shopping sprees, but are still out there spending and that s good. the dow fell to the lowest level in 30 years, but we are not seeing the wild swings we saw all week. the dow closed down 600 on monday and up 400 on tuesday and down 500 points on wednesday and up 400 yesterday, and it was the first time in the dow s history we have seen closing numbers like this. drew? you could probably measure the heartbeat of traders the same way, up and down. tell us what happened in europe? they are trying to prevent the wild up and down swings. what they are doing is they are putting a temporary ban on short selling. what short selling is is when investors bet that a stock will go down in its price, and europe s version of our securities and exchange commission, it put a temporary ban for 15 days on several european countries, including france, italy, spain, and belgium to put a ban on this practice to stabilize the markets after we have seen the extreme moves over the past week, an
issues? to date, i have not yet been involved with ambassador kirk. when can i expect that? let me look into it and i ll get back to you as soon as possible. thank you. my second question has to do with the reallocation of programs. it s my understanding that the tier one level has changed from five cities to ten. that has to do with drops in funding. i wanted to ask if you would consider relooking at that and consider why a change has occurred. one of the great things about your department is that you view things based on their merit and significance and not getting into the political fights in washington. if you can get back, that would be helpful. yes. thank you. number three, i wanted to talk about cargo inspection. one of my colleagues said the layered effect and all of that, i admit, it s kind of a personal issue because it s flektive of my district. i would venture to argue that in terms of traveling by air, we use the same systems. you look on the computer