NPR 2010-02-14

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Barbara Klein.

At least nine people have been killed and dozens injured by a bomb at a busy restaurant in Western India. Anti-terrorism forces have been dispatched to the scene and major cities around the country have been placed on heightened alert. NPR's Philip Reeves has more from the capital New Delhi.

The explosion was at the German Bakery, a restaurant in the city of Pune in Western India. It's near a meditation 1 center popular with foreign visitors. A senior Indian official said intelligence services have initially 2 concluded it was a bomb in an unattended package. It detonated during the evening of a holiday weekend when the restaurant was busy. This is the first big attack of this kind since more than 160 people were killed in a multiple assault on the city of Mumbai in late 2008. That attack was the work of Pakistan-based militants 3. India responded by freezing peacemaking with Pakistan. Recently, India's moved towards ending that freeze. Only yesterday, India and Pakistan finalized 4 plans for high-level talks this month. Attentions are now focusing on whether this attack will impact those talks. Philip Reeves, NPR News, New Delhi.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan are leading a major offensive to push Taliban militants out of the southern town of Marjah. It's the largest area in southern Helmand province that remains 5 under Taliban control. Lieutenant 6 Ryon Angle says his company has met scattered 7 resistances, but he’s had to deal with buried mines and booby traps. "3/6 Lima Company came into the northwest area of Marjah and took this intersection 8 of the canals. There’s limited resistance much less than was expected, although we did find several IEDs and bombs and things like that." The military says Marjah has been a recruitment center for insurgents 9.

Police in Alabama have charged a college professor with murder after a deadly shooting spree at the University of Alabama at Huntsville yesterday. Oliver Stoutner of member station WLRH has details.

The UAHuntsville campus remains closed today after the shootings that left three faculty 10 members dead and another three university employees injured yesterday afternoon. Authorities say Biology Professor Amy Bishop 11 opened fire during a faculty meeting. She'd reportedly been denied tenure 12 and had lost her final appeal yesterday. Police say that a 9 mm pistol believed to be used in the shootings was found in the second-floor bathroom of the university's science and technology building where the shootings took place. University President David Williams said that classes had been canceled for all next week, and that a prayer service has been scheduled for tomorrow noon. For NPR News, I'm Oliver Stoutner in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Deep South is digging out of one of its deepest snowfalls on record. Hundreds of flights at Atlanta's International Airport have been canceled. More than half a foot of snow fell in South Carolina. And in Texas, the Dallas area got more than a foot. Tens of thousands of people throughout the region are without power.

This is NPR News in Washington.

The International Space Station has a new addition after its crew and space shuttle astronauts connected the new segment yesterday and opened the hatch last night. But NASA has run into a problem with a critical insulation 13 cover and engineers are trying to determine what to do about it. The new module 14 is an additional living compartment 15 for the space station crew.

On the first full day of competition at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, luge athletes won't face the full length of the sliding course in Whistler. Crews have made changes to the ice in response to a training accident yesterday that killed a Georgian slider. From Vancouver, NPR's Howard Berkes reports.

The changes were made for what luge officials called emotional reasons, given the death yesterday of 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili, who flew from the track at close to 90 miles an hour and slammed into a steel post. Overnight crews raised the sidewall coming out of the last turn of the track so that an athlete who crashes will stay on the ice. They also shaved the ice so that it presumably directs out-of-control sleds away from the wall. And they’re starting the men's competition from the women's start that eliminates the first turn and should slow the speed of sleds. There's a talk about starting the women's races lower as well. Luge officials essentially 16 blame "driver error" for the accident. They say the course is not too fast or too dangerous as some luge and bobsled athletes allege 17. Howard Berkes, NPR News, Vancouver.

President Obama today named White House official Rashad Hussain to be special envoy 18 to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. In a message to the US-Islamic World Forum 19 in Qatar, the president called Hussain a respected member of the American Muslim Community.

I'm Barbara Klein, NPR News in Washington.