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MEDICARE’S END-OF-LIFE COUNSELING POLICY MAY FIND ACCEPTANCE WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six years ago, a proposal for Medicare to cover end-of-life counseling touched off a political uproar that threatened to stall President Barack Obama’s health care law in Congress. This week, when Medicare finally announced it would make the change, reaction was largely muted.

Even back in 2009, former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin’s accusation that voluntary counseling could lead to government-sponsored “death panels” dictating the fate of frail elders was widely discredited. But for the Obama administration, end-of-life counseling remained politically radioactive, though the idea found broader acceptance generally.

The American Medical Association praised Medicare’s decision, although the National Right to Life Committee called Thursday for Congress to block the proposal in its current form.

“This issue has been mischaracterized in the past and it is time to facilitate patient choices about advance care planning,” said Andrew Gurman, the AMA’s president-elect. continued on page 2

TOM SELLECK ACCUSED O F S T E A L I N G WAT E R FOR CALIFORNIA RANCH

Volume 004 Issue 23

Established 2012

JOINT CHIEFS NOMINEE: RUSSIA IS TOP SECURITY THREAT TO US

WASHINGTON (AP) -The nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that Russia poses the greatest national security threat to the United States and that it would be a “reasonable” military decision to supply lethal arms to Ukrainians fighting against rebels backed by Moscow.

Cotton also asked Dunford whether the U.S. has the military capability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A water district has sued Tom Selleck, claiming the star of the crime shows “Magnum, P.I.” and “Blue Bloods” stole truckloads of water from a public hydrant and brought it to his ranch in drought-stricken California.

The Calleguas Municipal Water District in Ventura County claims a tanker truck filled up at a hydrant more than a dozen times and hauled water to a 60-acre ranch owned by Selleck in Westlake Village.

The district also says it spent nearly $22,000 to hire a private investigator to document the alleged thefts that date back two years.

The Los Angeles Times says Selleck grows avocados at the ranch.

Representatives for Selleck did not return phone messages and emails seeking comment Wednesday. The lawsuit also names his wife, Jillie Selleck.

The lawsuit was filed on June 30 after California communities were ordered to cut water use by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels due to the relentless, four-year drought.

The area in Ventura County where Selleck has his land is under mandatory cutbacks as high 36 percent from 2013.

The district claims it sent Selleck cease-and-desist letters aimed at halting the unlawful water deliveries, but the truck was spotted as recently as March filling up at the hydrant on four days and delivering water to the ranch.

The suit does not specify how much water was taken.

In addition to legal fees and investigative costs, the water district is seeking an injunction barring Selleck and his contractors or employees from taking water from the district.

The suit was originally reported Tuesday by Courthouse News Service.

“My understanding is that we do,” Dunford replied.

Before the hearing, Dunford provided written answers to a broad range of national security questions posed by the committee that were obtained by The Associated Press.

Dunford said the U.S. and its coalition partners are “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security. ... If you look at their behavior, making moderate progress in the fight against the Islamic State exit’s nothing short of alarming,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said tremist group but that the strategy should be re-evaluated if efforts during his confirmation hear- Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, Jr., testifies during his Senate Armed Services Committee to improve governance and ing before the Senate Armed confirmation hearing to become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Capitol Hill in Washington, build reliable local ground Thursday, July 9, 2015. Dunford said Russia poses the greatest national security threat to the United States forces stall. He said that if Services Committee. and that it would be “reasonable” to supply lethal arms to Ukrainians fighting against rebels backed by confirmed by the Senate he Moscow. also wants to assess whether Relations between Russia and the West have sunk to post-Cold War lows after Moscow’s the U.S. should focus more on IS’ “shifting geographic reach” and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for a confront the militants where they are now and where they are most pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The United States has likely to go in the future. responded with sanctions but so far has refrained from providing McCain has voiced sharp criticism that the U.S. has only 60 trainlethal arms to the Ukrainian forces. ees in a program to prepare and arm thousands of moderate Syrian Asked if the U.S. should provide lethal arms to Ukraine, Dunford rebels in the fight against IS militants. Dunford said the progress said that from a military standpoint, it would be a “reasonable” re- in training is “much less than what we estimated” and attributed the low number to a rigorous vetting process. He said that without sponse. talking with commanders on the ground, he could not provide fur“Frankly, without that kind of support, they are not going to be able ther insight into the problems. to defend themselves against Russian aggression,” Dunford said.

There are no U.S. troops in Syria, but about 3,300 U.S. forces are That comment was welcomed by Sen. John McCain, chairman of training and advising local security forces in Iraq. The Iraqi military, which was equipped and trained by the United States, has the chairman. struggled to recover from its collapse a year ago when IS militants “In Europe, Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its onslaught in captured the country’s second-largest city, Mosul, and swept over Ukraine,” said McCain, R-Ariz. “But even as Russian troops much of northern and western Iraq. and equipment execute this neo-imperial campaign to undermine Ukraine’s government and independence, the United States has re- Since then, IS has seized control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq, and other key terrain in the region. The fused Ukraine the weapons it needs and deserves for its defense.” loss of Ramadi, Dunford said, was a tactical setback that shows On Iran, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, asked Dunford whether, how agile and adaptive IS has become. But he said the U.S. military if the U.S. and its partners reach a nuclear deal with Iran, Tehran and the Iraqis have learned from that loss. would use part of the revenue it would receive through economic sanctions relief to further aid Shiite militias in Iraq, support mili- Dunford repeatedly says he will take time to assess the programs tants in other countries and destabilize governments in the Middle and promised that one of his first trips, if confirmed, would be to Iraq and the region.

East.

“I think it’s reasonable to assume that,” Dunford said.

Actor Tom Selleck poses for a portrait in New York. A lawsuit accuses Selleck of stealing truckloads of water from a public hydrant and bringing it to his Southern California ranch.

The suit filed Monday, July 6, 2015 by a Ventura County water district claims that on more than a dozen occasions a truck filled up at a hydrant and hauled the water to Selleck’s 60-acre spread in Westlake Village.

July 13 thru July 20, 2015

Asked if the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is adequate, Dunford said is it enough but that “as conditions change on the ground, it continued on page 6

ARMY CUTS COULD GROW EVEN BIGGER I F B U D G E T I M PA S S E P E R S I S T S Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and sequestration on national security. In the midst of a war against the Islamic State that the Obama administration says will last many years, the Army is moving ahead with big troop cuts that could grow even larger unless Congress and the White House find a way to stop more across-the-board budget cuts this fall.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the midst of a war against the Islamic State that the Obama administration says will last many years, the Army is moving ahead with big troop cuts. And they could grow even larger unless Congress and the White House find a way to stop further acrossthe-board spending reductions this fall.

Army leaders were notifying members of Congress Wednesday with details of how they intend to reduce the active-duty force from 490,000 soldiers to 450,000 within two years. The size of the reduction was announced months ago, but congressional delegations have been waiting for word on how the cuts would be distributed and timed; troop reductions can inflict significant economic pain on communities reliant on military base populations.

If a new round of automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, goes ahead, the Army says it will have to reduce even further, to 420,000 soldiers.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, has said he can accept the planned reduction of 40,000 soldiers over the next two years, which the Army plans to implement by trimming the size of numerous units.

The biggest cuts would be to an infantry unit at Fort Benning, Georgia, and an airborne infantry unit at Fort Richardson in Alaska. Each would shrink from about 4,000 soldiers to about 1,050, defense officials said

Wednesday. Those details were first reported Tuesday by USA Today.

The full plan for specific cuts is expected to be made public by the Army on Thursday.

In Odierno’s view, being forced to shrink the Army is not the hardest part of coping with years-long budget wrangling between the Congress and the White House. Even more difficult, he says, is the uncertainty for military planners and the nation’s soldiers.

“The thing I worry about is it has put a lot of turbulence in the Army and brought a lot of angst to our soldiers,” he told reporters May 28. As he nears the end of his tenure as Army chief, Odierno said the only thing that could push the service off its course toward modernization is more budget uncertainty.

“The unpredictability is killing us,” he said.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter agrees.

“We’ve been going one year at a time budgetarily now for several years straight, and it’s extremely disruptive to the operations of the department,” Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“It is managerially inefficient, because we’re in this herky-jerky process.”

It may not get any smoother anytime soon. Congressional Republicans are proposing to give President Barack Obama the extra billions he wants for defense in the budget year starting Oct. 1. But Obama says he can’t accept their plan because it maneuvers around spending caps in a way that does not also provide spending relief in non-defense areas of the budget. This portends a September showdown between Congress and the White House.

The Army says it needs to start moving ahead with planned troop reductions, although most will be accomplished through attrition and forced continued on page 6

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The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

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RUSSIA VETOES UN RESOLUTION CALLING SREBRENICA A GENOCIDE people and recognized there were victims on all sides, he said.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Wednesday that would have condemned the 1995 massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war as a “crime of genocide,” saying that singling out the Bosnian Serbs for a war crime would create greater division in the Balkans.

The vote was 10 countries in favor, Russia casting a veto, and four abstentions - China, Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela.

Leaders of the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, who have close religious and cultural ties to Russia, have lobbied President Vladimir Putin to vote “no.’

Two international courts have called the slaughter by Bosnian Serbs of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had sought refuge at what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected site genocide.

Serbia’s pro-Russian President Tomislav Nikolic said Russia’s veto “not only prevented the throwing of guilt against the whole Serbian nation, trying to show it as genocidal, but it also proved that Russia is a real and sincere friend.”

Bosnian people visit graves at memorial center in Potocari near Srebrenica, 150 kms But Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin objected to focusing north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Wednesday, July 8,2015. The memorial center in Potocari, is a cemetery for the victims of the Srebrenica massacre killed in the summer only on Srebrenica, calling the of 1995 during the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War. resolution “confrontational and politically motivated” and stressing that Bosnian Serbs and Croats had also Wilson said Britain was “outraged” by Russia’s veto. suffered during the 1992-95 war that killed at least 100,000 people.

Britain drafted the resolution to mark the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on Tuesday, but the vote was delayed to address Russian concerns.

“Russia’s actions tarnish the memory of all those who died in the Srebrenica genocide,” he said. “Russia will have to justify its behavior to the families of over 8,000 people murdered in the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War.”

The defeated resolution states that acceptance of “the tragic events at Srebrenica as genocide is a prerequisite for reconciliation” and “condemns denial of this genocide as hindering efforts towards reconciliation.”

Bosnians reacted bitterly to the veto.

Britain’s U.N. deputy ambassador Peter Wilson stressed that the resolution “did not point fingers of blame, score political points nor seek to reopen political divisions.” It also didn’t link the crimes at Srebrenica to the Serb

COUNSE LING POLICY continued on page 3 But Burke Balch of the anti-abortion National Right to Life, asserted that end-of-life counseling serves to nudge patients to forgo life-saving treatment.

“We must fight the tax funding and promotion of...counseling that cannot be adequately monitored for bias,” Balch said in a statement.

The original sponsor of the idea, Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, said he believes opponents have lost the political debate.

But he’s taking no chances. Just a few weeks ago at the White House congressional picnic, Blumenauer said he personally lobbied senior officials, handing out pocket-sized cards bearing his talking points.

