NPR 2010-12-29

Flights are arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport and so are the nightmare stories of being stuck on the tarmac for nearly 10 hours. The latest involves Cathay Pacific, whose passengers on at least one of the flights that arrived last night say they weren't allowed to disembark until this morning. There are similar stories from passengers aboard other international flights who say that after several hours on the tarmac, they've had to wait indefinitely for their bags. Amtrak's spokesman, Steve Kulm, says the rail service is also running slow.

"We still have some limited operations staying along in Northeast Corridor. We are not operating a full schedule today but our trains are moving."

Doug Doyle of member station WBGO in Newark says a lot of people who live in New Jersey 1 and New York are more than a little upset with the pace of the clean-up in their neighborhoods.

Democratic State Senator Carl Kruger calls New York City's response to the storm a colossal 2 failure. Fire officials say the unplowed streets made it hard to respond to emergencies, including a five-alarm blaze in a Queen's apartment building. Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the city's clean-up effort, saying the crews were being slowed down by abandoned cars on the streets. After spending two days on airport floors, thousands of restless passengers are getting testy 3. Many lined up at Newark Penn Station yesterday, just hoping to catch a train to their destination after their flights were canceled. Air travel is slowly returning to normal at the metro 4 area airports. For NPR news, I'm Doug Doyle in Newark.

People may have opened their pocketbooks a lot more than expected over the holidays but apparently 5 they are still not totally convinced the economy is getting better, as NPR's Scott Newman found out.

Over all, Americans shelled out more for clothes, jewelry 6 and other expensive gifts this Christmas than at any time since before the recession. But apparently, it doesn't mean they are any more confident about economic recovery. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for December dropped slightly to 52.5. Most analysts 7 had expected it to go up. That would have been in line with an especially encouraging report from Master Card on holiday retail 8 sales. Consumer confidence is intimately tied to consumer spending, and closely watched as a bellwether 9 for the larger economy. The private Conference Board says the percentage of people who say jobs are plentiful 10 was also down, with slightly more saying employment was hard to get. Scott Newman, NPR News, Washington.

Home prices are expected to keep falling in the nation's largest cities this coming year. The Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index fell 1.3% from September to October. The biggest drop was in Atlanta where prices plunged 11 nearly 3%. Even Washington D.C. where prices had been climbing for six months saw slight drop in October.

The Dow is down 33 at 11,588.

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The number of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty this year is up 37% from a year ago, a startling number for researchers who saw the death toll 12 among federal state and local officers drop for two straight years. NPR's Carrie Johnson says traffic accidents still account for the largest number of deaths.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, an non-profit group that promotes safety, says it's worried about the rise in officer deaths this year. Fifty-nine officers were shot and killed and 73 more died in incidents involving vehicles like cars and motorcycles. Texas led the nation with the most officer deaths followed by California and Illinois. In all, the law enforcement group says that deaths in the line of duty rose by nearly 40% over last year. They are concerned that budget problems are leaving police to do more work with fewer resources. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.

Italian police confirmed local anarchists 14 responded to a direct plea from their Greek counterparts to attack three embassies in Rome in the past week. Authorities say the group identified as Informal Anarchist 13 Federation 15 claimed responsibility for sending parcel bombs to further revolutionary violence. Yesterday's mail bomb sent to a Greek embassy was defused without anyone getting hurt, but others sent to the Swiss and Chilean embassies last Thrusday wounded two people.

Anger is boiling over in Bolivia where the government has hiked fuel prices by as much as 83%. Officials' move to offset 16 state subsidies 17 and increase the fuel production triggered a transportation strike.

The Dow was actually up more than 30 points, not down at 11,587 with NASDAQ off two at 2,665.