NPR 2011-03-23

The sound of heavy anti-aircraft fire booms in the Libyan capital Tripoli, where forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi are defiantly 1 responding to US-allied air strikes. NPR's David Greene is in Tripoli, where he says Gaddafi backers are out despite fears of dangerous conditions.

There appears to be mostly government supporters who are out honking 2 their horns and driving around to sort of act defiantly in the face of it. We know that a lot of people in Tripoli have, especially after dark, been going into their homes and hunkering down. This is about the same time that the air strikes have begun the last two nights that are usually just before 9 pm. This is the third night in a row. It happened around that time, and then they also had to go later on until the evening.

NPR's David Greene in Tripoli.

As coalition 3 air strikes in Libya intensify 4, questions linger over who should be in charge of enforcing the UN-backed no-fly zone. Eleanor Beardsley reports that specifically allies are divided over the role NATO should play.

Italy warned that it would review the use of its air bases by coalition forces if NATO does not take over, and Norway says its fighter jets will not participate until a clear command structure is in place. There is some coordination 5 of French, British and American manoeuvers out of US air bases in Ramstein, Germany and Naples, Italy. The US says it will soon scale back its role and has hinted that it would like to see NATO take charge, but France disagrees. It says the coalition needs Arab support and believes NATO's reputation is damaged in the Arab world because of Afghanistan. NATO's participation 6 in any military action against Libya would also require approval by all 28 members. For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

All six reactors 8 at the damaged nuclear plant in Japan are reconnected to external power, but Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plant, says it still has a lot of work to do before the site's controlling cooling systems are fully 9 operational again. NPR's Larry Abramson reports that there're still a lot that's not known about the conditions of the reactors.

The power company says it has restored lighting 10 to the control room to reactor 7 No.3, which has been a source of major concern since the March 11th earthquake and tsunami 11. The head of Japan's nuclear safety agency says recent progress means that a full scale meltdown is now unlikely. The International Atomic Energy Agency says the plant continues to emit radiation, but the source remains 12 unclear. Japanese officials say they have detected higher-than-normal radiation levels in seawater near the plant and in food grown nearby, but they say there should be no immediate 13 impact on human health. Larry Abramson, NPR News.

And today, the Japanese government says more than 9,000 people are confirmed dead from the earthquake-triggered tsunami. As many as 13,000 people are believed to be missing.

At last check on Wall Street, the Dow was down nearly 20 points at 12,019.

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Justice Department leaders met with police chiefs today about the rising number of deaths in law enforcement. Attorney General Eric Holder 14:

"In 2010, we mourned the loss of 162 officers, and we saw firearms fatalities 15 surge by nearly 25%."

Holder is directing 93 US attorney offices to work more closely with state and local police departments on this matter.

Well, we're seeing a population boom in cities in the South and West. It's just the opposite in the Midwestern US, where a lot of cities are actually losing residents. By far, the worst hit is Detroit. NPR's Alex Kellogg says census 16 data released today reveal that in the last decade Detroit's population plunged 17 25% to the lowest level in that city in a century.

The city of Detroit now has just over 713,000 people. That's the smallest number of people it has had since 1910. That's before Henry Ford 18, who founded Ford Motor Company, offered $5 a day to auto 19 workers. That helped spark a boom that led Detroit's population to explode in the first half of the 20th century. Detroit had nearly two million people in 1950. It had just over 950,000 people as of 2000. That makes Detroit one of the fastest shrinking cities in US history. In fact, according to an analysis by the Detroit Free Press, the city lost a resident every 22 minutes in the past decade. Alex Kellogg, NPR News, Washington.

Losses in US stocks today: At last check, the Dow was down 18 points at 12,019 in trading of four billion shares; the NASDAQ Composite Index off eight points at 2,684; S&P 500 down five at 1,294.