“There was a time when the federal government could have been a leader on this, but now it’s basically responding to where the rest of America is going,” he said.

The policy change, to take effect Jan. 1, was tucked into a massive regulation on payments for doctors released Wednesday. Counseling would be entirely voluntary for patients.

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

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Some doctors already have such conversations with their patients without billing extra. Certain private insurers have begun offering reimbursement. But an opening to roughly 55 million Medicare beneficiaries could make such talks far more common. About three-quarters of the people who die each year in the U.S. are 65 and older, making Medicare the largest insurer at the end of life, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Fadila Efendic, a Srebrenica woman who lost her son and husband in the Srebrenica massacre, called the veto “another humiliation of the victims.”

“Today’s vote mattered,” said U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, who was a 24-year-old journalist in Bosnia at the time of the Srebrenica massacre.

“It mattered hugely to the families of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. Russia’s veto is heartbreaking for those families, and it is a further stain on this council’s record.”

Russia’s Churkin began his speech before the vote asking for a minute of silence in memory of the victims of Srebrenica and everyone in the Security Council stood, many bowing their heads.

Instead of Srebrenica, he said the council should commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1995 peace agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio that ended the Bosnian war later this year, and make every effort to implement it and normalize relations in the Balkans.

“Our vote against ... will, however, not mean that we are deaf to the suffering of victims of Srebrenica and other areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Churkin said.

resonance after the 2005 death of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose family fought for years over whether she would have wanted to be kept alive in a vegetative state.

Then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got embroiled in the family’s ordeal, ordering feeding tubes reinserted for Schiavo against her husband’s wishes. The husband ultimately prevailed in a legal battle with Schiavo’s parents, who wanted her kept alive.

In 2008, a year before debate over the Affordable Care Act spiraled into tea-party protests, Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation requiring doctors to discuss issues like living wills with new Medicare enrollees.

“As a practicing physician, and a son, and someone who has dealt with this in his own family, I would say these are discussions ... that are critical to high-quality care,” said Patrick Conway, Medicare’s chief medical officer. “I would want any American who wanted to have this conversation with their clinician to have the opportunity to do so.”

That history of bipartisanship dissipated almost instantly when Palin said the provision on end-of-life conversations in Obama’s health care legislation would result in bureaucrats deciding whether sick people get to live. The language was ultimately removed.

Medicare is using a relatively new term for end-of-life counseling: advance care planning. That’s meant to reflect expert advice that people should make their wishes known about end-of-life care at different stages of their lives, as early as when they get a driver’s license.

Nothing in the discussions approved by Medicare will be focused on cost, but many experts believe that if patients truly understood their alternatives, and doctors listened to them, bills would inherently go down.

The counseling aims to discern the type of treatment patients want in their last days, with options ranging from care that’s more focused on comfort than extending life to all-out medical efforts to resuscitate a dying patient.

A landmark report last year from the Institute of Medicine found that few people make their wishes known and too many deaths are filled with breathing machines, feeding tubes, powerful drugs and other treatments that fail to extend life and make its final chapter more painful and unpleasant. The report was called “Dying in America,” and the institute - an independent organization that advises the government - has a section on its website distilling the issues for families.

Before former GOP vice presidential nominee Palin ignited the “death panels” outcry, there was longstanding bipartisan consensus about helping people to better understand their end-of-life choices and decisions.

A 1992 law passed under Republican President George H.W. Bush requires hospitals and nursing homes to help patients who want to prepare living wills and advance directives. Similar efforts gained

www.redcross.org

“This is a defeat of justice,” said Camil Durakovic, the mayor of Srebrenica. “The world has lost. The world - and especially Serbia - will have to face the truth sooner or later,” he said.

After the report, Medicare said it would consider a change in policy for 2016.

Interested parties will have 60 days to comment on the new regulation before it is finalized.

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S O U T H C A R O L I N A H O U S E O P E N S D E B AT E O V E R C O N F E D E R AT E F L A G COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The South Carolina House opened debate over the future of the Confederate flag Wednesday, deliberating a proposal that could remove the banner from the Capitol grounds, possibly before the end of the week.

flag to reach the two-thirds threshold required by law, Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said.

Rutherford said any flag that goes up beside the monument to Confederate soldiers “will be the new vestige of racism.”

Lawmakers are under pressure to act after the state Senate passed its own measure, which is supported by Gov. Nikki Haley. If approved, it would consign the flag to the state’s Confederate Relic Room.

In Washington, the vote by the U.S. House followed a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.

But some House Republicans planned to offer amendments to the Senate bill that would preserve some kind of symbol in front of the Statehouse to honor their Southern ancestors.

The proposal by California Democrat Jared Huffman would block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of Southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.

The debate began less than a day after the U.S. House voted to ban the display of Confederate flags at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South.

One of those Republicans, Rep. Mike Pitts, said to banish all flags from the site would be akin to erasing history, including that of his family members in Laurens County and the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia.

On the House floor, Pitts talked about a black colleague, Rep. Lonnie Hosey, and how they bonded over the shared memories of military service.

A Confederate battle flag flies in front of the South Carolina statehouse Wednesday, July 8, 2015, in Columbia, S.C. The House is expected to debate a measure Wednesday that would remove the flag from the Capitol grounds.

proposals.

One would put the flag issue to a popular vote. Another would allow the rebel banner to fly only on Confederate Memorial Day in May, and a third would replace the Confederate battle flag with a different banner.

“I’m willing to move that flag at some point if it causes a twinge in the hearts of my friends,” Pitts said. “But I’ll ask for something in return.”

Other amendments appear more like parodies than serious alternatives to the Senate bill: One would fly the U.S. flag upside-down above the Statehouse dome. Another would remove all of the monuments at the Statehouse, regardless of whether they honor Confederates.

Pitts said his favorite amendment proposes replacing the Confederate flag with that of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers regiment, a blue banner similar to the state flag with its Palmetto tree and crescent moon but with a wreath around the tree.

Similar art is etched on a wall inside the Statehouse, Pitts said.

If House members back the Senate bill, Gov. Nikki Haley could quickly sign it into law, potentially bringing the flag down within days.

Pitts did not share all his amendments Tuesday, but The Associated Press was able to obtain copies of the more than two dozen

Any change to the Senate bill is unacceptable to the 46 Democrats in the 124-member House - a critical number because some Democrats will have to support any bill to take down the

PLANE COLLISION MARKS 2ND FATAL T R A G E D Y F O R FA M I LY I N A W E E K and a flaming crater where the jet had crash-landed, he said.

Col. Stephen Jost, commander of the 20th Fighter Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, said Maj. Johnson was flying solo, practicing instrument approaches to a military base and was communicating with Charleston air traffic controllers.

Jost said he thought it was overcast at the time of the collision, but he was not aware of any weather-related problems.

It wasn’t clear if a flight plan had been filed, but Berkeley County officials say the civilian pilot had indicated he was traveling to Myrtle Beach.

Debris from a F-16 fighter jet and plane collision scatter the ground near Moncks Corner, S.C., Tuesday, July 7, 2015. People aboard the smaller Cessna were killed, and the plane was completely destroyed, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said.

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (AP) -- A collision between a small plane and an F-16 fighter jet that killed a father and son was the second fatal tragedy to strike their family in just four days, a relative told The Associated Press.

Authorities found the body of 68-year-old Michael Johnson, the passenger, in the Cooper River in a rural, sparsely populated area in South Carolina, Berkeley County Coroner Bill Salisbury said. They are still searching the same area for the body of his son, 30-year-old Joseph Johnson, who was piloting the Cessna 150 when it was torn apart by its crash with the jet Tuesday.

On Saturday, Jim Johnson and his wife, Beverly - Michael Johnson’s brother and sister-in-law - were found dead at their home in Missouri, said Connie Stallworth, the men’s sister. The couple’s 16-year-old grandson has been charged with second-degree murder in their slayings, police said.

“It’s unbelievable. There just aren’t words to express it. I’m dumbfounded that it happened twice in a few days,” Stallworth said.

NTSB investigator Dennis Diaz told reporters Wednesday that his first goal is to document the two crash sites, which are about 10 miles apart.

He also said the F-16 pilot, who ejected safely, will be interviewed.

However, that may not happen for several days.

Investigators will look at flight data recorders and interview witnesses, though that is expected to take months, Diaz said. He would not comment on the direction, speed or altitude at which either aircraft was traveling.

The jet’s pilot, Maj. Aaron Johnson from the 55th Fighter Squadron, was taken to Joint Base Charleston’s medical clinic for observation, officials from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter said in a news release.

The jet crashed into woods around the privately owned Lewisfield Plantation, an estate dating to 1750.

“We heard the plane crash,” said Leo Ramsey, who has worked at the plantation for about 30 years. “And then we took off from where I was at, I guess I was about a half-mile from it, when we saw a cloud of smoke.”

Ramsey and two other workers found burning metal, splintered trees

F-16s from Shaw Air Force Base, about 35 miles east of Columbia, routinely fly training missions over eastern South Carolina and the Atlantic.

The Cessna 150 is a two-seat plane that typically weighs about 1,500 pounds when fully fueled. By comparison, an F-16 is about 50 feet long and weighs nearly 10 tons, not counting fuel or weapons. Jost said the F-16 was not carrying any live munitions at the time of the collision.

In Columbia, if the state House amends the Senate bill, the Senate will have to agree with the changes or lawmakers will have to reconcile their differences in a conference committee, possibly delaying action for weeks. Several senators said the lopsided 36-3 final vote on the flag shows they do not want their bill to change.

“As strong as the support was, it would be absolutely foolish” to attempt to amend the Senate bill, Republican Sen. Larry Martin said.

If the two sides cannot reach an agreement, or the House rejects the Senate bill, the flag debate would probably be dead for this year.

Also Wednesday, state police said they were investigating an unspecified number of threats against South Carolina lawmakers debating the flag. Police Chief Mark Keel did not specify if the lawmakers who had been threatened were opponents or supporters of bringing the flag down.

After the flag was pulled off the Statehouse dome 15 years ago, it was called a settled issue. The banner was instead moved to a monument honoring Confederate soldiers elsewhere on the Capitol grounds.

But the flag debate regained urgency last month after state Sen. Clementa Pinckney and eight other black people were fatally shot at a historic African-American church in Charleston. A white gunman who police said was motivated by racial hatred is charged in the attack.

NASA PICKS 4 ASTRONAUTS TO FLY 1ST COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHTS CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA has selected four veteran astronauts to lead the way back into orbit from U.S. soil.

On Thursday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named the four who will fly on capsules built by SpaceX and Boeing. Each has test pilot experience and has flown twice in space.

The commercial crew astronauts are: Air Force Col. Robert Behnken (BANE-kin), until recently head of the astronaut office; Air Force Col. Eric Boe, part of shuttle Discovery’s last crew; retired Marine Col. Douglas Hurley, pilot of the final shuttle crew; and Navy Capt. Sunita (SUN-ee-tah) Williams, a former resident of the International Space Station.

The companies are aiming for test flights to the space station by 2017.

It will be the first human launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, since the shuttles retired in 2011.

