NPR 2012-05-17

 The White House is awarding the Medal of Honor this hour to an American solider from Elwood City, Pennsylvania, who is killed in Cambodia(柬埔寨) in 1970. The army says paper work for the award was lost for three decades until a Vietnam War veteran uncovered it at the National Archives. NPR’s Joe Schneider reports that after more than forty years, the late Leslie Sabo Junior will finally be recognized for his heroic action.

Specialist Leslie Sabo Junior is receiving the Medal of Honor posthumously(在死后) for actions he took when his platoon(排) was ambushed 1 by North Vietnamese forces, near a village in eastern Cambodia in 1970. The White House says Sabo saved the lives of several these fellow soldiers, at one point using his body to shield a wounded comrade from a grenade blast. The White House says after suffering wounds in the explosion and from automatic weapons fire, Sabo crawled toward an enemy emplacement(炮座) and used another grenade to silence his foes(敌人), it was that blast that killed him. Sabo’s widow and his brother are expected to attend the White House ceremony with the President and the First Lady. Joe Schneider, NPR news, Washington.
 
 
JP Morgan Chase’s $2 billion gap is subject of Congressional scrutiny 2 today. House Republican said the bank’s trading losses raise critical questions about how firms control their risks. But they were rejecting Democrat 3 calls for stricter regulation.
 
 
The defense 4 in John Edwards’ corruption 5 trial rests without calling the former democratic presidential candidate or his ex-mistress to the stand. Edwards faces six counts of violating campaign finance law to by using donors’ money to hide his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter when he was running for president in 2008. Edwards has pleaded not guilty.
 
 
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt 6 Romney is on a campaign swing through Florida. This morning, he appeared before several hundred people in St. Petersburg. Steve Newborn of member station WUSF says the GOP’s presumptive nominee 7 focused today on the national debt.
Mitt Romney went tireless and joked with the crowd of mostly retirees. Standing 8 before a digital clock, endlessly ticking up the amount of the national debt, he went on the offensive against President Obama,
"This president is comfortable with trillion dollar deficits 9. I’m not, I’ll stop that. This is a president who is comfortable in cutting our military. I’m not, I will stop that. This is a president who is not taking advantage of our energy resources. Instead, he is taking your dollars and investing it in some of the little businesses of his campaign contributors.”
This campaign debate will continue for just over 100 days. The nation’s largest swing state will then be the home for the GOP national convention. For NPR news, I’m Steve Newborn, in Tampa.
 
 
Dow is up 19 points at 12,651; Nasdaq is off 11 points.
 
 
This is NPR news.
 
 
Greece plans to hold a new election on June 17th. The court official will be appointed to lead an interim 10 government until the national vote. Also, no international binding 11 agreements will be made during that time. None of the political parties was able to win enough parliamentary seats to govern alone in the earlier election which triggered an attempt to form a coalition 12 government. That’s stalled over disagreement about Greece’s cost cutting measures designed to get a European-IMF bailout and avoid default. That could undermine the global recovery.
 
 
Industrial production in the United States rose 1.1% in April. NPR’s Asma Holid says that’s the biggest one month increase in more than a year.
Some economists 14 are cautiously optimistic. Industrial production refers to factory, mining and utility output. And the economists say April’s big gain reflects a jump in utility output after a mild winter lowered heating demands. Cliff Waldman is the economist 13 at the Manufacturers Alliance for Innovation and Productivity. He says the month-to-month volatility 15 needs to be interpreted carefully.
"I’m very confident in saying that in spite of the April snapback(急速返回), US manufacturing is undergoing a moderation in its growth. It’s not falling apart, but it is definitely moderating.”
The data also shows factory production rose 0.6% in April. Gains in motor vehicles helped to drive the numbers up. Asma Holid NPR news.
 
 
Signaling improvement in housing, builders have broken ground on 2.6% more homes. But permits for future building are down.