NPR NEWS 2008-02-29

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From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

President Bush says the US is not headed for a recession, but in Mr. Bush's words, there is no question the country is in a slowdown. His remarks in Washington today are backed by the latest reports and the Commerce and Labor¹ Departments, showing minimal² growth in the Gross Domestic Product while jobless claims continue to rise.

The economy is figuring prominently in presidential campaigning today. In Ohio, Senator Hillary Clinton is taking part in the town hall meeting this hour. She and Senator Barack Obama are in a very tight race for delegates in Ohio and Texas. Clinton heads for Texas tonight. Obama is already there and NPR's Don Gonyea is covering that campaign.

Senator Obama is campaigning across Texas today. He started his day with a town hall meeting focusing mostly on the economy in the state capital of Austin. Again it was/ a big rally, it was one of those events where he focuses on policy and tries to flush out some of the things that he talks about in his more general stump³ speeches. From here, he's off to Beaumont, Texas and he has an event in Fort Worth as well. The candidate will overnight in Houston with another full slate⁴ of events across Texas which holds voting on Tuesday. But Senator Obama is also pushing people to vote early in Texas. That is allowed and Friday is the last day they can do that. NPR's Don Gonyea is covering the Obama Campaign.

Third-party candidate Ralph Nader has a running mate Matt Gonzalez. He is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors⁵.  

Israel aircraft bombed sites across the Gaza strip today killing⁶ at least 14 Palestinians including 4 children. Israel has stepped up attacks on Hamas a day after a rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian⁷. NPR's Eric Westervelt has more from Jerusalem.

The 2-day Palestinian death toll⁸ from Israeli air strikes in Gaza is now at least 27 including 7 children. That's according to Doctor Muawiya Hassanein, a medical director in Gaza City. Among today's dead were four boys whose ages ranged from 8 to 14 who witnesses say were playing soccer in a field in north Gaza. The Israeli military says it was targeting rocket launching squads⁹ and regrets the civilian death. The rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel continued unabated today including several longer-range rockets that hit the city of Ashkelon twelve miles north of Gaza. Israeli government spokesman David Baker¹⁰ called the attacks on Ashkelon "a clear escalation¹¹ and one we will not tolerate". Eric Westervelt NPR News, Jerusalem.

On Wall Street, the Dow was down 128 points to 12,566. NASDAQ down now about 22 points at 2,332. S&P 500 down about 13 at 1,366.

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The Bush administration is taking issue with a spate¹² of Democratic-backed ideas to defuse the housing crisis among other major economic worries for the US. Today, Treasury¹³ Secretary Henry Paulson said while some in Washington are proposing big interventions¹⁴, most of the ideas he has seen will do more harm than good. Paulson is expected to say that and more in remarks tonight to the Economic Club of Chicago.

Death row inmates¹⁵ in Connecticut have won the right to challenge the state's death penalty. From member station WNPR in Hartford Lucy Nalpathanchil reports.

Seven inmates say there's evidence of disparities in the state's death penalty based on race and geography. A state superior court judge says the inmates can pursue their claim because Connecticut constitution gives defendants¹⁷ greater protection in proving this argument than the federal constitution. Attorney David Golub says the inmates’ case was based on the study of death penalty from 1973 that found the system was unfair. "The goal for these inmates is that their death sentences would be overturned and they would be sentenced to life in prison." Previously¹⁸ several judges had rejected the challenge. They based their decision on a US Supreme¹⁹ Court ruling, which said evidence specific to a defendant¹⁶ and not statistic²⁰ showing bias²¹ is necessary to challenge individual's death sentence based on a racial claim. For NPR News, I'm Lucy Nalpathanchil in Hartford.

At least four people, three of them children are listed in critical condition after yesterday's shooting at a Los Angles bus stop. Authorities say they are still searching for the gunman who opened fire at a busy intersection²², hitting 8 people.

I'm Lakshimi Singh, NPR News, in Washington.

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a full slate of sth. 在这里=a full list of，满满一张名单的。

unabated 不减少的

escalation 增加，提高