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The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

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N Y S E H A LT S T R A D I N G O N T E C H N I C A L ISSUE; OTHER EXCHANGES OPEN there won’t be a bailout for Greece combined with what’s going on in China.”

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading in the late morning Wednesday because of a technical problem, though NYSE-listed shares continued to trade on other exchanges.

GREECE: Hopes for a resolution to Greece’s crisis rose after the country applied for a new three-year loan and said it would have a new proposal for creditors in coming days. The deeply indebted country needs a financial lifeline from its European lenders before its banks collapse, an event that could push Greece out of the currency union.

The exchange said on its official Twitter feed that the issue was internal and not related to a breach of its systems. As of 1:25 p.m. Eastern, about two hours after the halt was announced, trading had not yet resumed on the NYSE. The Dow Jones industrial average and other indexes were trading at about where they were before the NYSE technical problem occurred.

Major indexes continued to move as stocks were traded on other platforms such as the Nasdaq.

The trading problem came as stocks were already down. Traders worried about China’s failure to stop a steep drop in its own market, and they were also monitoring a logjam in talks between Greece and its creditors.

The S&P 500 was down 23 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,057. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 184 points, or 11 percent, to 17,593, while the Nasdaq fell 66 points, or 1.3 percent, to 4,931.

The trading halt at the NYSE came on the same day United Continental had to temporarily grounded its flights across the country because of computer problems.

WATCHING AND WAITING: It wasn’t clear how long the NYSE halt would continue, and regulators were keeping a close eye on the situation. Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said: “We are in contact with NYSE and are closely monitoring the situation and trading in NYSE-listed stocks.”

OTHER SNAFUS: U.S. markets have experienced other technical problems in the past as more trading is handled by computers, illustrating the fragility of the infrastructure that financial markets use.

F E D S P R O P O S E M O R E S A F E T Y VA LV E S F O R G A S LINES

deadly explosions.

BILLINGS, Mont.

(AP) -- The Obama administration moved Wednesday to significantly expand a requirement for utilities to install inexpensive safety valves on natural gas lines across the U.S. to reduce the risk of

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Hong Kong’s main stock index plummeted as much as 8.5 percent on Wednesday as a sell-off in mainland Chinese shares accelerated despite new measures to support the market; U.S. stocks were poised to open lower.

In May 2010, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged hundreds of points in minutes in an incident that later became known as the “flash crash.” In March 2012, BATS Global Markets, a Kansas company that offers stock trading services, canceled its own IPO after several technical snafus.

Two months later, a highly anticipated IPO of Facebook on the Nasdaq exchange was marred by a series of technical problems, rattling investors unsure if their orders to trade went through.

MARKET RESPONSE: Stock in the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange is trading despite the halt on the floor, and it is falling. The IntercontinentalExchange Group, which bought NYSE Euronext in late 2012, fell $3.47, or 1.5 percent, to $223.71. That compares with a drop of 1.1 percent for Standard and Poor’s 500 index. The stock of the Nasdaq OMX Group, the company that owns the rival Nasdaq market, fell 83 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $48.03.

REPORT CARDS DUE: The unofficial start to the second-quarter earnings season starts Wednesday when Alcoa turns in its results after the closing bell. Analysts forecast that companies in the S&P 500 will report that their overall earnings dropped 4 percent in the quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ, as a rising dollar and falling oil prices pinched profits.

EUROPE: Germany’s DAX gained 0.7 percent and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.8 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.9 percent.

ASIA’S DAY: Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 3 percent, and South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.2 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 2 percent.

CRUDE: Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.16 to $51.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude was off 48 cents at $56.38 a barrel in London.

BONDS AND CURRENCIES: U.S. government bond prices edged up, nudging the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 2.22 percent.

The euro rose to $1.1083, while the dollar fell to 120.78 yen.

ANOTHER SNAFU: United Airlines temporarily grounded all its flights in the U.S. because of a problem with its computer system.

It’s the second time in two months that the Chicago carrier has been hit by technical troubles. Shares in United Continental Holdings, the parent company, fell $1.13, or 2 percent, to $53.18.

CHINA: The Shanghai Composite sank 6 percent Wednesday, despite new attempts by China’s government to stop the selling. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, a victim of the turmoil in mainland Chinese markets, also lost 6 percent. Beijing ordered state-owned companies to buy shares and promised more credit to finance trading. The Shanghai index has lost a third of its value in the last month, leaving it with gains of 70 percent over the past year.

ANALYST’S TAKE: “I think it’s a combination of fears,” said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Trust. “The fear that

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

www.childrenincorporated.

The Transportation Department proposal would cover new or replaced gas lines serving multi-family dwellings, small businesses and homes not already covered under a 2009 mandate.

The National Transportation Safety Board and other safety advocates have pressed for years to broaden requirements for so-called excess flow valves. They cost about $30 apiece and are designed to automatically shut off the flow of gas when a line is ruptured.

An Associated Press investigation in 2012 uncovered more than 270 accidents dating to 1968 that could have been prevented or made less dangerous if the valves had been in place.

“This important action will add extra protections to communities serviced by the nation’s largest network of pipelines,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

About 180,000 automatic valves would be installed annually under the rule, according to the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Manual valves would be required for apartment buildings and large commercial or residential gas customers.

Installing the valves on new and replaced lines should cost between $4.4 million and $20.3 million per year, depending on the price of the valves, the agency said.

Federal transportation officials say the valves could have averted at least eight accidents that killed 10 people since 1998. They said the valves can also help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that are contributing to climate change.

Industry officials have previously raised concerns about the cost of valve installation, particularly for larger gas lines that require more specialized valves.

The Transportation Department rule would allow customers to request the safety valves for the tens of millions of gas lines already installed across the U.S., but does not specify who would pay for their installation.

The proposal will be subject to a public comment period of at least 60 days. Federal officials said the rule could change based on the information received. No date for final adoption was offered.

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MILLIONS TOUCHED BY STORY OF BABY D O E F O U N D D E A D I N H A R B O R dence that her identity eventually will be determined.

BOSTON (AP) -- In her computer-generated image, she is the picture of innocence: a 4-year-old girl with long brown hair, chubby cheeks and expressive brown eyes. The image has reached a staggering 47 million people on Facebook as investigators try to identity the child whose remains were found on a Boston Harbor beach nearly two weeks ago.

During a news conference Tuesday, Conley spoke directly to the girl’s parents or caretakers: “Please step forward, clear your conscience and help us identify this young child.”

Conley would not elaborate on whether the child’s parents or caretakers are a focus of the investigation and said authorities don’t know if the girl’s death was an accident or a crime.

The mystery of Baby Doe began on June 25, when a woman walking her dog on the western shore of Deer Island called 911 and reported finding a trash bag containing the girl’s body. The child was wearing white leggings with black polka dots. Inside the bag with her remains was a zebra-print blanket.

Her death and the mystery surrounding her identity have touched a chord in many people. State police say their Facebook posting on the girl has received more than 10 times the views of their previous highest post. People from Maine to California, Canada and Puerto Rico have shared the posting, with many of them expressing sorrow or anger over the girl’s death.

Police immediately appealed to the public for help in identifying the girl. Using photos of her remains, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created a composite image of what the girl may have looked like when she was alive.

“How can someone just throw a child away?” wrote one woman from Arizona.

After that image and photos of the leggings and blanket were posted on the Massachusetts State Police Facebook page, investigators were astonished by the attention the posting received. As of Wednesday morning, the post had been liked by more than 50,000 people and shared more than 615,000 times.

“This is just horrible, no one is missing this little angel!” wrote another woman from Clovis, California.

Barbara Smith, 67, of Missoula, Montana, said she has shared the girl’s image three times and plans to share it again and again until investigators figure out who she was and how she died.

But authorities still haven’t identified the girl.

“It has by far shattered our previous record for Facebook views,” said Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, whose office is overseeing the investigation.

Adding to the mystery is that investigators still haven’t been able to figure out how she died. There were no obvious signs of trauma to her body, and an autopsy performed by the state medical examiner’s office did not determine the manner or cause of her death.

Conley said Tuesday that authorities are awaiting the results of toxicology tests to determine if the girl was poisoned or ingested drugs.

She weighed 30 pounds and was about 3 1/2 feet tall. Her body was reasonably intact but had a modest amount of decomposition.

Authorities won’t say how long they believe she had been dead by the time her remains were discovered.

They also don’t know if the girl lived in Massachusetts or came from another state. They will not say whether the trash bag containing her

This flyer released Thursday, July 2, 2015, by the Suffolk County Massachusetts District Attorney includes a computer-generated composite image depicting the possible likeness of a young girl, whose body was found on the shore of Deer Island in Boston Harbor on June 25, inside a bag that also contained a black and white zebra-print blanket. She was wearing white leggings with black polka dots. Officials believe the brown-haired, browneyed girl was about 4 years old and are hoping the information generates clues about her identity

body washed up on shore or was left on the beach by someone.

Investigators have received “dozens and dozens” of tips from the public, and those leads have prompted police to check on the well-being of 20 girls in the same age range. All of those girls were found safe and sound.

Conley said the outpouring of support by people who have shared the girl’s image on social media is gratifying and gives him confi-

R A I D S P O T L I G H T S S U B WAY P I T C H M A N ’ S TIES TO EX-FOUNDATION HEAD

ZIONSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- A raid at the home of a well-known Subway restaurant pitchman is casting a glaring spotlight on his relationship with the former head of a foundation that he set up to combat childhood obesity.

Federal and state authorities raided the home of Jared Fogle on Tuesday, just two months after the then-executive director of Fogle’s foundation was arrested on child pornography charges.

Authorities wouldn’t describe the nature of the investigation or what they hoped to find on electronics removed from Fogle’s house. Fogle’s attorney said his client, known by millions as “The Subway Guy,” was cooperating with investigators.

Subway said in a statement that it believed the raid was “related to a prior investigation” of a former employee of the Jared Foundation, an organization founded by Fogle to raise awareness about childhood obesity. The company didn’t say whether that employee was former foundation executive director Russell Taylor.

Federal prosecutors in May filed a criminal complaint charging Taylor, 43, with seven counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Investigators said they discovered a cache of sexually explicit photos and videos Taylor allegedly produced by secretly filming minor children at his home.

Fogle issued a statement after the charges were filed saying he was shocked by the allegations and was severing all ties with Taylor.

Fogle declined to comment as he left his home Tuesday, the hood of a blue rain jacket pulled over his head.

Attorney Ron Elberger said in a statement that his client had not been arrested or charged.

State police spokesman David Procopio said investigators are grateful to the public for “caring about this little innocent.”

“But we continue our request for leads,” he said.

“We need people to continue to look at her and think about her and let us know if anything in their memory clicks.”

ARMY CUTS continued from page 1

retirement of officers rather than layoffs of enlisted soldiers.

Members of Congress generally oppose shrinking the size of the military, especially if the cuts might affect bases in their states or districts.

But they also have opposed other forms of savings proposed by the Pentagon, including reforming the military health care or retirement systems, eliminating older weapons systems or closing bases.

