NPR 2010-04-28

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The Goldman Sachs executives are more than five hours into testimony¹ before the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations². The investment firm is taking hits for not disclosing. Its interests were at times at odds³ with those of its clients. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.

From the outset, the senators posed their questions like accusations⁴. Didn't the bank have a duty to tell its own clients that Goldman Sachs itself was shorting the mortgage market, betting on its decline? Arkansas Democrat⁵ Mark Pryor grilled⁶ Daniel Sparks, former head of the bank's mortgage division.

"Do you have responsibility to tell them what your positions are?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Market makers⁸ are going to have positions all the time and that's not something that is a responsibility of a market maker⁷ to tell your counterparties at all times how you're positioned."

"But why not? Shouldn't there be more transparency there?"

The executives denied wrongdoing but expressed regret that many of the mortgage-related investments soured. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.

President Obama is in Iowa on a tour focused on the rural American economy. Today, he stopped at an organic farm that supplies food for Iowa schools and businesses. Earlier in the day, he visited an Iowa plant that builds wind turbines. It was closed a few years ago, but recently it reopened. The president claimed credit, saying money from the stimulus⁹ law passed last year helped the plant open again. Meanwhile, he also set up a commission to work on cutting the national debt. He announced the 18-member bipartisan group and its work to lay out ways to cut excessive spending and the growing national debt.

Emergency officials along the Gulf¹⁰ Coast are preparing for an environmental disaster if the massive oil spill reaches the shore. An oil rig exploded off Louisiana and sank last week. And NPR's Debbie Elliott reports workers are trying to contain the spill that is 600 miles in circumference¹¹.

The oil slick is growing despite ongoing¹² clean-up efforts. Underwater, robotic submarines are trying to shut off the oil at its source. Northwest winds have helped to keep the spilled oil offshore¹³, but forecasters say the wind will shift out of the south later this week. That could push the slick closer to the northern Gulf Coast. Emergency officials from Venice, Louisiana to Pensacola, Florida are putting in place response plans for shoreline impacts which could threaten wildlife, tourism and fisheries. Republican Governor Charlie Crist of Florida says the offshore accident has him rethinking his position on oil and gas development off his state's coast. He says "if this doesn't give somebody pause, there's something wrong". Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Orange Beach, Alabama.

The stock market has plummeted¹⁴ today. On news, a major credit agency downgraded the Greece's debt. Standard & Poor's says the Greek debt is junk. The Greek finance minister says his country will make its next debt payment in May.

On Wall Street, the Dow closed more than 200 points lower.

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Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is facing money laundering¹⁶ charges in France. He was moved there today from a US federal prison in Florida. He served 17 years on drug smuggling¹⁷ convictions. France alleges¹⁸ he used French banks to launder¹⁵ drug proceeds.

A test that measures calcium¹⁹ buildup in the arteries²⁰ can help doctors better predict who's at risk for heart disease. NPR's Patti Neighmond reports on the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers already knew that screening for calcification²¹ in arteries of the heart could predict who might get heart disease and suffer a heart attack and who wouldn't, but they didn't know how much the calcium score increased the accuracy of that prediction. In the study, researchers from Northwestern University analyzed²² the risk for over 5,800 men and women of various ethnic²³ backgrounds. They looked at traditional risk factors like age, gender²⁴, smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol²⁵ and their ethnicity. For one group, they added a coronary calcium score which is determined²⁶ by a cardiac CT scan. They found the score added significantly to prediction of heart disease. Even so, they suggest more research and an editorial urges caution based on cost and radiation exposure. Patti Neighmond, NPR News.

The Charlie Brown and Snoopy characters from Peanuts are now moving to licensing²⁷ company Iconix. The sale is worth $175 million. E.W. Scripps sold the brand after holding it for 50 years. Peanuts was the comic strip of cartoonist Charles Schulz who retired²⁸ in 1999. At that point, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers around the world.