NPR 2010-11-17

A 25-year-old service member from Iowa is the first living recipient 1 of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Moments ago at a White House ceremony, President Obama couldn’t contain his pride in bestowing 2 the highest military honor on army staff Sergeant 3 Salvatore Giunta.

“I'm gonna go off-script here for a second and just say I really like this guy.”

Giunta’s heroic actions, President Obama says, three years ago in Afghanistan, he placed himself in the line of enemy fire to protect his comrades.

“Staff Sergeant Giunta, repeatedly and without hesitation 4, you charged forward through extreme enemy fire, embodying 5 the warrior 6 ethos that says, ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade.’ ”

The attack left two American soldiers dead. Their parents were at today’s ceremony, where they stood and drew long applause.

A House ethics 7 panel has found Democratic Congressman 8 Charles Rangel of New York guilty of most of the charges against him. NPR’s Giles Snyder reports it’s now up to the full ethics committee to decide an appropriate punishment.

The committee could reprimand Rangel, fine him and deny privileges with any punishment requiring the approval of the full House. But Rangel will remain in office. The 80-year-old overwhelmingly won a 21st term earlier this month. An eight-member panel of the ethics committee found the former chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee guilty of 11 of the 13 ethics violations 9 against him. They relate to his finances and campaign fundraising. The panel issued its decision after refusing a plea from Rangel to allow him time to find an attorney. He walked out of the trial phase after saying he could no longer afford to pay his previous lawyers after racking up two million dollars in legal bills. Giles Snyder, NPR News, Washington.

A new study finds that how patients with advanced cancer die often depends on where they live. NPR’s Julie Rovner reports the study is the latest to document geographic 10 variations in how medical care is delivered across the nation.

For two decades, researchers from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy have been documenting how doctors practice medicine very differently, depending on where they are located. After studying the records of more than 200,000 Medicare recipients 11, the researchers found huge variations in whether patients died in the hospital or received hospice care. Overall, patients were more likely to receive aggressive hospital-based care in areas like New York and Southern California. They were more likely to receive hospice care in traditionally lower-spending areas like Iowa and Minnesota. Julie Rovner, NPR News.

At last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 177 points at 11,025. This is NPR.

The UN Security Council met today to talk about ways to pull off a vote in Sudan that could split the country into two. Diplomats 12 fear a renewed conflict between the North and South of Sudan, as NPR’s Michele Kelemen explains.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the UN may boost the number of peacekeepers in Sudan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US is offering some incentives 13 to keep a 2005 US-brokered peace accord on track.

“If Sudan chooses the path of peace, the government of Sudan can have a dramatically improved relationship with the United States, including normalization 14 of relations between our two countries.”

She says the US would take Sudan off a terrorism blacklist if the North allows the January 9th referendum to go forward and accept the outcome of the vote. The US would lift other sanctions if Sudan resolves the separate conflict in Darfur, where she says violence is intensifying 15. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.

Violent anti-UN protests in Haiti are spreading to several more cities with demonstrators blaming a team of Nepalese peacekeepers for the cholera 16 outbreak. The disease, a bacterial 17 infection that affects the intestinal 18 system, is now blamed in the deaths of more than 1,000 people. Today, protesters barricaded 19 some roads and clashed with UN soldiers. Demonstrations 20 have led to at least two deaths.

We continue to see a slide in US stocks. At last check, Dow Jones Industrial Average down 180 points at 11,022, NASDAQ down 44 to 2,470 with S&P 500 down 21 at 1,177.