Monday: Chilean Miners Move Closer to Freedom; Trio Win Nobel in Economics

A group of trapped miners in Chile inched closer to freedom over the weekend, as engineers worked to complete a nearly 2,050 foot-long shaft that will ultimately carry the 33 men to the surface.

Officials expect to start plucking the men out of the mine as soon as Wednesday.

The Guardian explains what the extraction process will entail:

The rescue capsule is expected to rotate up to a dozen times as it rises through the 28-inch escape shaft, and to prevent nausea, the men have been given compression socks and a high-calorie liquid donated by NASA.

The Associated Press reported from the mine over the weekend:

Nobel in Economics

The Nobel prize in economics was awarded Monday to two Americans and a British-Cypriot economist who developed a theory that helps explain why many people can remain unemployed amid a large number of job vacancies.

The AP explains:

Their work sheds light on why the classical view of markets, in which prices are set so that buyers and sellers always find each other and all resources are fully utilized, doesn’t always apply to the real world.

And the Economist reports:

This is obviously a matter of serious concern at the present. Debate has simmered, particularly in America, over the extent to which unemployment is cyclical — rooted in demand shortfalls — or structural — arising from the asymmetric impact of a demand shock or labour market frictions or some combination of the two.

Read the full announcement here.

Foreclosures in Question

The fallout continues from recent revelations that foreclosure documents may have been improperly processed by large financial institutions.

The Wall Street Journal reports Monday on the slow pace of the process in 23 states when judges handle default cases.

Bloomberg News reports that attorneys general in some 40 states are preparing to announce a joint investigation into the potentially faulty foreclosures.

In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, senior White House adviser David Axelrod acknowledged it’s a “serious problem” but questioned the need for a blanket halt to all foreclosures — an idea that’s attracting some support.

Paul Solman is working on a series of reports examining the foreclosure crisis. Stay tuned to the NewsHour for that in the coming days.

Afghanistan Talks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with CNN that his government has been in talks with the Taliban, further raising the possibility that Kabul may be looking to strike an agreement with the group.

“We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman, talk in that manner,” Karzai told CNN’s “Larry King Live” in an interview scheduled to air Monday night. “Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time.”