NPR 2011-01-01

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A storm system is generating a series of apparent tornadoes¹, the latest reported in the Midwestern and Southern US. In the tiny Missouri town of Sunset Hills just outside St. Louis, Mayor William Nolan describes being stunned² by the damage.

"It's incredible, absolutely incredible, cars overturned, trucks overturned. It's kind of hard to believe that such a thing could happen to our city."

The Associated Press reports at least one storm-related death in Southwestern Missouri, no word yet on fatalities³ following a reported twister in Illinois. Quite a different story, though, in the small Arkansas town of Cincinnati. NPR's Giles Snyder reports at least three deaths and several injuries.

Shannon McCuin is a dispatch manager for the County Sheriff's Office. She says there is widespread damage around the tiny town of Cincinnati, which is near the Oklahoma line about 20 miles west to Fayetteville.

"We do have confirmed fatalities in that area; we do have injuries; and we actually are checking residents out."

McCuin says emergency responders are going door-to-door, but debris⁴ from the damage including downed power lines is making it harder to get medical help to the injured. Giles Snyder, NPR News.

A hostage crisis is still under way at a bank in a suburb of Houston, Taxes. Authorities say two armed robbers are holding an unknown number of people inside the building.

If you have money left in your Flexible Spending Account for medical care, there're some important changes you need to know about. As NPR's Julie Rovner reports, today is the last day you can spend that money on over-the-counter medications.

The changes are being made to help pay for the new health overhaul⁵ law. Starting January 1st, over-the-counter medications including things like aspirin⁶ and acids in allergy⁷ remedies will no longer be reimbursable⁸ under Flexible Spending Accounts or other tax-deductible health accounts, such as Health Reimbursement⁹ Arrangements or Health Savings¹⁰ Accounts. There is one exception. You can get a doctor to write a prescription¹¹ for the medications, but otherwise, you'd better start looking for an open drugstore to spend the rest of that use-it-or-lose-it money you've had withheld¹² from your paycheck all year. Julie Rovner, NPR News.

A Connecticut smoker¹³ who was awarded eight million dollars in her suit against Big Tobacco is getting an additional four million in punitive¹⁴ damages. Yesterday, a judge ruled in favor of Barbara Izzarelli who developed larynx cancer. Her case was the first of its kind to come to trial in Connecticut.

The Coast Guard is investigating why a dinner cruise ran aground off Hawaii yesterday. The vessel¹⁵ was carrying 60 people when the boat ran into trouble. No one was hurt.

Here's the latest from Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average up eight points at 11,578, but US stocks remain mixed. The NASDAQ is off about eight point; it's at 2,655.

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New claims of a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan today. Local intelligence says an unmanned drone fired on a convoy¹⁶ of suspected militants¹⁷, killing¹⁸ eight people. The area was hit with more than 100 such attacks this year.

The Obama administration is promising¹⁹ to boost efforts to keep the invasive Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes in 2011, but as NPR's David Schaper reports from Chicago, officials in some Great Lake states and environmental and conservation groups say the administration's plans don't go far enough.

The 47-million-dollar Asian carp battle plan for 2011 calls for scientists to refine environmental DNA²⁰ testing to better track where Asian carp are and to find new ways to block the path of the invasive species of fish toward the Great Lakes.

"The migration²¹ of Asian carp through the Chicago Area Waterway System, the Wabash River and the Calumet River is one of the most serious invasive threats facing the Great Lakes today."

John Goss, the White House point person for Asian carp, says the stakes are high as the huge, ferocious²² and predatory fish can crowd out native species and damage a multi-billion-dollar fishery in the Great Lakes, but officials in Michigan and other states as well as environmentalists and conservationists complain there is little new in the federal plan, and that the administration should move to re-separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds²³. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.

NASA is ordering more repairs to space shuttle Discovery, which is slated²⁴ to launch early February after a strain of delays. Engineers say they found more cracks in the shuttle's fuel tank. Discovery is due to rendezvous²⁵ with the International Space Station. It will be one of the final missions before NASA retires its 30-year-old shuttle program.

I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.