NPR 2008-03-02（在线收听）

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Raum.

 Israeli forces pushed into the northern Gaza Strip today, killing more than 30 Palestinians in some of the fiercest fighting in the coastal territory in weeks. More than 60 Palestinians have been killed in 4 days of Israeli attacks in Gaza, which intensified after an Israeli civilian died in a rocket barrage on Wednesday. NPR's Eric Westervelt reports.

 Israeli infantry backed by tanks, attack helicopters and fighter jets fought their way into North Gaza in Jabalia on the outskirts of Gaza City today. The military says the operation is in response to ongoing rocket fire of the southern Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. Witnesses in Gaza say the combat is ongoing, with gunmen from Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighting the Israelis. Senior Gaza medical official Dr. Muawiya Hassanein says more than 30 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting so far, at least a third of the dead he says are civilians. An Israeli army spokeswoman says 5 Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded in today's combat, meantime 4 longer range Grad rockets fired from Gaza struck Ashkelon this morning, there were no casualties. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Jerusalem.

 It was a rough day on Wall Street yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 315 points to 12,266. Broader stock indicators also declined, the NASDAQ Composite Index tumbled 60 points to close at 2,271 while the S&P 500 lost 37 points to end the day at 1,330. For the week, the S&P gave up 1.5%.

 A survey of the nation's business economists finds that more than half believe that troubles in the sub-prime mortgage market and excessive consumer debt are the No. 1 threat to the economy. As for the most serious long-term threat to growth, health care headed the list. NPR's Jack Speer reports.

 The poll of business economists taken at the beginning of last month by the National Association for Business Economics showed a sharp jump from the group's last survey when it comes to concerns about the ongoing meltdown in the mortgage market. All told, 52% of the economists surveyed said the effects of sub-prime defaults combined with rising consumer indebtedness posed the biggest near-term risk to growth. In terms of longer term concerns, 22% shows health care as the biggest challenge. Also interesting was the fact that while in a survey in August nearly 3 quarters of economists viewed monetary policy by the Federal Reserve to be "about right". That figure fell to less than half in the latest poll, one third worried current Fed policy is "too stimulative". Jack Speer, NPR News, Washington.

 Hillary Clinton campaigns in Texas and Barack Obama will be in Ohio and Rhode Island today, in the last weekend before presidential primaries on Tuesday. Vermont is also holding primaries for both parties. Polls show the Democratic race is very close in Texas and Ohio.

 This is NPR News from Washington.

 An engineer with Florida Power&Light has been suspended for causing an electrical outage that affected the entire state of Florida. From member station WLRN, Joshua Johnson reports.

 Florida Power&Light says the engineer was checking a malfunctioning switch at a substation in western Miami-Dade County. To do so, he needed to disable one level of protection on the relay, but he disabled two, violating company policy. Testing the switch caused a short-circuit that dropped the voltage across the entire power grid. Company President Armando Olivera says his team is still determining how to prevent such a failure in the future.

 "There are many safeguards in place, clearly those safeguards helped contain the outage. But what additional safeguards should we have, it's a very fair question. "

 Olivera wouldn't elaborate on exactly what changes are being made. He did say that workers are being reminded of the rules for disengaging safeguards. For NPR News, I'm Joshua Johnson in Miami.

 Las Vegas police are trying to figure out how a rare and deadly poison ended up in a motel for transients. The man who was staying in the room is in a hospital, unconscious. Captain Joseph Lombardo says he doesn't know if the man was responsible for two vials of ricin.

 "This is a continuing investigation, like we said we don't know if the guy manufactured the ricin or not, and we, that's our concern."

 Lombardo said police also found firearms and a book described as an "anarchist-type textbook".

 Police in Pasadena California arrested a high school student yesterday on suspicion he had a gun. They locked down the school and searched there room by room for several hours, no gun was found. Police officials say several witnesses had reported the boy had been carrying a firearm.

I'm Nora Raum, NPR News in Washington.