The support looks a wide range of measurements, home prices, auto sales, consumer lending and more, on the everyone, the White House argues that things are better than they were and in many cases, economic advisor Gene Sperling says things turned out better than anyone anticipated. On a conference call, he offered the AIG bailout as one example, where the government spent 182 billion dollars to save the bank, and today, 

Tax payers, the federal government has now seen return of 205 billion or 23 billion more than what's put in, 

BUt by other measures of the recovery is less than impressive. Unemployment remains at 7.3%. A typical worker today, it makes little more than a decade ago and the income divide is larger than it's been in almost a century. Ari Shapiro NPR NEws, Washington. 

More than a thousand people are waiting to be rescued in parts of Colorado following intense flooding. But as Luke Raniaxx, from member station KUNC reports, weather condition are delaying rescue efforts. 

Many of the winding mountain roads, that give access to flooded towns have been wiped out by overflowing rivers. That makes helicopter the only way to reach some of the stranded residents. Instant commander, ShindoGrasulxx, says it's impossible to get into the air where the weather refused to cooperate. He says even the smallest delays, put lives had risk. 

It's the middle of September, it's not gonna be long in this country fully start getting frost, and you're gonna start having some snow. It's gonna take months and years to rebuild some of these roads. 

Across the state, more than 1,000 people are still unaccounted for. For NPR News, I'm Luke Raniaxx, in Fort Collins, Colorado. 

Secretary of state John Kerry says the threat of force remains if Syria does not comply to eliminate its chemical weapons stockpile. Speaking in Jerusalem today, he said the US will make sure such weapons are never used in the country again. 

The agreed just use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, against innocent men, women, children, their own citizens, all indiscriminately murdered in the dead on the night, is unacceptable. 

Kerry will meet with the French president and foreign minister tomorrow in Paris. Efforts to provide aid to Syria are becoming more urgent. Speaking in Teheran today, UN humanitarian aid chief,  Valerie Amos says the situation in the war-torn country is dire.

We now have the situations where 6.8 million people in the country are in urgent need of help, that's nearly 1/3 of the population. 

Amos also urged Teheran to use its influence as an ally to allow greater aid access to Syria. This is NPR. 

A new report from the center for a budget and policy priority says most aids are spending significantly less money per a key through 12 students than they were in 2008. Danielle Karson of member station WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama, has more from the state with the biggest dollar drop off. 

The reports of 34 states are spending less per student than they did before the recession that ended in 2009. 15 states are spending less than last year despite revenue increases. The senate sets lingering effects of the downturn in austerity measures. Alabama saw the largest drop more than 1,200 inflation adjusted dollars per student. Schools chief of staff, CregPonsyxx, says the new normal hurts. 

We've not been able to extend school districts, 80 resources riot to technology text books, professional development, it's increased our class sizes. 

On average state funds can afford almost half the education money spent in the US. For NPR News, I'm Danielle Karson in Birmingham. 

Officials say tomorrow's weather will allow engineers to upgrade the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground off Tuscany last year. Senior salvage master, Nick Sloan says the ship has responded well to the pre-salvage maneuver. 

We know that's, with four sponsons then she was levered and left through where she's ready to move. 

The cruise ship has been resting on its side with a huge gushing in its hole. The salvaging process is expected to take anywhere between ten to twelve hours. 32 people were killed after last year's accident. The captain has been tried for manslaughter and abandoning ship. 

This is NPR News in Washington.