Business

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

After plenty of hype, today Microsoft officially released its new operating system, Windows 8. The company calls the software its biggest change in 17 years. For the first time, the system runs on personal computers and on tablet devices, and Microsoft is banking on it as the companies take it to the future, as NPR's Steve Henn reports.

STEVEN SINOFSKY: Welcome, everyone, to Windows 8.

At a hearing last year, Ron Paul asked Ben Bernanke if gold is money. Answer: No. So why do central banks hold it as a reserve? Answer: Tradition.

For decades, most of the news out of Basque country was horrible. Since the late 1960s, this region in northern Spain has been infamous as home to the ETA separatist group, which killed more than 800 people while fighting for Basque independence from Madrid.

But two years ago, the separatist group declared a final cease-fire and the attacks have stopped. Now the country is becoming known for something else: its booming economy.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Two dozen dead and hundreds sickened from contaminated drugs with probably more to come. The outbreak of fungal meningitis has scared many thousands more who received injections of what may have been tainted steroids from a now-closed facility in Massachusetts, which called itself a compounding pharmacy.

Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, put the release of the company's new operating system in dramatic terms: "Windows 8 shatters perceptions of what a PC truly is," he said during an introductory event in New York.

Windows 8, Ballmer said, "marks a new era" for Microsoft.

The number of first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell by 23,000 last week from the week before, to 369,000, the Employment and Training Administration says.

Claims have bounced around in recent weeks, in part because of some changes in the way at least one state reports its figures.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are suing Bank of America for more than $1 billion for mortgage fraud against government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac around the time of the financial collapse. The lawsuit alleges that Countrywide Financial, which was later acquired by Bank of America, sold large volumes of mortgages that weren't quality-controlled.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Here in the U.S., auto sales are up, and fall is traditionally a big time for car buying. Question is, what's the best way these days to pay for that car - financed through the automaker or through your bank or simply leased?

To think through the choices, we called Michele Krebs. She's the senior analyst for the auto information site Edmunds.com, and she joined us from Detroit.

Good morning.

MICHELE KREBS: Good morning.

For years, NBC has struggled at the bottom of the pile of big broadcast networks, ratings-wise. However, this season it's on top, thanks in part to Sunday Night Football.

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NPR's business news starts with Europe having car trouble.