Hello and welcome to a UPI news update on this Monday, the 17 day of March, 2008.
Last night's Federal Reserve cut in interest rates hasn't stopped the global markets from tumbling today. Stocks on Wall Street saw a steep decline initially, with the Dow Jones industrial average off by 150 points in the first few minutes of trading. The bargain basement sale of the investment and brokerage firm, Bear Stearns, is partly to blame. Yesterday, the central bank approved an emergency lending rate to financial institutions to 3 and a quarter percent. That's down from 3 and a half percent.
Lieutenant Governor David Paterson is set to take over for New York Governor Eliot Spitzer today. He'll become the state's 55 governor, but the nation's first legally blind chief executive to serve more than a few days. In his inaugural speech, Paterson plans to talk about the need for Republicans and his fellow Democrats to work together to address issues like the state budget.
Vice-President Dick Cheney is in Iraq today, making a surprise visit to meet with U.S. and Iraqi officials there. During his visit, Cheney said no decision had been made about future troop withdrawals. He added that President Bush would be the decider after a briefing from top U.S. officials in that country. The Vice-President's stop comes one day after Senator John McCain traveled to Baghdad.
Astronauts from Space Shuttle Endeavor are preparing for a spacewalk this evening to put the final touches on their new robot. The crew spent most of the weekend assembling the machine named Dextre. Dextre is designed to help spacewalking astronauts maintain the International Space Station. Endeavor is on a two-week mission and will perform five spacewalks, the most ever performed during a joint shuttle-station flight.
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