Search results for

San Francisco based Wells Fargo won its three-month effort to takeover another California based bank today. First Interstate agreed to be acquired in a stock transaction valued at $11.6 billion. If the deal is approved by regulators it will be the largest merger in U.S. banking history. The deal is expected to eliminate as many as 7,000 jobs, half of them in the Los Angeles area, as hundreds of First Intersate branches are closed.

John Irving's immense 1985 novel, "The Ciderhouse Rules," has become an equally immense play. It's being presented in two parts by Seattle Repertory Theatre. Part One, premiering tonight (Wed. 3/6) in Seattle, runs almost four hours. It requires seventeen actors playing multiple roles and two directors. One of them is noted actor Tom Hulce.

Anne Williams reviews "The Light Pink Album," the latest CD by songwriter and performer Steven Allen Davis. The CD chronicles Davis' journey from Nashville, Tennessee to Boulder, Colorado. The record label is Core Entertainment Corp. Their address is 1719 West End Ave., 11th Floor West Tower, Nashville, TN 37203. (6:00) (IN S

NPR's David Welna reports on the alternative budget being proposed by congressional Democrats. Objecting to President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut, Democrats on Capitol Hill call for $900 billion in tax cuts, with more relief to those on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. The action comes as the House Ways and Means Committee took up the Bush proposal.

More than 230 people are dead following Saturday's 7.6 magnitude earthquake in El Salvador. The country is still digging survivors out of a massive mudslide in the suburb of Santa Tecla, but the search is slowly turning into one of recovering bodies. Host Lisa Simeone speaks with reporter Michael Lanchin in El Salvador.

Grace Spruch has a thousand stories about the squirrels she's been inviting into her fifth floor Greenwich Village apartment. She shares some of those stories -- and squirrel time -- with NPR's Margot Adler. (6:00) Squirrels at My Window: Life With a Remarkable Gang of Urban Squirrels, by Grace Marmor Spruch, is published by Johnson Books. ISBN # 1555662579.

NPR's David Welna reports on budget negotiations in Congress, where President Bush is trying to push through his 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan. Lawmakers are said to be working towards a bipartisan compromise that would give Mr. Bush less than he asked for, but one that -- according to one senator -- both sides could "live with."

The bell at First Congregational Church in Woodbury, Connecticut rings every hour. It's been doing that for 150 years. Now, the town council is considering putting a stop to the bell's ring between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. Residents are complaining the bell is keeping them awake. Noah Adams talks with Mark Heillishorn, pastor of First Congregational.

According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, 64% of Americans think that U.S. democracy is in crisis and at risk of failing.

A Gallup poll shows 6 in 10 Americans say the U.S. should withdraw some or all troops from Iraq. In February, less than half of those surveyed by Gallup offered that opinion.