NPR 2012-05-09

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The device is said to be a more sophisticated version of the underwear bomb that failed to go off aboard a flight bound for Detroit in 2009. Officials say it contains no medal and has a more refined detonation² system. The president’s top counterterrorism adviser³ John Brennan says the device was a threat from the standpoint of design.

 

"We’re trying to understand, ah, aspects of the design to make sure that we’re able to take preventive actions.”

 

Brennan interviewed on ABC.

 

The Associated Press quotes an official as saying current detection methods would likely have spotted⁴ the shape of the explosive in the device, had the plot not been thwarted⁵ by the CIA. Craig Windham, NPR News, Washington.

 

The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has issued a passport to Aung San Suu Kyi. It’s a big deal for the opposition⁶ leader because, as NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reports from Canberra, this will allow Suu Kyi to travel overseas for the first time in 24 years, most of which were spent under house arrest.

 

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, said that she already has the document in hand. She applied⁷ for a passport after being elected to parliament for the first time in April 1st parliamentary by-elections. Suu Kyi is expected to travel to Europe in mid-June. She plans to visit Oslo, Norway to make a long overdue⁸ acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991, and she plans to visit Great Britain, where her two sons live. She’s also expected to revisit Oxford⁹, where she was a student in the 1970s and lived with her husband, the late British academic Michael Aris. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Canberra.

 

The student loan bill that would keep rates from doubling for millions of students before July 1st deadline is stalled in Congress. Today Senate Republicans blocked the legislation from debate. Howard University student Clarise McCants appealed to lawmakers in a news conference to work through their differences and pass an extension.

 

"If the Stafford loan rate doubles this year, it will make college more expensive next year and adds my overall debt level. That additional money could be used instead towards my dream of earning a graduate degree and working to make sure education becomes a right and not a privilege in America.”

 

Now both sides say they want to extend the 3.4% loan rate for students, but they disagree over how to pay for it. Democrats¹¹ want tax hikes for some private firms, and Republicans want to take money from the White House’s health care overhaul¹².

 

Here’s the latest from Wall Street, Dow Jones Industrial Average down 123 points, nearly 1%, at 12,885, NASDAQ down nearly 1% at 2,935, and the S&P 500 down again nearly 1%. 

 

This is NPR.

 

Utah becomes the first state in the nation today to require a 72-hour waiting period before women can undergo abortions¹⁵. NPR’s Howard Berkes says abortion¹⁴-waiting periods in other states are two days shorter.

 

Twenty four hours is the longest and most common waiting period in the 25 other states that mandate¹⁶ some sort of consoling between the decision to abort¹³ and the time the procedure is permitted. That’s according to the Guttmacher Institute's most recently list of abortion laws. Utah is actually the second state to enact¹⁸ a 72-hour waiting period. But South Dakota’s 2011 laws are on halt during a court challenge. So women in Utah become the first in the nation to face a three-day delay. Supporters of the law say it requires due consideration of a life-altering decision. Opponents say they’re still considering a legal challenge. Howard Berkes, NPR News, Salt Lake City.

 

Mitt¹⁷ Romney says President Obama should be more of a new Democrat¹⁰ like former President Bill Clinton, who was declared an end to the era of big government. The GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee¹⁹ lobbied for support today in Lancing, Michigan, where he is hoping his message against big government and higher taxes resonates with voters.

 

Greater uncertainty²⁰ of Europe’s fiscal²¹ health in the aftermath of two crucial elections is [slip] dragging down world stocks. In Greece, recently elected politicians are still unable to form a coalition²² government. The head of a leftist party spearheading the process opposes austerity measures that were required to receive international bailouts. Greece’s conservative say those bailouts save the country from default and the government will not renege from its commitment to spending cuts.

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