NPR 2010-10-12

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The next 24 hours are expected to be especially tense for those trying to rescue miners who've been trapped nearly a mile underground for more than two months in Chile. Crews are shoring up a long escape shaft¹ that they set up to pull the 33 men out, starting around midnight Tuesday to Wednesday. Mining Minister Laurence Golborne says medical personnel are standing² by for the miners.

"They will be immediately taken to a zone that we have called triage, which in this zone they are gonna receive first aid, immediately first aid and they are gonna be allocated³ in terms of their medical conditions."

Golborne says all the miners appear to be in good physical and emotional condition.

At the White House today, President Obama met with mayors, governors and cabinet officials to discuss a plan for improving America's infrastructure⁴. NPR's Ari Shapiro reports on the president's latest strategy to reduce unemployment.

This proposal would provide $50 billion to improve America's roads, rails and runways without adding to the deficit⁵, the White House says. Republicans in Congress have dismissed the proposal as another stimulus⁶ package. But speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Obama argued that there has traditionally been broad bipartisan support for infrastructure improvement. To drive the point home, he spoke⁷ to the press flanked by government officials from both parties. 

"There's no reason why the world's best infrastructure should lie beyond our borders. This is America. We've always had the best infrastructure. This is the work that needs to be done. There are workers who are ready to do it. All we need is the political will."

He said infrastructure investment can create jobs where they are needed most. Right now, one in five construction workers is unemployed⁸. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.

Economic policies that affect jobs are at the center of two Americans and a British-Cypriot scholar winning this year's Nobel economics prize. We have more from NPR's Paul Brown.

Peter Diamond of MIT, Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics shared the $1.5 million Nobel award. They've analyzed⁹ obstacles keeping buyers and sellers including employers and jobseekers from getting together efficiently¹⁰. Diamond says his research leads them to believe in stimulus efforts to get and keep as many people as possible working during recessions and recoveries.

"It's a primary job for the government to do things to speed that process, rather than just relying on the market doing it by itself, because it's so costly¹¹ to go slowly."

Diamond is a nominee¹² for a seat at the Federal Reserve. So far, Senate Republicans have opposed confirming him. Paul Brown, NPR News, Washington.

At last check on Wall Street, the Dow was up two points at 11,009.

This is NPR.

New York City police are investigating the source of military-grade explosives reported this morning in a garbage bag at a historic cemetery¹³ in Manhattan. Police Commissioner¹⁴ Raymond Kelly says a worker doing gardening at the site actually dug up the bag at Marble Cemetery last fall, but police just told about it today.

"It was thought on the back fence, close to the back fence of the cemetery, which is a structure on the other side of the fence. But you could reasonably glean¹⁵ from that it was put there to threaten any structure."

Kelly says the explosives were not capable of detonating.

A woman accused of sexually abusing girls at a South African school funded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey has been found not guilty on all charges. As Vicky O'Hara reports, the elite¹⁶ school opened in 2007 in a high-profile ceremony attended by Nelson Mandela.

Dormitory matron Virginia Tiny Makopo was arrested in November, 2007. She was accused of assaulting six girls as well as a colleague. When the charges were broad, Winfrey said she had been shaken to the core. The talk show host had said that she suffered sexual abuse herself as a child. Winfrey promised reforms at the school, which serves girls from disadvantage backgrounds. A spokesman for the prosecution¹⁷ says the state failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt. When Winfrey heard the news, she issued a statement, saying she was profoundly disappointed at the outcome. But Winfrey said she will be forever proud of the nine girls who had the courage to come forward and testify. For NPR News, I'm Vicky O'Hara in Johannesburg.