JIM LEHRER: The presidential candidate field was cut down today, and so were interest rates.
In the campaign, John Edwards ended his bid for the Democratic nomination where he began, in New Orleans. That left Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but Edwards did not endorse either one. Instead, he said, "It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path."
Later, Republican Rudy Giuliani followed suit in California after finishing third in yesterday's Florida primary. He planned to back John McCain, the winner in Florida. We'll have more on the campaign right after this news summary.
The latest interest rate cut was the second one in just over a week. The Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate by 0.5 percent to 3 percent. In a statement, the Fed said it acted partly because "financial markets remain under considerable stress."
But the rate cut failed to help stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 37 points to close at 12,442. The Nasdaq fell 9 points to close at 2,349.
Earlier, the Commerce Department announced the Gross Domestic Product grew just over 2 percent last year. That was the slowest pace since 2002. We'll have more on this later in the program.
The Senate got moving today on its own economic stimulus bill. The Finance Committee agreed to add tax rebates for higher income earners and people on Social Security. It also included more benefits for the unemployed.
The committee's top Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa, endorsed it, but he warned against adding anything else.
SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), Iowa: We must keep our eye on the ball, of course, as we move through on this committee and when it reaches the floor. I think the chairman would agree with me that this cannot be loaded down as a stimulus package, kept narrow as it is now, or it is likely to sink.
JIM LEHRER: The House passed its stimulus bill yesterday, costing $146 billion. President Bush supports that plan. The Senate bill would cost about $160 billion. It's expected to come to a vote next week.
Attorney General Mukasey came under fire again today over waterboarding. At a hearing, Senate Democrats accused him of ducking questions on whether it's torture and illegal.
NewsHour congressional correspondent Kwame Holman reports.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), Vermont: Torture and illegality have no place in America.
KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed the attorney general on the legality of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. It was the same issue that almost derailed his confirmation last October.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), Massachusetts: Even though you claim to be opposed to torture, you refused to say anything whatever on the crucial questions of what constitutes torture and who gets to decide the issue. It was like saying that you're opposed to stealing, but not quite sure whether bank robbery would qualify.
KWAME HOLMAN: But just as he did three months ago, Mukasey today declined to give a definitive answer.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Under what facts and circumstances exactly would it be lawful to waterboard a prisoner?
MICHAEL MUKASEY, U.S. Attorney General-Designate: For me to answer that question would be for me to do precisely what I said I shouldn't do, because I would be, number one, imagining facts and circumstances that are not present and thereby telling our enemies exactly what they can expect. I would also be telling people in the field what they have to refrain from or not refrain from.
KWAME HOLMAN: Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions agreed and added that the use of waterboarding has been exaggerated. There have been reports it was used on three high-level al-Qaida prisoners, but the government has never confirmed it.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), Alabama: This is basically a technique used by the CIA, apparently, in a few cases, a limited number of cases?
MICHAEL MUKASEY: I'm not authorized to talk about what the CIA has done in the past. The only thing I was authorized to say is that it is not now part of the program.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I think it's been an embarrassment to our nation from a lot of these hearings when we've suggested wide-scale abuse that is not true.
KWAME HOLMAN: The CIA and the Defense Department banned waterboarding in 2006. Mukasey said today the CIA's current methods of interrogation are legal.
JIM LEHRER: A terror surveillance law gained two more weeks of life last night. The Senate followed the House and approved a short-term extension. The law was first enacted last August, and it authorized broad eavesdropping powers.
The Bush administration wants it made permanent. The main sticking point involves granting immunity to telecommunications companies that aided surveillance after 9/11.
The Kenyan government vowed today to crack down on widespread killing since the presidential election. The interior minister said police and troops mean to restore peace. He said, "We have decided to act tough this time. We are not going to allow criminals and hooligans to run around."
And the top U.S. envoy to Africa said "ethnic cleansing" is underway in parts of Kenya. She warned the United States might withhold millions of dollars of aid.
Crippling winter storms in China kept thousands of people stranded today as trains sat frozen. Officials had estimated nearly 180 million Chinese would travel for the Chinese New Year next month. We have a report from John Ray of Independent Television News.
JOHN RAY, ITV News Correspondent: It is the world's new superpower, forced to a standstill. In their millions, they are waiting and waiting with no way out.
And with each passing day, tensions rise, and sometimes they spill over. But the army is here to marshal the migrant workers.
In this one province, there are 19 million migrant workers. So how desperate would you be if this was your one holiday of the year? Well, this week, no one is going anywhere.
Not much has moved in this massive country for days. The heaviest snowfall for 50 years has crippled communications and paralyzed power supplies, all this on the eve of the Chinese New Year, when tens of millions go home to see their families, a situation so serious that the prime minister has been out to calm the crowds, apologizing and promising swift action.
But crowds this sized make the Communists nervous. At the railway station, there are queues to join queues and growing frustration.
Tonight, more migrants were marched to the station, but still there are no trains to catch and no way home.
JIM LEHRER: The storms were blamed for at least 55 deaths. Forecasters predicted the weather would not improve for three more days.
Howling winds and blinding snow blasted the U.S. Northeast and New England today. In Buffalo, New York, temperatures plunged and ice piled up in the Niagara River. Winds up to 60 miles an hour blew water from frigid Lake Erie onto shore and into the streets.
The storm rolled across the Midwest yesterday. It knocked out power to thousands of people and caused at least five deaths.
An Israeli commission today laid out widespread failures in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis failed to stop Hezbollah militants from firing thousands of rockets into Israel.
The panel cited "grave failings in decision-making" by political and military leaders, and it said ground forces were not ready for the battle they faced. The report stopped short of saying Prime Minister Olmert was personally responsible.
