NPR 2011-08-04

 A partisan 1 standoff over a bill to fund the Federal Aviation Administration has the agency in partial shutdown and tens of thousands furloughed. Today at the White House, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called on Congress to get back to Washington.

 
"There are construction workers all over America that are ready to go to work. This is their season. This is the time when they make their money for their families so they can pay their house payments, they can buy food, they can make their car payments. And for members of Congress to give speeches about jobs and then go on their vacations, rings very hollow."
 
Out-of-work, as a result, 4,000 FAA employees and 70,000 construction workers connected to airport projects. 
 
Despite a grueling heat wave in the central US, the president scheduled an August bus tour of the Midwest. The focus will be jobs. Meanwhile, the president's reelection campaign is hoping to catch up with fundraising opportunities lost during the extended Washington debt-limit stalemate. 
 
The Justice Department has broken up a big international child pornography ring. As NPR's Carrie Johnson reports, 72 people are charged.
 
Federal investigators 2 started looking into the online bulletin board in December 2009, and officials say they were disgusted by what they found: Images of children under age 12 being abused by adults. Leaders of the service called "Operation Dreamboard" allegedly encrypted the images to avoid detection by law enforcement, and users got to the bulletin board by using proxy 3 servers to disguise their location. Authorities say they got search warrants on some of those servers and were able to find insiders to crack open the case. The Justice Department says it's arrested 52 people and it's looking for more. Authorities say they've identified some but not all of the children depicted 4 in the images. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
 
In the Middle East, a bloody 5 government crackdown continues against protesters in the Syrian city of Hama. We get more from NPR's Peter Kenyon.
 
It's been harder to reach anti-government activists 6 in Hama amid reports that communications have been cut. Activists say people trying to flee the city have come under fire and some have been forced back into their homes. Amateur video posted to the Internet appears to show increased movement of tanks and troops as the Syrian regime ignores international condemnation 7 and continues its military assault against demonstrators. Internet postings by activists groups said tank shells continued to fall as young demonstrators confronted the troops and security forces trying to prevent them from entering neighborhoods in the city center. Next door, Turkey's deputy foreign minister called the Hama violence an atrocity 8. Peter Kenyon, NPR News.
 
On Wall Street, some ground recovered. The Dow now down 10; the NASDAQ up.
 
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In San Angelo, Texas, the prosecution 9 is expected to rest its case today against the polygamist leader of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Leader Warren Jeffs. He's accused of sexually assaulting two girls that he took his brides during so-called spiritual marriages. 
 
A Klansman imprisoned 10 in connection with the killings 11 of two black teens in Mississippi during the 1960s is dead. NPR's Kathy Lohr has more on the conviction and death of James Ford 12 Seale.
 
Seale was convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy 13 in the deaths of two black men, Hanry Dee and Charles Moore. They were beaten, tied down with weights, and their bodies thrown into the river while they were still alive. That was in 1964. The prosecution of Seale came more than 40 years later in 2007. The prosecution was part of a federal effort to reopen civil rights cases. Seale maintained his innocence 14, but a former Klansman testified against him during the trial. Seale, who was 76 years old, died Tuesday after being transported to a hospital. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons says he does not know the cause of death. Kathy Lohr, NPR News.
 
There're now limits on Massachusetts State Lottery 15 ticket sales after the Boston Globe reported professional gamblers were gaming the system and issued the Cash WinFall game. Stores are now limited to a daily maximum of 5,000 dollars worth of sales in the game. The Globe reported that when buying over 100,000 dollars worth of the game's tickets at certain times of the year, professional gamblers found that they were virtually certain to score a profit.