From NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Speer.
Scores of communities along the upper Mississippi River continue to fight the rising waters even as levees（防洪堤） around the area begin to fail. The governors of both Illinois and Missouri were on site today would assess the situation. From member station KWMU in St. Louis, Adam Allington reports.
At 4 a.m. this morning, floodwaters began overtopping levees between the towns of Hannibal, Missouri and Quincy, Illinois. The levees protect the two cities well used by the town of Palmyra. 4000 acres are farmland and Birlington northern real road tracks. In the town of Carlston, Missouri, tractors are piling sand for sandbags. Joy S is the town's mayor. Your heart sick for the people who are in business here, who having everything out. Second of all, your heart sick for the people who have lived for long time and seen the town go threat before and hoped would not happen again. Officials in Hannibal said the city is in pretty good shape. In Lincoln County, floodwaters are overtopping levees' long highway 79, threatening the towns of Elsberry, Winfield, Old Monroe and Foley. For NPR News, I am Adam Allinton in St. Louis.
Congressional Democrats are rejecting President Bush's call today for more domestic oil production. NPR's Debbie Elliott has more.
President Bush wants lawmakers to lift ban on drilling off parts of American shores. We should expand American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS. His proposal didn't get warm reception from House Democrats. Massachusetts' Congressman Ed Markey is Chairman of the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. If this was a good plan, then they would have adopted it over the six years they controlled the House, the Senate and presidency when they headed monopoly on political power. One of biggest reasons they are gonna be successful was the governors in Florida, the governors in California Republicans are going to screen. Florida Governor Charlie Crist says Congress should let state decide whether to allow drilling off their coasts. Debbie Ellitt, NPR News, the Capitol.
President is sending the US Energy Secretary to Saudi Arabia for one-day meeting of major oil producers and consumers. The White House announced today Samuel Bodman will lead the US delegation ahead to the meeting which is being hosted by the world's largest oil producer. Saudi's called the meeting of oil producing and consuming nations to discuss ways of dealing with soaring energy prices and to work to try to prevent further increases.
Congress for a second time has enacted a massive 290-billion-dollar farm bill. The Senate voting 80-14 to overwrite President Bush's veto the bill more than the two third majority need to enact the measure. Most of the farm bill was putting place in May when House and Senate lawmakers overwrote the presidential veto at that time over a * 34 missing pages of the legislation.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 131 points to close at 12,029 today. The DASDAQ lost 28 points. The S&P fell 13 points.
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According to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, North Korea is expected to soon present China with a long overdue declaration of the country's nuclear programs. Rice made a statement during a speech at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank issues presenting a broad defense * ministration policy toward North Korea. North Korea was supposed to produce declaration at the end the last year under a multilateral agreement which the country committed to banning its nuclear program in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives. Such move would clear the way for the lifting of US sanctions.
Chief Judge of the Federal District Court in Washington Royce Lamberth met today with government in Guantanamo detainee's lawyers on how to handle the cases of some 200 detainees who were challenging their tensions. Last week, the Supreme Court ordered the cases to go forward. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.
Lamberth and former chief judge Thomas Hogan met with some two dozen lawyers representing the government of the detainees. The rare decision they face is from the logistical hearings had to provide foreign finance security measures to critical legal questions. There are about a dozen judges who have been assigned these cases, and there is concern about contradictory rulings on why the information the government must produce and how fast, what standard of the proof is to justify holding a detainee （被拘留者, 未判决囚犯）in prison and what to do with the many detainees who have been cleared for release but whose home countries have refused taking back. Judge Lamberth, the Judge Hogan, are trying to resolve some of these questions in advance. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
Mortgage rates have been moving higher, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose about 6.5% last week. That's highest rate has been since July last year.
I'm Jack Speer, NPR News in Washington.
