuees will spend the night in communal 16 tents in schools. For NPR News, I'm Julie Simon in Djakarta.

The crisis in home foreclosures in the US isn't getting any better. In some metropolitan 17 areas, it's actually getting worse, as NPR's Paul Brown explains.

RealtyTrac, which monitors the foreclosures market, says foreclosures are now following expanding unemployment problems where once they were largely correlated with bad loans and overpricing. The means markets including Seattle and Chicago are seeing more foreclosures than before. RealtyTrac's Rick Shager says he expects fairly stagnant 18 home prices until 2014.

Simply because of the volume of properties that have already been repossessed by the banks and need to be sold, and the 6 millions of properties that are either in foreclosure or seriously delinquent 19.

California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida continue to have the highest foreclosure rates, after overbuilding, a housing bubble and the bust 20. Paul Brown, NPR news.

At last check on Wall Street, Dow Jones Industrial Average down 17 points at 11,110, NASDAQ showing gains up four points at last check at 2,507. From Washington, this is NPR News.

At least one death is reported from a rare autumn storm system that pummeled much of the U.S. this week. Authorities in central Michigan say a utility worker, who was clearing collapsed 21 trees, died last night when he touched a live wire. Other workers faced similar dangers in several states where power outages were reported.

Now, more evidence that exercise is good for you. As NPR's Patti Neighmond reports, the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that breast cancer risk decreased among postmenopausal women who walked briskly for about an hour pretty much every day.

The type of walking researchers are talking about is really quite fast. Three to four miles an hour which means it's not easy to hold a conversation. But when women scheduled this daily exercise and stuck to it, it seemed to decrease their risk of getting breast cancer after menopause by 15%, and even among women who were somewhat sedentary before menopause, if they boosted their activity after menopause, they also reduced their breast cancer risk. And walking appeared more protective than other activities like swimming or hiking. Harvard researchers analyzed 22 date from nearly 100,000 women involved in an on-going, long-term study of women and health. Patti Neighmond, NPR news.

The Pew Hispanic Center reports Latinos fear backlash over immigration and border security issues. It's less than a week to go before midterm election. The center reported more than 60% of Hispanics say discrimination against minority group is a major problem. That is up from 54% back in 2007.