“Jared has been cooperating, and continues to cooperate, with law enforcement in their investigation of unspecified charges, and looks forward to its conclusion,” Elberger said.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, told Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at Tuesday’s hearing that he was opposed to shrinking the size of the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, an airborne infantry unit based at Fort Richardson, Alaska, because he wanted to save the Army from a “strategic blunder.”

Subway removed references to Fogle from its website and issued another statement, saying the two had “mutually agreed to suspend their relationship due to the current investigation.”

Dempsey told Sullivan that Congress has been “telling us `no’” to money-saving changes that could reduce the need for troop cuts.

“Jared continues to cooperate with authorities and he expects no actions to be forthcoming,” the company said. “Both Jared and Subway agree that this was the appropriate step to take.”

People walk past a Subway restaurant Tuesday, July 7, 2015, in St. Louis. FBI agents and Indiana State Police raided the home of Subway restaurant spokesman Jared Fogle on Tuesday, removing electronics from the property and searching the house with a police dog.

“I’m about to become a great-grandmother, so it just touches you,” she said in a telephone interview. “It’s sad that there was a little girl out there of her age that was found by herself and nobody has claimed her.”

“We have $1 trillion - that’s a T, not a B - a trillion dollars less in budget authority over 10 years. We’ve said from the beginning, it’s a disaster,” Dempsey said.

Fogle, 37, became the restaurant chain’s pitchman after shedding 245 pounds more than 15 years ago, in part by regularly eating Subway sandwiches. Subway began featuring Fogle in commercials soon after, and his story was instrumental in giving the sandwich chain an image as a healthy place to eat.

Neighbors said Fogle and his wife entertained frequently and would say hello but that they didn’t see the couple outside a lot.

Jacob Schrader, 19, who lives across from Fogle’s house, said the pitchman seems “like a pretty private guy” and that he’d only seen him about a dozen times in the last five or six years.

“He’s like an endangered species or something like that,” Schrader said.

Subway, which is based in Milford, Connecticut, and is privately held, has struggled in recent years. Last year, industry tracker Technomic said average sales for Subway stores in the U.S. declined 3 percent from the previous year. The company has about 44,000 locations around the world.

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may become necessary to adjust how we implement the military campaign.”

On Afghanistan, Dunford, who until last year had been serving as the top U.S. commander in the country, also said that he is willing to recommend changes in the size and pace of the troop withdrawal there if security conditions worsen.

Defense spending bills moving through Congress call for padding a war-fighting account, which is not subject to congressional spending caps, known as sequestration.

“Quite frankly, if we go into sequestration we will be unable to support the current strategy that we have to protect our nation,” he said, adding that the combat readiness of U.S. forces “will suffer what I would describe, and without exaggeration, as catastrophic consequences.”

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

www.childrenincorporated.

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I S R A E L S AY S 2 O F I T S C I T I Z E N S A R E B E I N G H E L D I N G A Z A treat him properly and to return him in full health,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in a statement.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Two Israeli citizens are being held in the Gaza Strip, at least one of them by the Palestinian militant Hamas group, Israeli authorities said Thursday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he held Hamas responsible for the men’s well-being.

A spokesman for Hamas, Salah Bardawil, declined comment.

“We don’t have any information about it. Even if is true, we don’t have instructions to talk about it,” he said.

The announcement, made after months of secrecy, came after the Israeli military lifted a gag order Thursday on the two Israelis.

Netanyahu said Israel was working to free the men and that he had appointed a representative to deal with the matter. Defense officials identified the representative as Lior Lotan, a former Colonel and negotiator with an elite military unit. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the man’s identity to the media.

It raised memories of the case of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid and released five years later in a prisoner swap, as well as of the case of deadly kidnappings of three Israeli teens by Hamas militants in the West Bank last summer.

One of the two men, Avraham Mengistu, is an Israeli of Ethiopian descent in his late 20s who disappeared after he “independently” crossed the border fence into the Gaza Strip on Sept. 7 last year, nearly two weeks after the end of the Israel-Gaza war, said the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs. It gave no further details.

The second Israeli citizen being held in Gaza is a Bedouin Arab man from Israel’s Negev desert, according to the defense body, known as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT. There were no details as to how long he has been held in Gaza or how he got there or which group had him in custody. Bedouin make up a small group within Israel’s Arab minority, numbering about 180,000.

Thursday’s news did not trigger an uproar as the two previous two cases did - perhaps in part because the two missing Israelis were not violently captured but also a reflection of a tense but quiet working relationship that has emerged between Israel and Hamas

Israeli journalists report outside the apartment building of Ethiopian-Israeli Avraham Mengisto, 28, in the costal city of Ashkelon, Israel, Thursday, July 9, 2015. An Israeli security official said Thursday the Hamas militant group has been holding Mengisto in the Gaza Strip for nearly a year. The Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said Mangisto, born in 1986 from the Israeli city of Ashkelon, independently crossed the border fence into the Gaza Strip in September last year, nearly two weeks after the end of the Israel-Gaza war.

since a devastating war a year ago.

Senior Israeli government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said Israel had hoped keeping the affair quiet could lead to the men’s release.

COGAT said that “according to credible intelligence,” Mengistu is being held “against his will” by Hamas. It said “Israel has appealed (to) international and regional interlocutors to demand his immediate release and verify his well-being.”

“This is a humanitarian matter and I expect those holding him to

TRAGEDIES TIE SURVIVORS ACROSS DET R OIT CITY-S UBU R B BOR D ER He and Lawrence hope the foundation’s safety education programs will become mandatory for students. Lawrence said the lessons would include “common sense things,” such as don’t get in cars with strangers or let them in.

Both men acknowledge such lessons wouldn’t necessarily have saved their daughter and granddaughter.

Lawrence said Paige was planning to see a movie but her older sister wasn’t ready. While waiting with a friend, another friend called and asked for a ride. They picked up the girl, who was looking for her brother.

Dave Lawrence, right, and Steven Goodin share a moment after a prayer at the site where Lawrence’s 16-year-old granddaughter Paige Stalker was killed in Detroit. A few days after Paige’s slaying in December, Christina Samuel was shot and killed not far away. Chris Samuel, Christina’s father, and Lawrence have launched a foundation with others aimed at establishing neighborhood groups and developing safety education programs.

DETROIT (AP) -- Residents and activists fanned out at a busy intersection on Detroit’s east side, blocks from where a suburban high school girl was gunned down in a car.

Chris Samuel was among those distributing posters about the December killing. He didn’t know Paige Stalker, but a similar tragedy ended up connecting him to the 16-year-old and her family: Just days after Paige’s slaying, Samuel’s 22-year-old daughter, Christina Samuel, was shot and killed in a car a few miles away.

Days after the shootings, Samuel was attending an event in his daughter’s memory when Paige’s grandfather, Dave Lawrence, approached him. The two men walked away from the crowd, shared words and a hug, and have supported each other since.

They have done more than console each other. They have launched a foundation with others aimed at establishing neighborhood groups and developing safety education programs.

Paige was white and from the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms. Christina was black and from a poorer area in the city of Detroit. But Paige’s grandfather and Christina’s father are focused on what their loved ones had in common and working to unite their communities in the wake of the deaths.

“Days go by - he’s my rock and I’m his,” Chris Samuel said. “We might be in different communities but our hearts are definitely the same. We’re grieving.”

Christina Samuel graduated with a criminal justice degree from Indiana Institute of Technology in Fort Wayne, where she regularly made the dean’s list. She was about to enter law school, and relatives say she wanted to work with juveniles to help rehabilitate them and keep them out of trouble.

Paige Stalker was a National Honor Society student with dreams of becoming a doctor. She contacted the University of Michigan to find out what she would need besides good grades to get into medical school. The university suggested volunteering, so she did - twice a week at a Grosse Pointe hospital that has since established a scholarship in her name for two volunteers each year who are interested in the medical field.

“They were pretty much identical - always willing to help others,” Samuel said.

During the Dec. 22 drive, two boys “jumped in,” Lawrence said.

The five drove to the corner of Philip and Charlevoix streets on Detroit’s east side. “As soon as they got there, a guy got out of a car and opened up,” he said.

“I can almost hear Paige when these people got in the car - `I don’t want to be here,’” Lawrence added. “She had no control over the situation.”

Christina Samuel was talking in a car with a 24-year-old friend she hadn’t seen since junior high school, her father said. Police have said they believe the man was the intended target. Christina was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour into Christmas Day. No arrests have been made in either case, and Detroit police are not discussing details.

“Yesterday I spoke with the parents and siblings of Avraham Mengistu and I told them that ... we have spared no effort to return him to Israel,” Netanyahu said, adding that he expected the international community to “issue a clear call” for the men’s release.

It was not clear why Israel decided to come forward with the news on Thursday. But Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, may have forced its hand by telling the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper late Tuesday that Israel had asked Hamas through a European mediator to release “two soldiers and two bodies.”

Israel says the bodies of Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin have been in Hamas hands since the soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza last summer.

Mashaal said Hamas told the mediator that it would not hold negotiations with the “prisoners” Hamas has, nor would it release information about them or their condition, until Israel releases Palestinian prisoners rearrested after being freed in a 2011 high-profile prisoner swap, in which Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Schalit.

Israeli media said Israel had turned to international channels to appeal for Mengistu’s release on humanitarian grounds because he was a civilian, not a soldier.

Israeli Channel 2 TV said Mengistu arrived at an Israeli beach on the Gaza border the evening of Sept. 7, left his bag behind and crossed into Gaza through a breach in the border fence apparently left from the movement of Israeli tanks during the Israel-Gaza war.

The 50-day war last summer between Israel and Hamas, a militant Islamic group sworn to Israel’s destruction, killed 2,200 Palestinians while Israel lost 73 people.

Though bitter enemies, both sides have largely honored a cease-fire that ended last year’s war - their third since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007. While they have no formal relations, both sides tried to avoid another flare-up in fighting and also in recognition of a rising threat posed by extremist Salafist groups that draw inspiration from the Islamic State group.

“This is a difficult humanitarian matter, because my brother is not in the best of health,” said Ilan Mengistu to reporters. He called on Hamas to free him immediately, and asked Israel and the international community to exert pressure to lead to his release.

He did not elaborate on Mengistu’s health, but Israeli Channel 2 TV said Mengistu was depressed following the death of another brother.

Israeli Channel 10 broadcast an interview with a man it identified as Mengistu’s father. “They didn’t do anything,” Haili Mengistu said. “Where is my son?”

“Homicide investigators are following all leads that they have available to them,” Sgt. Cassandra Lewis said.

Itamar Shimoni, the mayor of Ashkelon where Avraham Mengistu is from, praised the family of five brothers and said local officials were supporting them.

Chris Samuel and Lawrence credit police with keeping them updated despite no major breaks. Still, they are upset about what they consider a lack of cooperation from people who were in the cars.

“The family has been hurting for several months now. They are showing restraint. This is not a family that will go out demonstrating,” he said. “It’s not easy, it’s not easy.”

But for every challenge, there’s progress. Like a new park that Detroit and Grosse Pointe Park have agreed to name after Paige and Christina where the two communities meet.

And the vigils and rallies where the men have teamed up since January are also bright spots - more opportunities for them to show solidarity.

“Anytime I’m out, Chris is there. Anytime we’re out for Christina, I’m there,” Lawrence said.

