Global Climate Summit Starts; Bank Bailouts Less Costly Than Forecast Etc.

Good morning. It's Monday, December 7, 2009 and here are some of the stories news junkies will likely be following and talking about.

The two-week Global Climate Summit gets underway in Copenhagen as expectations for the outcome have been lowered from a binding agreement on emission targets by the world's largest greenhouse-gas producing nations to merely reaching consensus on the way forward. Meanwhile, as officials from 192 nations meet, including world leaders, the American public is increasingly apathetic and even skeptical about climate change as Richard Harris reported on Morning Edition.

The federal bailout of the nation's financial institutions has turned out to be $200 million less expensive than the $341 billion Treasury Department officials forecast as recently the summer, thanks to the higher returns to taxpayer investments in the banks.

The U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan to start in July 2011 may happen more gradually than many first thought according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates who made the rounds of the Sunday-morning talk shows in rare joint appearances to bat down criticism that the Obama Administration may be planning too hasty an exit.

President Barack Obama visited Capitol Hill Sunday, an uncommon visit, to deliver a "pep talk" to Senate Democrats who debated their health-care overhaul legislation through the weekend. The visit was meant to keep wavering Democrats on board and to strengthen Democratic spines amid heavy Republican resistance.

The constitutionality of an independent auditing panel created by Congress following the accounting scandals at Enron and other companies earlier in the decade will be argued in the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, as NPR's Nina Totenberg reported on Morning Edition.

 

Iraqi lawmakers approved a plan for national elections to be held in late February, lifting a cloud over U.S. plans to begin withdrawing U.S. forces. The agreement suggested that the sectarian divide between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds may be breaking down somewhat as new alignments across religious boundaries appeared to form.

The undefeated football teams of the University of Alabama and University of Texas will play for the national championship in the most important of the BCS bowl games. Meanwhile, the undefeated teams of Boise State University and Texas Christian University will play in the lesser Fiesta Bowl though some observers thought strong arguments could be made for either of those two teams playing in the top game.

This is the 68th anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt said would live in infamy which drew the U.S. into the Second World War.

We're joined this week on NPR's Korva Coleman who, as one of the network's newscasters, has a voice familiar to millions of the network's listeners. She'll be filling in for Mark who's attending to other matters this week.