NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2015-05-08（打印版）

The mayor of Baltimore is asking the Justice Department to look into whether there are patterns of discrimination and excessive force in the city’s police department. NPR’s Hazel Ova reports U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is considering the request. Meanwhile, CVS Health says it will rebuild its store locations that were badly damaged by the fire last week during protests in Baltimore. CVS Health President and CEO Larry Merlo said that he cannot say exactly when damaged stores will reopen, but CVS is working to reopen them as soon as possible. The company says two store locations will be rebuilt. CVS has nearly 30 stores and more than 500 employees in Baltimore. The Rhode Island-based chains says it paid employees at the two stores for their regularly scheduled hours the week of the protest.

A bipartisan push to establish a humanitarian safe zone in war-torn Syria encountered some opposition today from top U.S. defense officials. As NPR’s David Welna reports, such a move has been resisted for months by the Obama administration.

Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin used the defense spending hearing to tell Pentagon leaders that he and several other Senators from both parties want a safe zone for refugees from the killing in Syria.

“Though this may not be a genocide by classic legal definition, it is the humanitarian crisis for our time.”

But Defense Secretary Ash Carter says creating a safe zone is difficult to contemplate.

“It’s practical militarily, but it would be a significant policy decision to do so.”

So far that decision has not been made. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.

U.S. payroll processor ADP is reporting that hiring slowed in April to its weakest pace in more a year with businesses adding just 169,000 jobs, lower than the 175,000 added in the previous month. Still Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi says he expects the jobless rate to continue to improve.

“All we need is create 125,000 jobs per month to maintain a stable rate of unemployment, given the growth in labor force. So even at 175, we created 50 say plus more jobs than we need. That means unemployment will continue to decline.”

The Labor Department is out with April’s unemployment report on Friday.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen rattled markets earlier today when she suggested that stocks generally are overvalued. She spoke at a conference at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. She was answering a question about potential risks to financial stability.

The Treasury Department has announced it will aim to run an operating balance between $200bn and $225bn. That’s better than double the existing amount of roughly $80bn. The increase is designed to let the government pay its bills for about a week in the case of a disruption such as a cyber-attack.

The lead singer of British punk group Hot Chocolate has died. As NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports, Errol Brown died this morning of liver cancer. He was 71 years old.

Hot Chocolate’s biggest hit from 1975 found an appreciative new audience a generation later in the 1997 movie The Full Monty.

Hot Chocolate generated about 30 British hits, many more serious in theme. Errol Brown wrote or co-wrote a number of them, including “Brother Louie” about an interracial romance.

A rewritten version will sound very familiar to fans of the FX show Louie. Brown’s success let him more or less retire from music and lead what seemed to be a quiet happy life. Brown died in the Bahamas with wife of more than 40 years by his side. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

Former Speaker of the House James Wright, a Texas Democrat, known for his oratorical flourishes, has died in Fort Worth at age of 92. Wright was first elected to the U.S. House in 1954 and rose to serve as majority leader, later succeeding Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil. Two years later, facing ethics challenges, Wright surrendered the Speaker seat.

NPR美国国家公共电台 NPR 2015-05-08（在线收听）