“The streets will tell us what we need to know - that’s where we’re going to get the information from,” Samuel said. “Our girls were innocent. We just need to know why.”

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GREECE SEEKS 3-YEAR AID PROGRAM, R U S H E S T O D E T A I L R E F O R M S Strasbourg, France.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greece requested a new three-year rescue program from its European partners on Wednesday and rushed to complete a detailed plan of economic reforms in time to avoid the country’s descent into financial chaos.

The head of France’s central bank said he feared the “collapse” of the Greek economy and “chaos” if Greece doesn’t strike a deal by Sunday.

With the banking system teetering on the edge of collapse, the government sought to reassure its European creditors that it would enact tax and pension reforms quickly in exchange for loans from Europe’s bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

In unusually strong language, Christian Noyer told Europe-1 radio he predicted “riots” in Greece if no deal is reached. He also indicated the European Central Bank would effectively pull the plug on its emergency liquidity measures for Greek banks if no deal is struck.

In its formal request to tap the fund, the Greek government said it would “immediately implement a set of measures as early as the beginning of next week.”

After months of fruitless negotiations with the Greek government, the skeptical European creditor states have said they want to see a detailed, cost-accounted plan of the reforms by Thursday. That is meant to give the creditors enough time to review the plan before leaders of the European Union’s 28 countries meet on Sunday in what has been termed as Greece’s last chance to stay in the euro.

In the letter, the Greek government said it was aiming to be able to finance itself once the new aid program is over in three years.

Without a deal, Greece faces an almost inevitable collapse of the banking system, which would be the first step for the country to fall out of the euro.

Markets are holding up despite the apparent ultimatum, with many investors predicting a last-minute deal. The Stoxx 50 index closed up 1 percent.

Greece’s main business and tourism associations predicted an “explosion of unemployment” if no deal is reached.

People line up at the main gate of the national bank of Greece as they wait to withdraw a maximum of 120 euros ($134) for the week in central Athens, Greece, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Greece is scrambling to develop a detailed proposal to move away from the brink of financial collapse. Underscoring the gravity of the challenge, European Union President Donald Tusk decided to call all 28 EU leaders to Brussels instead of only the 19 eurozone members, because, for the bloc, it “is maybe the most critical moment in our history.”

“Guarded optimism is the theme today, as the eurozone gives Greece one final deadline,” said Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at IG in London.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, addressing lawmakers at the European Parliament, said his country is seeking a deal that would bring a definitive end to his country’s financial crisis. Greece has had two bailouts from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010, totaling 240 billion euros ($260 billion).

“We need to ensure the medium-term funding of our country with a development and growth program,” Tsipras told lawmakers in

S U I C I D E AT T E M P T S M O S T C O M M O N IN NEWER SOLDIERS, STUDY FOUND represent different `disorders’” related to suicide.

WHAT ABOUT CIVILIANS? Comparing military suicide attempt rates with civilian rates is difficult because of differences in methods used, Ursano said. The study cites nonfatal self-injury rates for U.S. men aged 18 to 34 during the same time - about 214 per 100,000 and slightly higher rates for women, but these only involve injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms and may include self-injuries that weren’t suicide attempts.

U.S. Army soldiers walk in a line at a reenlistment ceremony for a comrade in Baqouba, Iraq. New research published Wednesday, July 8, 2015 in JAMA Psychiatry shows wartime suicide attempts in the Army are most common in early-career enlisted soldiers who have not been deployed, while officers are less likely to try to end their lives. The study

CHICAGO (AP) -- War-time suicide attempts in the Army are most common in newer enlisted soldiers who have not been deployed, while officers are less likely to try to end their lives. At both levels, attempts are more common among women and those without a high school diploma, according to a study billed as the most comprehensive analysis of a problem that has plagued the U.S. military in recent years.

Suicides in the military have gotten the most attention, but attempts are more prevalent and sometimes have different contributing factors. They’re “an opportunity to intervene,” said Dr. Robert Ursano, psychiatry chairman at the Uniformed Services University and the study’s lead author.

The study analyzed records on nearly 10,000 suicide attempts among almost 1 million active-duty Army members during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, from 2004 to 2009.

That compares with 569 Army suicide deaths during the same period reported by researchers last year in a different phase of the same study. Rates for both increased during that time.

In recent years, Army suicide rates have surpassed civilian rates although military estimates are generally lower than others.

PREVENTION EFFORTS The new results will help the Army identify which prevention programs are most beneficial, Ursano said.

Tsipras insisted he has “no hidden agenda” to drive Greece out of the euro and that last Sunday’s referendum result, in which voters soundly rejected a previous creditors’ reform proposal, does not mean a break with Europe.

Applause rose from left-wing quarters in the EU Parliament when Tsipras said aid to Greece only helped out banks, not ordinary Greeks. A few called for compromise.

The head of a conservative group in the parliament, Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, said he was “furious” at Tsipras’ failure to spell out specifics of his reform plans.

In Greece, meanwhile, people were struggling with an eighth day of limits on money withdrawals and closed banks. Greeks cannot take out more than 60 euros ($67) a day from ATMs and are unable to send money abroad, including to pay bills or to stock their businesses, without special permission.

Tsipras said Greece’s troubles predated his arrival in office in January and condemned the “austerity experiment” his country has endured over the past five years that he blames for spiraling unemployment and poverty.

“We demand an agreement with our neighbors, but one that gives us a sign that we are on a long-lasting basis exiting from the crisis - which will demonstrate to us that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Tsipras vowed to continue reforms but warned about the austerity-weariness of the public.

“This has exhausted the patience and resilience of the Greek people,” he said.

The Greek crisis has frayed the nerves of other European leaders, who have accused the Greek government, elected on promises to repeal austerity, of foot-dragging and exacerbating the situation.

Highlighting the rising anger with Tsipras, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a stark warning for Greece after Tuesday’s eurozone summit.

“We have a Grexit scenario, prepared in detail,” he said, apparently referring to the situation in which Greece would be forced out of the currency union.

Suicide attempts can lead to a medical discharge but they are not grounds for automatic dismissal, according an Army spokeswoman.

One big sticking point has been Greece’s demand for some relief on its debt burden, which stands at around 320 billion euros ($350 billion), or around 180 percent of the country’s annual GDP.

Early-career soldiers may be particularly vulnerable because of trouble adjusting to military life and anxiety over potentially being deployed to combat, said psychologist Craig Bryan, associate director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah.

Germany appears to be particularly reluctant to help Greece deal with its debts if reforms aren’t forthcoming.

An atmosphere that encourages mental toughness may discourage some suicidal soldiers from seeking help, said Bryan, whose research found promising results with an intervention that uses military-sounding names for traditional behavior therapy methods. For example, dubbing the “hope box” method of focusing on positive thoughts a “survival kit,” and calling special relaxation techniques “tactical breathing” made them more appealing to soldiers.’

France’s government has appeared willing to play mediator, though even it has said it is up to Greece to present suitable proposals for a deal.

Germany’s stance is at odds with the IMF - another major creditor.

In a report last week, it said European states should accept longer repayment periods and lower interest rates on their loans to Greece.

“It didn’t seem like silly stuff to them anymore,” he said.

The new research was published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Some key points: ATTEMPTS VS DEATHS Suicide attempts and deaths were more common among enlisted soldiers than officers. The new research found an attempt rate of 377 per 100,000 among enlisted soldiers versus almost 28 per 100,000 among officers. Attempts and suicide deaths were more common among whites than blacks and Hispanics; among those with no college education; and those at early stages of their Army careers.

Recent diagnosis of mental illness was another common characteristic.

DIFFERENCES Compared with Army men, attempts were more common in women but deaths were less common. Attempts were more common but deaths were less common in soldiers who weren’t deployed versus the currently deployed.

“Suicide attempts and completed suicides have different predictors in most studies,” said Ursano. “They may in fact

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The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

9

AN IS SECRET TO SUCCESS: SHOCK T R O O P S W H O F I G H T T O T H E D E AT H

BAGHDAD (AP) -- They are the Islamic State group’s elite shock troops. Fanatical and disciplined, they infiltrate cities of Iraq and Syria, unleash mayhem and fight to the death, wearing explosives belts to blow themselves up among their opponents if they face defeat.

IS calls them “Inghemasiyoun,” Arabic for “those who immerse themselves,” a sort of special forces unit parallel to its regular forces that is credited with many of the group’s stunning battlefield successes. A recent online video from the group showed a unit preparing to launch an eventually successful attack on the central Syrian town of al-Sukhna. “Victory or martyrdom,” the fighters, wearing blue bandanas, scream in a circle around their commander, pledging their allegiance to God and vowing never to retreat.

“They cause chaos and then their main ground offensive begins,” said Redur Khalil, spokesman for the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which have led a string of military successes against the IS in Syria.

Though best known for its horrific brutalities, the Islamic State group has proved to be a highly organized and flexible fighting force, according to senior Iraqi military and intelligence officials and Syrian Kurdish commanders on the front lines.

Its tactics are often creative, whether it’s using a sandstorm as cover for an assault or a lone sniper tying himself to the top of a palm tree to pick off troops below. Its forces switch between conventional and guerrilla warfare, using the latter to wear down their opponents before massed fighters backed by armored vehicles, Humvees and sometimes even artillery move to take over territory. The fighters incorporate suicide bombings as a battlefield tactic to break through lines and demoralize enemies, and they hone them to make them more effective. Recently, they beefed up armor of the vehicles used in those attacks to prevent gunfire from killing the driver or detonating explosives.

Those strategies are being carried into new fronts as well, appearing in Egypt in last week’s dramatic attack by an IS-linked militant group against the military in the Sinai Peninsula.

Andreas Krieg, a professor at King’s College London who embedded with Iraqi Kurdish fighters, said IS local commanders receive overall orders on strategy but are given freedom to operate as they see fit to achieve them. That’s a sharp contrast to the rigid hierarchies of the Iraqi and Syrian militaries, where officers often fear acting without direct approval.

The group’s tactics carried it to a sweep of northern and western Iraq a year ago, capturing Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city.

Shortly thereafter, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” spanning its territory in Iraq and Syria.

In May, it captured Ramadi, capital of Iraq’s vast western Anbar province. In Syria, it seized the central city of Palmyra.

The elite shock troops were crucial in capturing Ramadi. First came a wave of more than a dozen suicide bombings that hammered the military’s positions, then the fighters moved in during a sandstorm. Iraqi troops crumbled and fled as a larger IS force marched in.

In this photo released on June 23, 2015, by a website of Islamic State militants, an Islamic State militant fires artillery against Syrian government forces in Hama city, Syria. Special troops called “Inghemasiyoun,” Arabic for “those who immerse themselves,” are possibly the deadliest weapon in the extremist group’s arsenal: Fanatical and disciplined, they infiltrate their targets, unleash

IS fighters are highly disciplined - swift execution is the punishment for deserting battle or falling asleep on guard duty, Iraqi officers said. The group also is flush with weaponry looted from Iraqi forces.

IS stands out in its ability to conduct multiple battles simultaneously, Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi said.

“In the Iraqi army, we can only run one big battle at a time,” said al-Saadi, who was wounded twice in the past year as he led forces that retook the key cities of Beiji and Tikrit.

