NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2014-04-10

 President Obama has signed new executive measures as part of his effort to close the persistent 1 pay gap between men and women. NPR Scott Horsley says federal contractors 2 will soon have to give the government more information about how much they pay their male and female employees. Obama’s executive order is part of a concerted portion this week by Democrats 3 in Washington to address what they say is an unfair gap in the typical pay for men and women, even those doing the same jobs. While Obama’s order applies only to federal contractors, the senate is preparing to vote on the bill to extend similar equal pay protections throughout the economy. “Equal pay is not just an economic issue for millions of Americans and families. It’s also about whether we ** economy that works for everybody, and whether we’re gonna do our part to make sure that our daughters have the same chances to pursue their dreams as our sons.” Congressional Republicans are likely to block the bill, which they say is a desperate political maneuver 4 to deflect 5 attention from a slow growing economy that’s * opportunity. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

 
Federal safety regulators say they’ll be fining General Motors 7,000 dollars a day stretching back to last week for missing a deadline for fully 6 responding to questions about defective 7 ignition switches. But Michigan Radio’s Tracy Samilton reports the auto 8 maker 9 insists that it has been cooperating with investigators 10. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it will fine General Motors everyday it goes past the April 3rd deadline to answer a long list of questions about the recall. NHTSA is investigating why GM took 10 years to recall 2.6 million vehicles with faulty ignition switches linked * 13 debts. The agency adds it is deeply troubling that the company is unwilling 11 or unable to answer how many times the switch was re-designed. GM says it’s working tirelessly to comply, submitting 21,000 documents to NHTSA. GM promises to provide all the answers as they become available. For NPR News, I’m Tracy Samilton.
 
Corporations begin releasing their latest earnings’ reports this week and Wall Street investors 12 will be watching closely. NPR’s Chris Arnold reports many analysts 13 have somewhat muted expectations. It’s that time again when public companies have to announce to the world whether they’ve been making money or losing it and how much. The long called winter has been hurting many companies. Some firms have been warning that too bit of a stronger US dollar is making US products more expensive and therefore less competitive abroad. Going forward though many economists 14 think that overall business will pick up for big public companies as the weather improves. And in a positive sign for smaller firms, a survey of small businesses showed more optimism about sales gaining some ground as well. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
 
The Labor 15 Department says employers posted more than 4 million job openings in February, that’s an 8% gain over the previous month. This is NPR News.
 
Crews searching the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian jetliner have not picked up any more of the faint underwater * sounds that were detected over the weekend. There had been hope that those sounds may have been coming from the plane’s flight data and voice recorders.
 
If you make purchases online or use Gmail or sign into work remotely over a private network, your communications may not be as safe as you think. NPR’s Steve Henn reports a flaw in the widely used encryption program could expose many of the internet’s encrypted traffic to eavesdropping 16. One of the widely used encryption tools online is called OpenSSL. In Monday, researchers at Google and a cyber security company Codenomicon revealed there’s a bug 17 in the code that implements 18 that program. The bug, which they named “Heartbleed”, can expose users’ secure encryption keys. Once a hacker 19 or spy has that key, it’s possible to decode 20 and read what happened in encrypted information like credit card numbers or user passwords as they flow over a network. This encryption tool OpenSLL is incredibly popular, in part because it’s free. As news of the “Hearbleed” bug spread, sites all over the internet have been scambling to install the fix. Steve Henn, NPR News, *.
 
Archie of comic book fame, is going to be killed off this summer. Archie Comics says the redhead will sacrifice himself while saving a friend’s life in a July installment 21 of “Life with Archie”. That’s a comic series that tells the story of Archie and his friends as adults.
 
Two undefeated teams The University of Connecticut and Notre Dame 22 are battling it out for the NCAA women’s basketball championship. UConn leads Notre Dame * 63-42 with the battle of minutes left.