NPR 2010-12-01

A Pentagon report being released this hour says nearly three quarters of service members polled believe that allowing gays to serve openly in the military will have little to no impact, but the report says there is a significant minority that opposes the plan now before the Senate. NPR’s Tom Bowman has a preview.

The report polled more than 100,000 men and women in uniform about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the 1993 law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly. Seventy percent of them said gays serving openly would have either a positive, mixed or no effect on the military. The remaining 30 percent were opposed, but those polled in combat arms branches, such as Infantry 1 and Armor, had much higher rates of opposition 2. About 50 percent in army combat arms were opposed and nearly 60 percent of Marines and combat arms opposed allowing gays to serve openly. Still, the report says that most of those in combat arms say they work with someone believed to be gay and it caused no problems. Tom Bowman, NPR News, the Pentagon.

No major breakthroughs in today’s first postelection meeting between the White House and congressional leaders, but as NPR’s Ari Shapiro reports, the meeting highlighted certain issues expected to be the most hotly contested in the coming months.

Everyone agrees that the top priority right now is renewing the Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was at the meeting.

“It is the view of 100 percent of Senate Republicans and a number of Senate Democrats 3 as well that the tax rates should not be bifurcated 4; in other words, that we ought to treat all taxpayers 5 the same.”

President Obama said after the meeting he and other Democrats disagree.

“I believe and the other Democrats who — in the room believe that this would add an additional $700 billion to our debt in the next ten years.”

He only wants to extend tax cuts below a quarter million dollars of income. The president said his Treasury 6 secretary and budget director will lead a negotiating team to break through the logjam before the end of the year. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, the White House.

The teenage gunman who shot himself during a hostage standoff in Wisconsin yesterday died this morning. Marinette police say Samuel Hengel, who was a sophomore 7, held 23 students and a teacher hostage yesterday afternoon. Several hours later, police stormed a classroom at the high school and Hengel shot himself. Authorities say the team made no demands or requests during the standoff.

Disappointing news on housing prices and concerns about Europe’s debt crisis are sending stocks lower. Asian markets also fell. Investors 8 are expecting China to raise interest rates to combat inflation. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average down slightly at 11,053; NASDAQ down 18 points at 2,507.

This is NPR.

Students attacked parked police vans during a protest of government education reforms in Italy today. The demonstrations 9 brought traffic to a standstill across many cities in that country. NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome the unrest is another blow to the troubled government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi beset 10 by scandals and a weak economy.

Hundreds of vans and lines of police in full riot gear formed a safety cordon 11 around the lower house of parliament, where deputies were voting on the education reform bill. Thousands of students blocked traffic as they marched through the city center, chanting slogans such as “Education On Its Knees” and threw eggs, vegetables, bottles and fireworks at parliament. Similar protests took place in Milan, Turin, Naples, Venice, Palermo and Genoa. In the past week, protestors briefly 12 occupied some of Italy’s major monuments, the Colosseum, Pisa’s Leaning Tower, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice and the Brunelleschi Dome 13 in Florence. Today, Prime Minister Berlusconi defended the bill, saying “real students stay home to study; those demonstrating are leftist troublemakers 14 and dropouts.” Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.

Wikileaks website is back up after it was attacked for the second time in two days by hackers 15 who blocked access in the US and Europe. The whistle-blowing group released another batch 16 of secret documents without authorization 17 over the weekend.

Drugs appear to be a bigger factor in deadly auto 18 accidents than initially 19 thought in the US. The government says drugs were found in the system of one in five drivers killed on the road last year. Drugs were reported in nearly 4,000 drivers killed in 2009.