hi, darren. here we go again. >> reporter: yes. back at it. >> susie: exactly. so the way you left off in your report, it sounds like this could happen. i mean, how long could it last, the shutdown? >> reporter: that's the problem, nobody knows. i have talked to a bunch of people on the hill and they tend to be more republicans who say that some of the things, some saying it could be short, not last very long, maybe go through the weekend and that they would get back to work, they would find a way to get the government back to work by monday, when most federal workers report for work. but nobody knows for sure. and once they get out of the room and stop talking, it's very hard to get them back in the room. >> susie: let's say it goes beyond the weekend, drags on a little longer. what does this heen for the government and what does this mean for american citizens? >> reporter: let's run down what would happen here. so the small business administration would be closed. these are the agencies that are important to business. f. h. a. lending, the federal housing adm

hi, darren. let's get right to it. do you think that this white house meeting that president obama has called is going to be the make or break point for getting a budget agreement? >> i'm not sure we can say that yet. we've had so many of them and ongoing never ending crisis. i think it's a clear sign that there's some progress going on that they are meeting. the key issue, as we've said, is that republicans want to do one week, another one-week extension. the president wants to get this done at least through the fiscal year in september. and republicans are adding on a restriction on abortion, susie, to the twun-week extension. and as you know, that will be very hard for democrats to accept. >> susie: how do you think it's going to play out? is there going to be an extension or government shutdown? >> it's too soon to tell. the key issue here is i think both parties have been saying they don't want to have a shutdown. they've also been saying, that as john boehner said today, that the cost of a government shutdown won

longer the shutdown, the more layoffs we will see of companies of all sizes and kinds. >> susie: darren joins us now with more on the budget battle. what changes have we seen in the last 24 hours? >> so they've gotten a little bit closer, we're hearing there a couple billion as part which is not a lot of money. so the numbers seem to be coming closer together. the sticking point still seems to be these policy issues. and those are always the toughest issues which is why they save them for the end. it's possible that some indications that republicans might be easing their language on abortion restrict-- restrictions this is very fluid, very much in flux and it's too early to tell. >> and you know it's interesting on another side of this, here i am, down on wall street and the financial market have really not responded to the whole budget battle. why do you think that is? >> i was a little surprised by that. i did talk to somebody who follows markets quite closely. and i think they're looking at this as kind of the preseason. you know, the final four, if you will, is going to come when th

darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington.

. >> tom: our washington bureau chief darren gersh was at that news conference and has the details. >> reporter: the moment was historic, but the news at this first-ever post-meeting federal reserve news conference was fairly subtle. chairman ben bernanke offered hints about what might come next and a strong defense of what has been done so far. his tone suggested the fed is approaching a turning point, with inflation concerns moving ahead of the long-running battle to bring down a still-painful unemployment rate. >> i think, purely from an employment perspective, if inflation were to become unmoored and inflation expectations were to rise significantly, that the cost of that in terms of employment loss in the future as we had to respond to that would be quite significant. >> reporter: the fed chairman called the recent increases in inflation temporary-- mostly due to higher oil prices. still, projections for price increases this year jumped sharply in the forecast the fed released today. reporters pressed several times on whether the fed's slightly lower forecast of growth shows the

darren ford nearly won the game on his own, tied at 2 in the 10th.d true on the pick after off attempt, flies to third putting himself in prime scoring position. two pitches later, sanchez grounds to second, walker gets the out at first, making him pay, throw home is bad, ford gets the giants the win. brandon mccarthy struggled. second baseman's first major league at bat goes for a 2-run double. mccarthy gives up 7 runs on 4 hits. a's lose. lakers and hornets game 5, kobe bryant had a bum ankle which looked good on this nasty dunk. lakers win and take a 3-2 lead in the series. black hawks blocking dapper, chicago tied it with two minutes to go, but vancouver takes care of business. burros scores the game-winning goal, sharks play the red wings who last played last week. >> could be tired. >> all right. >> bruised and battered. >> vancouver. >> all right. see you at 11:00. i am a sneeze whisperer. i am an allergy analyst. bermuda grass. ragweed. willow. i am a dander decoder. chihuahua. i am a target pharmacist. ask me about allergy relief.

