dime from the government. in truth it doesn t get much money. just $50 million. local radio stations use that money to buy programming from npr. they don t get that money. no morning edition or all things considered for their listeners. npr got back on the political radar after a conservative activist secretly taped an npr executive slamming the tea party and saying public radio would be better off without federal money. brianna keilar is following the vote on capitol hill. fill us in. reporter: this is happening this afternoon. possibly in the 2:00 p.m. hour, carol. this is part of a continuing effort by house republicans to defund npr. they voted to do this in that big spending bill that passed a few weeks ago but it didn t clear the senate. so this is another effort. but not only would it be to defund npr, it would also say to local public radio stations they cannot use federal funds to purchase any kind of
of radiation with massive particles carried high in the atmosphere, it would make it all the way here. but you got to remember what happens with this stuff is the radiation hits the particles above and those particles have to be carried to the west coast. that is a lot to ask. by the time that happens a lot of disbursement. you think about chernobyl. that radiation got into the atmosphere and traveled the globe a couple times and by the time it got over the u.s. it was nothing and less than a chest x-ray. we re not terribly concerned about that because of this. obviously, in japan we re much more concerned. we have finally northwest winds blowing all of the radiation offshore. next couple of days, things will get a little bit more stagnant and the winds may very well settle down, if anything, maybe come onshore a little bit. that will be more nerve-wracking some saturday and sunday. the u.s., again, even though the wind direction does bring whatever comes from japan over here, by the t
military family and dependents in japan. those in the northeast who want to evacuate, the department of defense has announced they will pay for them to get out of the country and, of course, it will be a dod personnel trying to assist them in leaving. that makes me feel a lot better. if i had kids over there, i d want them out in one millisecond. chris lawrence, many thanks, live at the pentagon. you heard that the u.s. military is handing out potassium iodine pills to troops near the fukushima plant. the japanese government is also doling them out. here the united states half a world away, people are flooding web sites for the hunt for pills. then there are the nuclear decontamination kits split with gloves and detectors. before you reach into your wallet, we ll put things into perspective. it s crazy what s available. when you go to the sites, things are selling out quickly, buy now, buy now. exactly. and i can imagine i ve gotten
example. you had an expert on last hour that highlighted that fact. that air will get here, but it will be so weak at that point that phoenix on the west coast should that folks on the west coast should not be concerned. thank you, appreciate it. the growing alarm over japan s nuclear crisis has been worrying investors around the world. today s stocks in japan closed lower. cnn s alison kosik is at the new york stock exchange. how are things looking? reporter: talking about the nikkei average, that s what you were especially talking about. it s been a brutal week for japanese stocks to add insult to injury there. the nikkei lost 1.5% today but the trading was calmer overnight, especially after it tumbled a total of 14% this week. it s fear about the nuclear situation in japan. that s what s really driving the trading. and we re seeing the same fears here in the u.s. but today at least the stocks are bouncing back in a big way. just in first few minutes of the trading day today,
benghazi area. we re joined on the phone. what are things looking like there now? reporter: it does as peer as if gadhafi s forces remain bogged down despite the fact they hold the military upperhan upperhan upperhands. the forces are taking hold of that city. the question is how long can they actually hold out without international help. the sense is that the time has passed for any discussion of a no-fly zone. that has to be implemented immediately. and now people feel is the ti for air strikes. the sense is that gadhafi is mocking and daring the world to take action against him. and as long as the international community, united nations, continue to deliberate or should they choose a path of inaction, the sense here amongst the opposition is that the west is