NPR 2008-09-21

The White House says the price tag for the administration's proposal to deal with the nation's financial crisis will range up to 700 billion dollars. That's the amount of spending authority being sought for the Treasury 1 Department to buy up troubled mortgage assets, a higher price than lawmakers were told just yesterday. President Bush says the dollar amount is high because the problem is big. "Over time we are gonna get a lot of money back. But right now the government needed to send a clear signal that we understood the instability could ripple 2 throughout and affect the working people and the average family. We weren't gonna let that happen. "Mr. Bush's speaking at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden after meeting with Colombia's president. Congressional staff members are working through the weekend on the proposal. And House and Senate leaders have pledged to have the measure approved by the end of next week, although they say they will make changes in the bill.

A huge truck bomb exploded in front of a hotel in Pakistan's capital today, killing 3 at least 40 people and injuring more than 250 others. NPR's Philip Reeves says the blast was very powerful. "The lower floors of this hotel which I know quite well, the fronts of it are completely taken off from and the glass windows that used to be there are removed. I can see into the rooms that lie beyond those windows. And those rooms are absolutely wrecked 4. "NPR's Philip Reeves in Islamabad says the death toll 5 may well rise because the blast triggered a fire in the hotel and rescuers have not been able to enter the building. Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik says officials were warned that there might be an attack possibly tied to the inaugural 6 address of the country's new president. "Two days back, we had a threat that the parliament is under threat. So we had taken all the security measures. "The explosion occurred just a few hundred yards from the Pakistani prime minister's house where all the leaders of the country's new government were having dinner.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has agreed to resign after leaders of his own governing party threatened to force him out of office. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton has more.

In the end, a bitter power struggle and divisive infighting within the president's ANC party cost Thabo Mbeki his job. His decision to resign comes just days after a judge suggested that Mbeki's government had meddled 7 in a corruption 8 case against his main political rival and erstwhile deputy Jacob Zuma who now heads the ANC. So South Africa needs a caretaker president to replace Mbeki until elections next year when he was due to step down after a two-term presidential limit. Mbeki's imminent 9 departure has both national and regional implications. Only on Monday he presided over the signing of a power-sharing deal for troubled Zimbabwe. Unfinished business across South Africa's border leaves a question mark over Mbeki's mediation 10 since Zimbabwe has yet to form a unity 11 government. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Dakar.

The presidential nominees 12 are spending some time this weekend preparing for their first debate. They will face off next Friday in Oxford 13, Mississippi.

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One week after Hurricane Ike pounded the Gulf 14 Coast, more than a million people in Texas and nearly a quarter of a million in Ohio are still without electricity as a result of the storm and its remnants. And in Nashville, at least half the city's gas stations are closed because of a reduction in supply from a gas pipeline 15 in the Gulf. Christine Buttorff of member station WPLN in Nashville has more.

At a gas station on Nashville's east side, the line was about 30 cars deep. Lines are like that or worse all over the city at the remaining stations which still have fuel. Many stations have taken the price numbers off signs or put yellow caution tape around pumps to warn drivers there's no gas. Jessie Boier was out filling her car while her distraught Chihuahua barked in the background. Boier says her low fuel light came on the day before. "So I've only been looking for a couple of days, but I had my mama on the computer back home. She found the website where they are keeping an update of where there was gas, so, she's been calling me and giving me updates then. " Boier was also filling a gas can for her boss who had run out of fuel. AAA expects some outages to continue through the end of next week. For NPR News, I'm Christine Buttorff in Nashville.

More than 100, 000 residents of Beaumont, Texas were permitted to return to their homes as a mandatory 16 evacuation order was lifted today. And evacuees 17 from Galveston will be allowed back on Wednesday. Galveston city manager Steve LeBlanc is warning people to expect challenging conditions. "You need to protect yourself from being cut or injured because again the hospital has very limited capability 18 to provide care." LeBlanc says there is still no municipal water or sanitation 19 service on most of the island.