Monday News Round Up: Obama Health Care, Ft. Hood, Berlin Wall and Oil Futures

HEALTH

Obama and Health Care

President Obama quickly declared victory after the U.S. House health care vote this past weekend, but the finish line remains in the distance.

For one thing, few people expect the health care bill passed by the House to survive in the U.S. Senate.

NATIONAL

Fort Hood shooting suspect conscious, talking, hospital says

(CNN) — Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in last week’s mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army Post, is conscious and talking, according to a spokesman for the Army hospital where he is being treated.

Authorities have not identified a motive in Thursday’s attack that left 13 dead and 42 others wounded.

ECONOMY

OIL FUTURES: Crude Higher On Concerns Over Hurricane Ida

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Crude futures rose above $79 a barrel Monday on concerns about the threat Hurricane Ida poses to U.S. oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. A weakening in the dollar was also supportive to prices.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery recently traded $1.65, or 2.1%, higher at $79.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded $1.58, or 2.1%, higher at $77.45 a barrel.

Hurricane Ida is currently moving through the Gulf of Mexico but has weakened to a Category 1 storm. It is projected to make landfall in the U.S. early Tuesday, striking the northern Gulf coast between the eastern Mississippi coast to the western half of Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center.

INTERNATIONAL

Berliners celebrate fall of Wall

Celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall are under way.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former Polish President Lech Walesa in a walk across a former checkpoint.

Earlier, a service was held at Gethsemane Church, where protests went on for the months before the wall fell.

The wall’s fall led to the collapse of Communist power, German reunification and the Cold War’s end.