but first, darren gersh looks at what a weak dollar could mean for you. >> reporter: if you couldn't afford to pop across the pond to celebrate today's wedding with kate and wills, don't feel bad. in fact, feel patriotic. by keeping your dollars here at home, you are doing exactly what the u.s. economy needs. the dollar is down almost 8% this year against the british pound and other currencies of major trading partners. that makes it more expensive to get to london and buy souvenirs. economist mark calabria says that also makes it more attractive to save and invest at home. >> and there's an extent to which, yes, you can't have that- - do whatever you want to do, whether it's go to the royal wedding or be the world's policeman. all of these things start to become very expensive when you no longer have currency that people will buy, will take in exchange for anything. >> reporter: the declining dollar makes u.s. exports cheaper, boosting manufacturing and agriculture. but it also makes oil imports more expensive and hurts wall street capital markets by reducing the returns to investme

darren gersh, "nightly business report," washington. >> tom: here are the stories in tonight's n.b.r. newswheel: ahead of the fed decision on rates, strong earnings and consumer optimism boosted stocks to multiyear highs. the dow jumped 115 points, the nasdaq added nearly 22 and the s&p 500 up 12. big board volume cleared 900 million shares while nasdaq volume climbed firmly above two billion shares. concerns about jobs and inflation eased somewhat this month, sending consumer confidence higher. the conference board's index edged up to 65.4 from 63.8 in march. it's still far from the reading of 90 that shows a healthy economy. we haven't seen that level since the recession began in december of 2007. >> susie: ford's earnings accelerated 22% in the first three months of this year, the automaker's best quarter in 13 years. it earned 62 cents a share, much higher than the 50 cents analysts were expecting. revenues surged 16% to 33 billion dollars, $3 billion more than estimates. earlier today, i talked with ford's c.e.o. alan mulally and i asked him whether the company can stay in the fa

darren gersh reports. >> reporter: farmers will feel the cuts. so will students and businesses building roads. the house republican budget touches almost everyone in the country. house budget committee chairman paul ryan, the plan's author, says there is no other choice. >> our budget is our plan to tackle this country's greatest problems. if we don't take on these fiscal challenges head on, we will not be able to do this under our own terms. >> reporter: to head off a debt- driven economic crisis, house republicans propose what they call a "path to prosperity." there are no tax increases; instead, deductions and loopholes are cut, bringing the top individual and corporate tax rate down to 25%. there are no new reductions in defense, but house republicans propose cuts of more than $900 billion over the next decade from the president's plans for education, clean energy, and other non-security spending. another $1.8 trillion in savings come from cuts to programs like food and housing assistance. but ryan's deepest reductions compared with the presi

our darren gersh recently talked with ken feinberg, the administrator of b.p.'s $20 billion fund. darren began by asking if there's a problem with the way the fund pays out claims. >> well, there's a problem. first of all, one problem is the sheer magnitude of the number of claims. we have received in the past nine months 800,000 claims in just ninth months for all over 50 states. so there may be some businesses that rebate getting the type of tailored, individualized treatment they expect. that's a mistake. we try to minimize the number of those. we have taken great steps in the past two months to solve that problem. >> reporter: i know you don't comment on specific claims, but can you give us sort of an example of why somebody who might submit a $500,000 claim would get $4,000 and not much explapgz about that? why might that happen? >> it will happen. if the $500,000 claim ant provides a tax return that shows they reported $4,000 worth of profit in income. i mean, the big problem i've got in the gulf, between the objective of the claimant in some cases asking for $500,000 and on

darren gersh spoke with one of those leaders, world bank president robert zoellick. darren began by asking zoellick how high energy prices around the world are impacting the global economy. >> it puts more stress on everybody's economy because oil and energy is an input throughout. what we're also concerned about is the link between energy and food prices, is much tighter than it was 10 years ago. so you combine the higher energy prices with higher food prices, and it puts more social stress on. if you take some of the countries in north africa where you have revolutionary movements, a lot of the countries are major food im porters. so it adds to the stress. >> there is unprecedented amount of money flowing in from oil revenues. and yet, we're not seeing youth unemployment come down or development. what's the disconnect there? >> well, in some countries -- you're seeing the revenues, in egypt and tunisia, that hasn't been a big source. but if you take a country such as algeria or libya, you're right. that's what some people call the energy and the natural resources a

