US President Donald Trump has bestowed the highest civilian honour on several people, living and dead, in an event themed around nostalgia for bygone eras as well as for Las Vegas.
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Elvis Presley, the King of Rock'n'Roll, whose final years centred around the Nevada city of casinos and glitz, was posthumously given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Trump described him as "legendary" and played a brief snippet of his Grammy-winning gospel song How Great Thou Art.
Also receiving the award was Miriam Adelson, the wife of casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She was honoured for her philanthropy and medical work.
According to National Public Radio, the Adelsons combined to give $US113 million ($A156 million) to right-wing and conservative campaigns during the 2018 election cycle. Sheldon Adelson was with Trump on midterm election night last week.
Additional honours were bestowed on Babe Ruth, the baseball great who played for the New York Yankees during the prosperous years of the 1920s - the so-called "roaring twenties" - and died in 1948.
Two former professional American football stars, Roger Staubach and Alan Page, also received the award.
After his career playing sports and entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Page had a second life as a jurist, rising to serve on Minnesota's Supreme Court.
Former US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016 and was replaced by a Trump nominee, also received the award, along with Orrin Hatch, a conservative senator who is retiring in two months after a 41-year career.
Scalia's widow received the award in his name. After listing their nine children by name, Trump commented: "You were very busy. Wow."
The honours are often viewed as a way towards understanding the values of a president, with pundits in the US noting how Trump's nostalgic-populist Make America Great Again slogan meshes with many of his picks.
Australian Associated Press