NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2013-08-21

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The State Department employees who had been put on administrative³ leave following the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Lybia last year are back at work today. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports some members of Congress are furious and are now asking where is your accountability? According to his aid, Secretary of State John Kerry has been hands on and focused on learning from the lessons from the Benghazi attack. But officials say he agreed with the Accountability Review Board findings that no employee breach⁴ their duty. So those four employees who had been placed on administrative leave are back to work, though in different jobs. The chairman of the House Oversight⁵ and Government Reform Committee says the Obama Administration is not keeping its promises of accountability. Instead California Republican Darrell Issa accuses the State Department of offering a (quote) "charade⁶" that ends in the game of musical chairs. No one, he says, missed a single day on the payroll⁷. Michele Kelemen NPR News, Washington.   

In an unprecedented⁸ move, a Pakistani court is indicting¹⁰ former president Pervez Musharraf on murder charges in connection with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination¹¹ in 2007. His lawyer Afsha Adil says there is no proof Musharraf was involved.   

"The important thing is this: you will have to prove the allegations, with evidence, and still there is no evidence on record."  

The charges include murder and conspiracy¹² to commit murder.   

The Guardian¹³ newspaper in Britain says its London office no longer holds hard drives containing classified material leaked by former analyst¹⁴ Edward Snowden. It destroyed those but editor Alan Rusbridger says copies exist elsewhere.   

Military prosecutors¹⁵ have rested their case against Major Nidal Hasan, the alleged¹⁶ gunman in the 2009 rampage at Fort Hood², Texas.Acting¹⁷ in his own defense¹⁸, Hasan could begin tomorrow.   

Readers of Elmore Leonard's crime stories are remembering the man they called the the master of his genre¹⁹. He died this morning from complications of a stroke he suffered a few weeks ago. A number of Leonard's work such as "Get Shorty" were on screen hits.  

"Look at me, Harry²⁰. Where is my money? Where is my money?!"  

In a 1998 interview, Leonard said he tried to make his villains²¹ real.   

"I think of the bad guys as real people. You know, they have a certain humanity about them."   

Leonard passed away at his home in a suburb of Detroit. He was 87 years old.   

Before the closing bell Dow was down 8 points at 1503 and the NASDAQ was up 25. You're listening to NPR News.   

College students are relying more on government aid today than ever before. NPR's Claudio Sanchez has details. The new figures from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that from 2007 to 2011, the percentage of undergraduate students who depend on federal loans and grants jumped from 47 percent to 57 percent. And it's not just the neediest students ?students in all socioeconomic groups are increasingly dependent on government aid. The number of full-time²² students from families earning $60,000 to $80,000, for example, shot up from 2% to 18%. Students who rely on government aid receive about $8,200 on average. But this is climbing, too, because college tuition and fees at public institutions are going up." Claudio Sanchez NPR News.   

Republican U.S. senator Ted⁹ Cruz is renouncing²³ his Canadian citizenship²⁴. His birth certificate as first published by the Dallas Morning News shows the key party favor was born in Canada to an American mother. He has long maintained he was a U.S. citizen, but he says now it's time to fully²⁵ reflect that. Cruz's name has been floated as the potential presidential candidate in 2016.   

Al-Jazeera America, now beaming into nearly 48 million households in the United States. The Qatar-based news organization has been looking for firm foothold on American television and chance after buying Al Gore's former Current TV.   

A federal judge has approved Citigroup's $730 million settlement was bondholders'. It resolves claims that the bank hid its exposure to billions of dollars of toxic²⁶ mortgage assets since the country was on the cusp of a financial meltdown. 

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