NPR 2012-07-18

 The presidential candidates are trading bards 1 today around outsourcing and in charges of cronyism 2. Today President Obama's campaigning is in Texas, whose governor recently joined other republican governors in rejecting the affordable 3 care acts Medicaid expansion. Addressing supporters San Antonio, the president defended the law his republican critics had dubbed 4 Obama Care. 

 
The affordable health care act, otherwise known as Obama Care, was the right thing to do.
 
Meanwhile republican challenger Mitt 5 Romney continues to challenge the president on his economic policies including an extension of tax cuts for low and middle income earners, but not for wealthier individuals and businesses. 
 
President justifies 6 taking more of what people earn by saying look, this is also my system of government that makes things possible for entrepreneurs and innovators. That's true. But let’s stop and think about the system of government and what it tells us in its founding document, The Declaration of Independence. It does not say that the government gave us our right. It said that God gave us rights. They come with us, not with government.
 
Romney speaking earlier today in Irwin, Pennsylvania. 
 
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke is painting a less optimistic picture of where the US economy is headed if congress doesn't reach a deal soon on averting 7 a budget crisis. 
 
Given that growth is projected to be not much about (or maybe above?) the rate needed to absorb new entrance into the labor 8 force, the reduction in the plummet 9 rate seems likely to be frustratingly 10 slow. Indeed the central tendency of participants forecast now has the unemployment rate at 7% or higher at the end of 2014. 
 
But there's been more up in use in housing.?? NPR's Paul Brown reports home builders are more optimistic than they've been in years. 
 
The national association of home builders says its housing market index produced with Wells Fargo is up 6 points for July. At the index at 35 is that the highest since March of 2007. But 50 on the 100 point scale is a balancing point between overall optimism and pessimism 11. And the trade group's chief economist 12 David Crowe says
 
By no means that we are out of woods here. We simply, I think, are seeing some more frequent signs of recovery than I had in the past. 
 
Crowe says among those signs, more serious buyers, but he says it's still tough for both builders and buyers to get loans. Paul Brown, NPR News, Washington.
 
Alabama police say the suspect involved in the mass shooting at Tuscaloosa bar overnight is in custody 13. They say the man surrendered to authorities. He's accused of firing at the crowded Copper 14 Top Bar near the University of Alabama campus. 17 people were sent to the hospital.
 
An official of HSBC has resigned from his current post. David Bagley who was in charge of compliance 15 for the London based international firm announced he was stepping down to take on another position. This comes out an investigation 16 found lax controls at the firm allowed Mexican drug cartels to laundry billions of dollars. 
 
This is NPR.
 
The Food and Drug Administration says the plastic additive 17 BPA will no longer be allowed in baby bottles and sippy cups sold in the US. Details from NPR's Jon Hamilton. 
 
The FDA's ban came in response to a request from companies that make baby bottles and sippy cups. Those companies no longer put BPA in plastic products intended for young children. They saw the ban as a way to reassure 18 consumers that plastic baby products are safe. Some consumer advocacy group's said called on the FDA to ban BPA from all food packaging because it connect like the hormone 19 estrogen in the body. But in March the FDA rejected that request, saying scientific evidence did not justify 20 such a ban. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
 
The retired 21 Pulitzer Prize winning columnist 22 William Raspberry has died of cancer at the age of 76. NPR's David Folkenflik has this appreciation 23. 
 
In 1952 Raspberry left his native Mississippi for college in Indiana where he wrote for a local black weekly. After 2 years in the army he joined the Washington Post in 1962 as a teletype operator, making his mark when he was sent to cover Watts 24 Riots in California. Through his career as a columnist, Raspberry cast a keynote? on pressing social issues, especially questions of race and economics, pushing for justice throughout. He was uniformly sibling 25 tone, but occasionally proved unpredictable, opposing mandatory 26 busing for desegregating schools, for example. Raspberry taught for 10 years at Duke University after retiring. His survivors 27 include his wife Sondra Dodson Raspberry, 3 children and his 106 mother /Willy Nate Tucker/? Raspberry. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
 
I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News, Washington.