Even the group’s atrocities are in part a tactic to terrorize its enemies. It beheads captured soldiers, releasing videos of the killings online. Stepping up the shock value, recent videos showed caged captives being lowered into a pool to drown and the heads blown off other captives with explosive wire around their necks.

The number of IS fighters in Iraq and Syria is estimated between 30,000 to 60,000, according to the Iraqi officers. Former officers from the military of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein have helped the group organize its fighters. Veteran jihadis with combat experience in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Somalia have brought valuable experience.

Foreigners who join IS often end up as suicide bombers.

“People go to the Islamic State looking to die, and the Islamic State is happy to help them,” said Patrick Skinner, a former CIA officer now with The Soufan Group, a private geopolitical risk assessment company.

L A N D A G E N C Y: A G E N T ’ S S T O L E N S E R V I C E G U N U S E D I N P I E R S L AY I N G he found the gun used in Steinle’s killing wrapped in a shirt on the pedestrian pier she was walking on. Sanchez said the gun went off in his hands, and his public defender, Matt Gonzalez, said Tuesday that the San Francisco woman’s death appeared accidental.

The shooting has touched off criticism from leading Republican lawmakers and from top Democrats, including California’s U.S. senators.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told CNN that San Francisco was wrong to ignore the ICE detainer request and release Sanchez from custody.

“The city made a mistake not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported,” Clinton said.

Francisco Sanchez, center, is lead out of the courtroom by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, right, and Assistant District Attorney Diana Garciaor, left, after his arraignment at the Hall of Justice on Tuesday, July 7, 2015, in San Francisco. Prosecutors have charged the Mexican immigrant with murder in the waterfront shooting death of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called on San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to start cooperating with federal immigration officials who want to deport felons such as Sanchez.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday one of its agent’s service guns was used in the shooting death of a woman walking on a popular San Francisco pier.

“I strongly believe that an undocumented individual, convicted of multiple felonies and with a detainer request from ICE, should not have been released,” Feinstein said.

BLM spokeswoman Dan Wilson said the weapon was issued to an agency ranger and was stolen from the agent’s car while he was in San Francisco on business.

Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, who has been deported to his native Mexico five times and is suspected of living in the United States illegally, told television news stations he found the gun on the pier and it accidentally fired. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder charges in Kathryn Steinle’s death.

Steinle, 32, was gunned down last week while strolling with her father along San Francisco’s popular waterfront area.

Federal officials transferred Sanchez to San Francisco’s jail in March to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge after he completed his latest prison term for entering the country illegally.

The San Francisco sheriff, citing the city’s “sanctuary city” policy, released Sanchez in April after prosecutors dropped the drug charge, despite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request to hold him for federal authorities so deportation proceedings could begin.

He told two television stations who interviewed him in jail that

The mayor’s office said it has reached out to Homeland Security officials to determine if there’s a way to cooperate while still upholding the city’s sanctuary policy.

Sen. Barbara Boxer said she asked Gov. Jerry Brown if state law was followed in Sanchez’s release.

San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has defended Sanchez’s release and the city law requiring his office to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody.

Since US-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have hampered the group’s movements, IS has lost ground. Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen retook some cities, like Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. In Syria, Kurdish fighters backed by heavy U.S. airstrikes recaptured the border town of Kobani after weeks of devastating battles. More recently, IS lost Tal Abyad, another Syrian border town.

Despite that loss, IS shock troops attacked Kobani again last month. Around 70 fighters battled a much larger Kurdish force for two days. They were all slain, but not before killing more than 230 civilians, including roughly 100 children, and more than 30 Kurdish fighters. Around the same time, they also attacked Tal Abyad, where they battled for days until they were killed, and the northeast Syrian city of Hassakeh, where they continue to hold out.

“They weren’t planning to leave alive,” Kurdish commander Ghalia Nehme said of the IS fighters in Kobani. “It seems they were longing for heaven.”

FDA: CALORIES ON MENUS, MENU BOARDS D E L AY E D U N T I L 2 0 1 6 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Diners will have to wait until the end of 2016 to find calorie labels on all chain restaurant menus.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that restaurants and other establishments will now have until December 1, 2016, to comply with federal menu labeling rules - one year beyond the original deadline.

FDA said it is extending the deadline after restaurants and other retailers said they needed more time to put the rules in place. The agency said those businesses are in the process of training workers, installing menus and menu boards and developing software and technology for more efficient and specific calorie label displays.

The rules will require restaurants and other establishments that sell prepared foods and have 20 or more locations to post the calorie content of food “clearly and conspicuously” on their menus, menu boards and displays. That includes prepared foods at grocery and convenience stores and in movie theaters, bakeries, coffee shops, pizza delivery stores and amusement parks.

The menus and displays will tell diners that a 2,000-calorie diet is used as the basis for daily nutrition, noting that individual calorie needs may vary. Additional nutritional information beyond calories, including sodium, fat and sugar must be available upon request.

The Obama administration has said menu labeling is just one way to combat obesity, since Americans eat and drink about one-third of their calories away from home.

Some of the rules are complicated. In grocery stores, for example, the labeling rules exclude prepared foods that are typically intended for more than one person. That could mean cut fruit or other foods would be labeled in a salad bar, but not in a larger container for sale.

Michael Taylor, FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods, said the agency will issue more detailed guidance later this summer to address some of the restaurants’ and retailers’ questions on the rules.

As they await that guidance, the restaurant industry said the delay would be helpful.

“Some of our members are ready to implement menu labeling while others still need more time,” said Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO if the National Restaurant Association.

The rules had already been delayed when the FDA issued them last November.

They were first required by Congress in the 2010 health overhaul, but FDA took several years to write them as supermarkets, convenience stores and pizza delivery companies aggressively lobbied against them. Those businesses said the rules would be more burdensome for them than they would be for restaurants, which typically have more limited offerings.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a longtime menu labeling advocate, criticized the FDA’s further delay. She said restaurants and retailers have had enough time.

“Industry is doing everything they can to stonewall implementation of this important public health tool,” she said. “It takes time to change signage, packaging, and data systems. I understand that. But ultimately we need to make sure consumers have nutrition information available to them when making purchasing decisions.”

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The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

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S A N D W I C H G E N E R AT I O N W O R R I E D A B O U T O W N L O N G - T E R M C A R E In this photo taken Monday, July 6, 2015, Kamila Al-Najjar poses with her mother, Joan Groen, at her assisted living facility in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Caught between kids and aging parents, a new poll shows the sandwich generation worries more than most Americans their age about how they’ll afford their own care as they grow older.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Caught between kids and aging parents, the sandwich generation worries more than most Americans their age about how they’ll afford their own care as they grow older, a new poll shows. But most aren’t doing much to get ready.

Nearly 1 in 10 people age 40 and over are “sandwiched” - they’re supporting a child while providing regular care for an older loved one, according to the poll

by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Another 8 percent may join the ranks of double-caregivers in the next five years, citing declining health of an older relative or close friend.

About half worry about being able to pay for their future care needs or having to move into a nursing home, compared with just over a third of other adults, the poll found. Also, 44 percent of sandwichers fear leaving debts to family, compared with 28 percent of others polled.

Dueling responsibilities can make some days feel like a tug-of-war.

“If my mom needs something badly, I get pulled away from my kids a lot,” said Kamila Al-Najjar of Santa Rosa, California, a lawyer with two children and self-described health advocate for her mother. She visits her mother’s assisted living facility at least twice a week and checks in daily by phone, to oversee a list of illnesses.

“You’re dealing with someone who is aging, toward the end of their life; then you have to deal with a teenager. I hear from my mom and daughter that I’m a nag. There’s no winning in it,” she said.

Adding to the challenge, 40- and 50-somethings tend to be at the height of their careers - and need to hang onto their jobs despite difficulties of caregiving, said Susan Reinhard, who directs AARP’s Public Policy Institute. Employer flexibility is a top issue as the population ages, she said.

“It’s not just their own financial security, it’s the financial security for their children and for the future,” Reinhard said.

After age 65, government figures show nearly 7 in 10 Americans at some point will need long-term care - from a relative, home aide, assisted living or nursing home.

Yet the AP-NORC Center poll found overall, most Americans 40 and older - 54 percent - have done little or no planning to get ready for this often pricey reality.

Only a third reports setting aside money for those needs. That’s even though Medicare doesn’t pay for the most common types of long-term care, and a nursing home can cost more than $90,000 a year.

Drill down to the 9 percent of this age group who make up the sandwich generation, and their experience leaves them far more concerned about their own senior years.

But the poll found the sandwich generation no more likely than other middle-aged adults to be planning and saving, possibly because of time or resources.

Al-Najjar is glad her mother “saved all her life ... so she didn’t have to stress out about stuff like that.” Caring for her has changed how she spends and plans for the future.

New difficulties also have surfaced over the past few days. Iran is pushing for an end to a U.N. arms embargo on the country but Washington opposes that demand.

A senior U.S. official also said the U.S. is insisting that any new U.N. Security Council resolution pertaining to Iran retain an arms ban and ballistic missile restrictions. The official demanded anonymity, in line with State Department custom.

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Kerry and Zarif are taking the lead in the seven-nation talks and had spoken of progress since their first meeting Saturday, adding to hopes that the original June 30 deadline would be met. But disputes over the length and kinds of limits on Tehran’s nuclear program and the timing for lifting economic penalties persisted, forcing negotiators to extend, first to Tuesday and then to Friday.

Bill Cosby pauses during a news conference. Cosby admitted in a 2005 deposition that he obtained Quaaludes with the intent of using them to have sex with young women. In court documents released Monday, July 6, 2015, he admitted giving the sedative to at least one woman.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed 70 officials since taking power in late 2011 in a “reign of terror” that far exceeds the bloodshed of his dictator father’s early rule, South Korean officials said Thursday.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, at a forum in Seoul, compared Kim Jong Un’s 70 executions with those of his late father, Kim Jong Il, who he said executed about 10 officials during his first years in power.

An official from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, who refused to be named, citing office rules, confirmed that the spy agency believes the younger Kim has executed about 70 officials but wouldn’t reveal how it obtained the information.

Yun also said that the younger Kim’s “reign of terror affects significantly” North Koreans working overseas by inspiring them to defect to the South, but he also didn’t reveal how he got the details.

North Korea, an authoritarian nation ruled by the Kim family since its founding in 1948, is secretive about its government’s inner workings, and information collected by outsiders is often impossible to confirm.

High-level government purges have a long history in North Korea.

To strengthen his power, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, removed pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese factions within the senior leadership in the years after the 1950-53 Korean War. The high-ranking victims included Pak Hon Yong, formerly the vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and the country’s foreign minister, who was executed in 1955 after being accused of spying for the United States.

South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers in May that Kim ordered his then-defense chief Hyon Yong Chol executed with an anti-aircraft gun for complaining about the young ruler, talking back to him and sleeping during a meeting.

Experts say Kim could be using fear to solidify his leadership, but those efforts could fail if he doesn’t improve the country’s shattered economy.

Kerry and Zarif had been joined over the past few days by the foreign ministers of the other nations at the table - Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. That had led to expectations that a deal could be near and awaiting a formal announcement.

