NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2014-07-18

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The boys were all cousins between 9 and 12 years old. Young men chanting praise to god carried them on stretchers from a neighbourhood mosque² to a family graveyard³. Their bodies were covered. Their small faces exposed. One survivor⁴, a 23-year-old man said he ran to help the boys after the first Israeli strike, but was caught in a second explosion that hit moments later. Israel says it was targeting members of the militant⁵ group, Hamas, which has continued to shoot rockets into Israel. At the request of the United Nations, Israel plans to take a humanitarian⁶ pause in strikes for part of Thursday. Emily Harris, NPR News, Gaza.

 

President Obama met with Secretary of State John Kerry today. The two discussed a way forward in Iranian nuclear talks. White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, says the country's track record in terms of implementing⁷ an interim⁸ agreement has been surprisingly favorable. However, Earnest also says differences remain between the two sides as they work torward July 20th accord. According to some published reports, the sides have tentatively agreed to extend talks past that deadline. 

 

Treasury⁹ Secretary, Jack¹⁰ Lew, is urging lawmakers to crack down on corporations that try to dodge¹² US taxes by merging¹³ with companies overseas. NPR's Scott Horsley reports more than a dozen US firms have tried to take advantage of universe since beginning of the year.

 

The Treasury Secretary is asking lawmakers to close an increasingly popular tax loophole in which US companies merge¹⁴ with foreign firms and move their headquarters overseas. That allows the companies to enjoy a lower foreign tax rate, even if their business operations have barely changed. On CNBC, the Treasury Secretary called for a new sense of economic patriotism¹⁵. 

 

It's not right to take an American firm, to benefit from all of the things that we do in the United States to make a safe place to do business, but then to say I don't want to pay taxes here to shift my corporate¹⁶ address overseas to pay lower tax rate or no taxes.

 

The Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing next week to consider international taxes, though the chairman of the House Tax Rating Committee is skeptical¹⁷ of any short term fix. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

 

Labor¹⁸ Department says the producer-price index for June was up 0.4%, though excluding volatile¹⁹ food and energy, the increase was about half that. M does not think it's a sign inflation's heating up. 

 

Literally²⁰, it indicates economy is improving, getting stronger, moving in the right direction, but there's still a lot of slack in the economy, the unemployment rate is still very high, there are still a lot of under-employed workers. So I don't think we are at a point yet where price pressures are developing at least to a significant degree.  

 

Gas prices were up nearly 6.5% in June.

 

On Wall Street, the Dow was up 77 points. 

 

This is NPR.

 

Volkswagen was able to bounce General Motors out of its number 2 spot in the global auto²¹ sales race during the first half of the year. Though industry leader Toyota is likely to continue to hold on its number 1 position. The automative packing order generally based on sales numbers would show that Volkswagen sold 4.97 million vehicles for the first six months of the year, compared with 4.92 million for General Motors. Toyota does not release its first quarter sales numbers till later this month. But the company said it's on track to sell more than 10 million vehicles worldwide this year.

 

Watchdogs are finding serious deficiencies in the Justice Department response to longstanding problems with the FBI Crime Lab. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports it took years to notify defendants²³ on death roll that evidences have been tainted²⁴.  

 

The inspector²⁵ general says the Justice Department and the FBI move far too slowly to examine flawed cases. Earlier investigations²⁶ had identified trouble with 13 FBI lab workers. But Watchdogs say prosecutors²⁷ did not treat the issue with enough urgency. One Texas defendant²², Benjamin Boyle , was executed before task force could review his case. The Justice Department responds the effort dating back to 1997 took unprecedented²⁸ manpower. It says the vast majority of cases involved insignificant²⁹ mistakes that required no follow-up. Most of the workers responsible for the problems long ago, left Justice and the FBI. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.

 

Device maker¹¹ Apple says it's agreeing to pay out $400 million to compensate³⁰ consumers who were caught up in an effort by the company to raise the price of digital books. Terms of the settlement were disclosed today during a court filing, come a month after the attorney suing Apple notified the US District Court judge an agreement had been reached.

 

I'm Jack Speer, NPR News, in Washington.

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