darren gersh takes a look. >> reporter: in washington they call it the grand bargain-- a big deal to tackle federal deficits, a deal so large everything is on the table: taxes, defense-- even entitlement programs like medicare. washington analyst andy laperriere says investors are underestimating the odds of a major turning point in federal spending. >> i think what we are going to see over the next couple of years is policy changes that would be unthinkable today to a lot of people and were certainly unthinkable a couple of years ago. >> reporter: that means bigger tax increases and deeper spending cuts than most investors now expect. laperriere says it may not happen this year, but it's coming. >> i still think we need an intervening election before we make the hard decisions about how we are going to balance the budget, and so i'd bet against big changes in entitlements programs over the next year and a half, but i think they're possible. >> reporter: but others read the government shutdown cliffhanger as a warning sign. changing washington's political and fiscal habits is never e

darren started by asking goolsbee to describe the job market now. >> first three months of this year we added more than half a million jobs. and if you look at the private sector, the last one year and one month, we've added 1.8 million jobs, the biggest drop in the unemployment rate over four months that we've seen in 27 years. so i'd say overall, this is the definitely the right trend, though we've still got a lot of work to do. >> how soon do you think we'll get back to something approaching normal? >> i don't know. we make an official forecast, and it shows that the unemployment rate-- our forecast is that it will be coming down pretty steadily. but we've got a long way to go. i mean, this was the deepest hole since 1929, and we're making good progress coming out of it but it's going to take a while. >> some states have been cutting back on unemployment benefits and reducing the amount of time that workers can be on unemployment. is this the right time to begin doing that? >> well, you know, it depends on the state. there are some states that have quite low unemployment rates. an

. >> susie: the slowdown is a setback for the recovering economy, but as darren gersh reports, it's not to last. >> reporter: the year started off slowly with the economy dragged down by a sharp drop in construction. winter weather is one reason spending to build new factories and office buildings tumbled 22%. new home construction fell too. and government cutbacks didn't help either. defense spending down was 12%. economist stephen fuller says the economy is clearly not firing on all cylinders. >> the engine isn't running full speed yet, and as it begins to pick up speed in the private sector, the public sector is pulling back, and so those two countervailing forces are going to result in a very moderate growth rate. so if we do better than 3% in the next three years, it will be quite a success story. >> reporter: and those rising prices for food and energy also dragged down spending, though fuller expects consumers will find ways to adapt. >> with the internet and more readily available information on pricing than we had a generation ago, certainly, people are much smarter shoppers an

>> susie: president obama's speech at george washington university was tough and forceful, and as darren gersh reports, it laid out a very different view than the republican proposal offered last week. >> reporter: the president today tried to regain the offensive on the budget, offering what he called a "strong" critique of house republican plans to lower taxes on upper-income americans while cutting spending on popular programs like medicare. >> they want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs? that's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as i'm president. >> reporter: the new spending cuts are a modest increase over what the president offered in january. the big change is how mr. obama hopes to reach a budget agreement. the president called on congressional leaders from both parties to begin holding regular meetings with the vice president, producing a deficit reduction plan by the end of june. to enforce that agreement, the president is calling for a "debt failsafe." that failsafe would trigger

gimenez were on the mound, and his mad-to help win a critical game, outfielder darren ford. ladies and gentlemen, i have only one phrase for the next giants player -- the beard. brian wilson. [applause] fear teh beard. how about the youngest left- handed pitcher in the history of the world series. eight shut up series. madison bumgarner. they tied the phillies in game 6. the bullpen when they last innings, and coming in first in the third inning, men all over the bases in a tie game, and he was critical to the giants winning the pennant. here he is, a left-hander, affeldt. -- jeremy affeldt. \ the next left-handed pitcher had his season cut short, but we know he has a bright season with the giants, dan runzler. giant open was right down the stretch,

the russians opened up space for the rest of the world still images and film documents eureka's darren's preparation for the first flight the world theme upon his return and the grail for further soviet victories followed over the next three decades it was the first post to this russian first person to go into space as our research first. and there really are things to be proud is this an instance where. the guernsey monumental achievement is now officially marked worldwide the u.n. general assembly has adopted a resolution declaring a free the twelfth the international day of human spaceflight just south of the international stage. new york is hosting a juris night game dance party to mark the anniversary american fans clad in costumes. have been carrying the last security think he is seen as a hero because what he did with something nobody had ever done before nobody knew what would happen whether he would come back in one hundred eight minutes the twenty seven year old orbiting the planet and return to earth as an international hero in the nation's capital officials attending a gather

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