Sierra Sierra Sierra Sierra

But the talks broke through their second deadline in a week on Tuesday, raising new questions about the ability of world powers to cut off all Iranian pathways to nuclear weapons through diplomacy and ways of lifting sanctions on Iran. Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, spoke of “tense” moments, and the State Department extended the current interim nuclear arrangement with Tehran through Friday.

“He (Obama) went out of his way last night to make it clear that he is prepared to walk away from the table and bear the consequences if the

N O RT H K O R E A N L E A D E R H A S S O FA R EXECUTED 70 OFFICIALS

Kim Jong Un has also removed key members of the old guard through a series of purges since taking over after the death of Kim Jong Il. The most spectacular purge to date was the 2013 execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, for alleged treason. Jang was married to Kim Jong Il’s sister and was once considered the second most powerful man in North Korea.

Diplomats on Tuesday said that most technical questions had been agreed on. But the fact that the two top nuclear experts met twice Wednesday for at least three hours indicated problems remained that only technicians could solve.

President Barack Obama has said the United States would walk away from the negotiating table rather than sign a bad deal. While congressional Republicans and Mideast allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia remain skeptical, Senate Democrats who met with Obama at the White House Tuesday night said they were confident he would only accept a “good deal.”

The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted by telephone April 7 to May 15 among a random national sample of 1,735 adults age 40 or older, with funding from the SCAN Foundation. Results for the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

And the National Association for Area Agencies on Aging runs an Eldercare Locator - at http://www.eldercare.gov and 1-800-677-1116 - to help people find local resources. Last year, the locator averaged more than 22,000 requests for

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was expected back later Wednesday along with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi of China have announced no immediate plans to return, suggesting negotiators were still not close to a deal.

Ministers of the other nations at the table had joined Kerry and Zarif over the past few days in hopes their added diplomatic weight would clinch agreement.

“I felt good that I could take care of him,” said Burnett, a retired tool and die maker who had help from his wife and one of his three grown children. But he’s saving up: “I don’t want any of my kids to go through what I did.”

Another challenge: Finding services to help seniors live out their days at home.

AARP recently opened an online “livability index” to rank communities on such factors as accessible housing and transit options.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also expressed confidence that Obama would abandon a bad deal. But asked if they had the same understanding of a “bad deal,” she replied, “That remains to be seen, I don’t know.”

As U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met with Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif took a breather from their rounds of bilateral meetings - their first break since the current round began nearly two weeks ago.

Carroll Burnett of Whitesboro, Texas, cared for his 88-year-old father, who’d suffered a stroke, for a year before he died in March.

The squeeze isn’t ending as children grow up. Among currently sandwiched parents, 29 percent have adult children living at home, the poll found; others are providing adult children with financial assistance, meaning some are sandwiched even after their children leave the nest.

Iranians don’t bend on these last few ... issues,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

VIENNA (AP) -- Top nuclear experts from Iran and the United States huddled Wednesday on disputes that have pushed negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program into overtime. Some foreign ministers were returning to Vienna later in the day, but others were staying away, reflecting the distance still to go for a deal.

“People don’t generally make these calls until they’re in crisis,” said association CEO Sandy Markwood. “If mom and dad need this as they get older, you should prepare for that, too.”

“It’s like a wake-up call,” she said. There are “a lot of seniors in the United States that don’t have that money.”

T O P U S - I R A N I A N T E C H N I C I A N S M E E T, NUKE TALKS IN TOUGH PHASE

European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini talks to media in front of Palais Coburg where closed-door nuclear talks with Iran take place in Vienna, Austria, Tuesday, July 7, 2015. Mogherini said that negotiations will continue for the next couple of days despite hitting some “tense” moments.

assistance a month. A recent report found the top needs: Transportation, mostly to get to doctor appointments; in-home services, such as meals and personal care; and finding affordable housing or making age-friendly home modifications.

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John Muir (1838-1914) was America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, and founder of the Sierra Club. This website, known as the “John Muir Exhibit” features his life and contributions.

h t t p : / / w w w . s i e r r a c l u b . o r g /

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The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

11

B O K O H A R A M O F F E R S T O S WA P K I D N A P P E D G I R L S F O R D E TA I N E E S does not have enough evidence for a conviction, and any court would free them. Nigerian law requires charges be brought after 48 hours.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist has told The Associated Press.

Thousands of suspects have died in custody, and some detainees wanted

by Boko Haram may be among them. Amnesty International alleges that 8,000 detainees have died in military custody - some have been shot, some have died from untreated injuries due to torture, and some have died from starvation and other harsh treatment.

The activist said Boko Haram’s current offer is limited to the girls from the school in northeastern Nigeria whose mass abduction in April 2014 ignited worldwide outrage and a campaign to “Bring Back Our Girls” that stretched to the White House.

The new initiative reopens an offer made last year to the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan to release the 219 students in exchange for 16 Boko Haram detainees, the activist said. The man, who was involved in negotiations with Boko Haram last year and is close to current negotiators, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters on this sensitive issue.

Fred Eno, an apolitical Nigerian who has been negotiating with Boko Haram for more than a year, told the AP that “another window of opportunity opened” in the last few days, though he could not discuss details.

He said the recent slew of Boko Haram bloodletting - some 350 people killed in the past nine days - is consistent with past ratcheting up of violence as the militants seek a stronger negotiating position.

Presidential adviser Femi Adesina said on Saturday that Nigeria’s government “will not be averse” to talks with Boko Haram. “Most wars, however furious or vicious, often end around the negotiation table,” he said.

Eno said the 5-week-old administration of President Muhammadu Buhari offers “a clean slate” to bring the militants back to negotiations that had become poisoned by the different security agencies and their advice to Jonathan.

In May, about 300 women, girls and children being held captive by Boko Haram were rescued by Nigeria’s military, but none were from Chibok.

It is believed that the militants view the Chibok girls as a last-resort bargaining chip.

An unidentified mother of a child that was abducted by Nigerian extremists reacts during a event in the memory of the girls and forming part of the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign at the presidential residence in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists are offering to free more than 200 young women and girls kidnapped from a boarding school in the town of Chibok in exchange for the release of militant leaders held by the government, a human rights activist has told The Associated Press.

In the video, nearly 100 of the girls, who have been identified by their parents, were shown wearing Islamic hijab and reciting the Quran. One of them said they had converted to Islam.

At the last minute, the agency said it was holding only four of the militants sought by Boko Haram, the activist said.

International indignation at Nigeria’s failure to rescue the girls was joined

by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama. In a radio address in May 2014, she said she and President Barack Obama are “outraged and heartbroken” over the abduction.

It is not known how many Boko Haram suspects are detained by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, whose chief Buhari fired last week.

The activist said the agency continues to hold suspects illegally because it

with Cosby, their accounts substantiated defendant’s alleged predilection for somnophilia,” Troiani wrote in her motion Wednesday, referring to a term used to describe someone aroused by having sex with an unconscious person.

Cosby settled the case after his deposition for an unknown sum.

Both sides agreed to keep the terms confidential and not comment on what did or didn’t happen between them.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Bill Cosby’s first accuser has asked a judge to release the comedian’s full deposition in her sex-assault lawsuit, saying Cosby, his lawyers and agents broke the confidentiality agreement that sealed the 2006 court settlement.

Andrea Constand’s lawyer argued in a sanctions motion Wednesday that the entire deposition should be made public, including questions Cosby answered under oath about his use of quaaludes and other drugs, his alleged use of hush money to silence women, his deal to have an accuser’s story spiked and his alleged affairs with other women.

Her lawyer said Cosby and his representatives broke the confidentiality agreement with public comments made over the years and again this week, but Constand has been powerless to respond.

“The release of these documents will assist other women who have been victimized and bring awareness to the fact that sexual assault is not just committed with a gun or knife but is also committed by mentors who engage in exploitative behaviors,” lawyer Dolores M. Troiani wrote in asking the judge to sanction Cosby and his lawyers.

Lawyers for Cosby, 77, did not immediately return calls for comment.

The motion comes after U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno unsealed excerpts from Cosby’s deposition this week in response to an Associated Press request, concluding that the public had a right to see “the stark contrast” between Cosby the public moralist and the statements he made under oath about his lifestyle and conduct.

The excerpts show Cosby admitting that he obtained quaaludes in the 1970s so that he could give them to young women he pursued for extramarital sex. Asked if they knew what they were taking, his lawyers objected and he never answered.

Frustrated by their attempts to dodge questions, Troiani went to court then to force Cosby and his lawyers to cooperate in the pre-trial deposition. She asked that Robreno force the comedian to answer 50 questions about his lifestyle, drug use and sexual encounters with 13 other “Jane Doe” women who had come forward to say Cosby had molested and perhaps drugged them years earlier.

The deposition eventually proceeded. And Troiani now wants his answers to those questions made public.

“Although some of the women engaged in consensual relations

Boko Haram has not shown them since a May 2014 video in which its leader, Abubakar Shekau warned: “You won’t see the girls again unless you release our brothers you have captured.”

Two months of talks last year led government representatives and Eno to travel in September to a northeastern town where the prisoner exchange was to take place, only to be stymied by the Department for State Service intelligence agency, the activist said.

ACCUSER ASKS FOR ALL COSBY TESTIMONY TO BE MADE PUBLIC

Bill Cosby pauses during a news conference. Cosby admitted in a 2005 deposition that he obtained Quaaludes with the intent of using them to have sex with young women. In court documents released Monday, July 6, 2015, he admitted giving the sedative to at least one woman.

In that infamous abduction, 274 mostly Christian girls preparing to write science exams were seized from the school by Islamic militants in the early hours of April 15, 2014. Dozens escaped on their own in the first few days, but 219 remain missing.

His lawyers have not returned messages seeking comment since the release of the deposition excerpts, which they had fought.

However, ABC reported that an unidentified Cosby associate, in a statement this week, said Cosby settled the suit to save accusers the embarrassment of testifying in open court. Cosby’s representatives have since said the statement didn’t come from anyone in the comedian’s camp.

Troiani, in her motion, pointed to that statement in support of her motion.

She also said that because the unsealed material does not include Cosby’s full answers, supporters could argue that the “seminal question of his admission to administering Quaaludes to sex partners was taken out of context.”

She said making public the entire deposition and written settlement would let people decide if that’s the case.

Jonathan’s government initially denied there had been any mass abduction and delays of a rescue that might have brought the girls home became a hallmark of his other failures. He steadfastly refused to meet with the Bring Back Our Girls campaigners, charging they were politicizing the issue.

On Wednesday, President Buhari welcomed those campaigners at the presidential villa in Abuja and pleaded “We only ask for your patience.”

He said “The delay and conflicting reaction by the former government and its agencies is very unfortunate.”

Campaign leader Oby Ezekwesili said, “The rescue of our Chibok girls is the strongest statement that this government could make to showg respect for the sanctity and dignity of every Nigerian life.”

There have been unconfirmed reports that some of the girls have been taken to neighboring countries, and that some have been radicalized and trained as fighters. At least three were reported to have died - one from dysentery, one from malaria and one from a snake bite.

Last year, Shekau said the girls were an “old story,” and that he had married them off to his fighters.

Lawan Zanna, whose daughter is among the captives, said this week that 14 Chibok parents have died since the mass kidnapping, many from stress-related illnesses blamed on the ordeal.

Some of the Chibok girls who managed to escape have been rejected by their community and now live with family friends, tired of hearing taunts like “Boko Haram wives.”

The assumption that all girls and women held by the group have been raped is a difficult stigma to overcome in Nigeria’s highly religious and conservative society.

Shekau had threatened in 2013 to kidnap women and girls if Nigeria’s military did not release detained Boko Haram wives and children. The government freed them in May of that year as a goodwill gesture ahead of failed peace talks.

Cosby’s statements might also be of interest to women now suing him for sexual assault and defamation, she said.

Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds more - girls, boys, women and young men. Some have become sex slaves, while others are used as fighters, according to former captives.

“They have a right to determine what if anything can be used as evidence in their respective cases,” said Troiani, who sought permission this week from the Jane Doe witnesses to have Cosby’s testimony unsealed.

Nigerian opinion on negotiating with the extremists is mixed. Some say the group’s crimes are too heinous to be forgiven: The 6-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 13,000 people and forced about 1.5 million from their homes.

Cosby has never been charged with a crime and has repeatedly denied the allegations. Most of the sexual misconduct accusations that more than a dozen women have made against him happened too long ago for criminal charges.

The AP generally doesn’t name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to have their names published, as Constand has done.

“A lot of people take a hard-line stance that you must never negotiate with a terrorist,” said Sen. Chris Anyanwu. She called it a “very complex” issue, balancing the lives of more than 200 girls against the dangers of freeing extremists.

The militants last year seized a large swath of northeast Nigeria and declared an Islamic caliphate. Nigeria and its neighbors deployed a multinational army that forced them out of towns and villages this year, but the bloodshed has risen at a fierce rate since Buhari’s May 29 inauguration amid pledges to crush the insurgency.

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12

The Weekly News Digest, July 13, thru July 20, 2015

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T H A I FA R M E R S A S K S P I R I T S F O R RAIN TO END CRIPPLING DROUGHT

BAN LUEAM, Thailand (AP) -- Under the scorching sun, dozens of Thai villagers, dressed in flowery shirts and traditional costumes, parade a white cat caged in a bamboo-woven basket door-to-door and let neighbors splash water on the unlucky feline, while chanting an ancient tune: “Rain, rain, come pouring down. We barely had any this year. Without rain, our rice will die.”

The reason involves El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects weather worldwide. This year, NOAA says, El Nino has an 85 percent chance of lasting through winter 2015-2016.

In Ban Lueam, a drought-plagued rural district 340 kilometers (211 miles) northeast of Bangkok, several hundred farmers did not have any choices but to start growing their rice and hope for the rain.

It’s a desperate plea to the god of rain, in the belief it will hear the cat’s cry and answer the farmers’ prayers.

Thailand’s rainy season officially began in the last week of May, but it rained only once in the Ban Lueam district in northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima province. It is one of more than 250 districts - or nearly 20 percent of the country - that have been declared emergency disaster zones as the prolonged drought becomes the worst in decades, its impact felt most acutely by farmers growing Thailand’s most important agricultural export: rice.

At the beginning of July, the amount of usable water in major dams across the country - except in the west - dropped to below 10 percent, according to the Irrigation Department. The water level at Bhumibol Dam has dropped to its lowest point in 51 years.

In the capital, Bangkok, the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority has been slowing down tap water production since May. The head of the authority, Gov. Thanasak Watanathana, told The Associated Press that without rains, the current water supply for daily consumption in Bangkok and its nearby provinces will last only 30 days. However, he said forecasters are expecting rains next month.

For rice farmers, it may already be too late.

The drought and the critical water shortage in dams have prompted the Agriculture Ministry to ask farmers to hold off on planting their crops. The Office of Agricultural Economics estimated that the delay could cost farmers in Thailand’s central plains alone 60 billion baht ($1.8 billion) in potential losses.

“Every year in the past, in June and July, in every part of the country - the north, the central or the northeast - farmers would have started planting their rice,” said Sompong Inthong, the permanent secretary at the Agriculture Ministry. “The real damage will be with those who have already planted but there’s not enough water. We have to look at how we can help them.”

The Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation Department have sent a fleet of propeller aircrafts on more than 3,000 flights since March to increase precipitation by cloud seeding, an artificial rainmaking technique spearheaded by King Bhumibol

In this July 2, 2015 photo, a caged cat, a part of rural Thai ceremonies praying for rain, looks out as villagers parade in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Under the scorching sun, dozens of Thai villagers, dressed in flowery shirts and traditional costumes, paraded the white cat caged in a bamboo-woven basket door-to-door and let neighbors splash water on the feline, while chanting an ancient tune: “Rain, rain, come pouring down. We barely had any this year. Without rain, our rice will die.”

Adulyadej. Despite the high rate of success, it did little to fill the dams.

Together with Vietnam, Thailand is one of the world’s top rice exporters. But because of the drought, the Office of Agricultural Economics estimates this year’s main crop will decrease by 11 percent, or about 24 million tons from the average of 27 million tons per year.

The Thai Rice Exporters Association says at least 3 million tons of off-season rice has disappeared from the stock since the beginning of the year due to the drought. The main concern, however, is the main farming cycle, which begins in May and is harvested as early as October.

“If the main crop’s produce is damaged, even 10 or 20 percent, it means the amount of rice will drop drastically,” said Chookiat Ophaswongse, the association’s honorary president. “If there’s still little rain from now, I’m afraid it will make quite an impact on next year’s export figures.”

Meteorologists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA say 2014 was the hottest year on record since 1880, when Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) - a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Supreme Court ruling that undermined a federal rule targeting mercury pollution will not affect the Obama administration’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions to slow the effects of global warming, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said she was disappointed with last week’s court ruling, but said comparing the mercury rule to the nearly finalized climate plan is “comparing apples and oranges.”

the Colstrip Steam Electric Station operated by Talen Energy in southeastern Montana. Coal companies and their supporters scored a courtroom victory with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said the Obama administration failed to take potential costs into account when it decided to regulate toxic emissions from many power plants, Monday, June 29, 2015

McCarthy described the ruling as “very narrow” and said it posed little threat to the 2011 mercury rule and even less risk to the climate rule, a separate effort that sets unprecedented carbon dioxide limits for coal-fired power plants that contribute to global warming.

Boonchan’s village is outside the irrigation zone and the only access to natural water is the Chi River, which has nearly dried up.

“I’m just waiting for it to rain. ... If the drought continues, it’s going to be tough for me. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing, or else I’ll starve,” he said, adding that he still owed 100,000 baht ($2,950) to the Bank of Agriculture for the equipment and maintenance costs for his farms.

“This drought has hit me the hardest, but I don’t know what else to do. Once you’re a farmer, it’s hard to be something else.”

STRESS FROM HEAT, DROUGHT ON FISH SPURS PUSH TO REDUCE KILLS

He said that Thailand’s competitiveness against rival exporters, such as Vietnam, “which have less impact from the drought than Thailand, will be affected.”

C L I M A T E P L A N O N T R A C K D E S P I T E M E R C U R Y R U L I N G

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled June 29 that the EPA should have considered the costs and benefits of its plan before deciding to impose limits on mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.

Last week, Boonchan Thasunthorn, 58, finished plowing nearly 16 acres (6 1/2 hectares) of his rice farms by using a crumbling 16-year-old manual tractor. He said he would rather take risk by sowing the crops in the absence of rain than holding off until it was too late.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- About a third of the world’s polar bears could be in imminent danger from greenhouse gas emissions in as soon as a decade, a U.S. government report shows.

The U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department’s research arm, said updated scientific models don’t bode well for polar bear populations across the world, especially in Alaska, the only state in the nation with the white bears.

On a related topic, McCarthy slammed proposed spending cuts being pushed by Republicans in Congress, saying they could have significant impact on “the core functions of the agency.”

The report released this week is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recovery plan for the polar bear. It is expected to be published Thursday in the Federal Register.

The House is debating a bill this week that would slash the EPA’s budget by 9 percent and block the agency from advancing a host of new rules, including the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.

The effects of diminished sea ice will lead to population declines throughout the century. Scientists saw no rebound in population numbers in the projections that stretched to the year 2100.

EPA officials receive calls daily from states and localities with questions about enforcement of environmental rules, McCarthy said, adding that the proposed budget cuts could make it difficult to answer those calls.

If the EPA can’t answer those questions, who will? McCarthy asked. “Ghostbusters won’t answer the phone,” she said.

Greenhouse gases are blamed for the climate warming that’s reducing the polar bear’s summer sea ice habitat.

The scientific models attempted to predict the effects on polar bear populations under two scenarios: one in which greenhouse gas emissions stabilized, and the other in which they continued unabated.

Under either scenario, the bears in the Alaska, Russia and Norway group with an estimated population of about 8,500 - would start to be affected in either 2025 or 2030, said lead author Todd Atwood, an Alaska-based USGS research wildlife biologist.

He said the main reason is this part of the Arctic has suffered some of the most dramatic declines in summer sea ice.

A majority of U.S. power plants have already invested millions of dollars to install pollution controls needed to comply with the mercury rule, so the practical effect of the court’s ruling will be limited, McCarthy said at a speech sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Polar bears feed primarily on seals and use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth. When the sea ice retreats in the summer, polar bears are forced to land. A study earlier this year found the land-based food would not help a polar bear adapt to the loss of sea ice. The Office of Naval Research said the past eight years have had the eight lowest amounts of summer sea ice on record.

The court decision did not set aside the mercury rule, but merely returned it to a lower court to decide how a cost-benefits analysis should be conducted, McCarthy said, adding that she is confident the rule eventually will be implemented.

The USGS didn’t predict specific number declines and instead projected whether a population would see a decreased or a greatly decreased population.

“There’s very compelling reasons for the utilities to continue to treat this as a requirement, and I think you’ll see them doing that,” she said.

“That’s not to say that we’ll lose polar bears completely out of the area, but we think that they’ll be at a greatly decreased distribution than what they currently are,” Atwood said.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is on track to complete the so-called Clean Power Plan next month, McCarthy said. The plan is intended to cut earth-warming pollution from power plants by 30 percent by 2030, setting in motion one of the most significant U.S. actions ever to address global warming.

Once completed, the rule will set the first national limits on carbon dioxide from existing power plants, the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. Congressional Republicans have vowed to block the rule and some GOP governors have said their states will not comply. McCarthy said she also expects a series of legal challenges to the rule, but said she is confident the administration will prevail.

“We’re actually very good at writing rules and defending them in court, and this will be no exception,” she said.

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Polar bears in Canada and Greenland also could see dramatic population drops by 2050. Bears in the high Canadian Arctic fared the best in the two scientific models. They saw a “greatly decreased” population only under the worst-case scenario.

“Polar bears are in big trouble,” said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “There are other steps we can take to slow the decline of polar bears, but in the long run, the only way to save polar bears in the Arctic is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Center for Biological Diversity originally petitioned for polar bears to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In 2008, the species became the first to be listed because of global warming.