AP Americas Digest

TOP STORIES:

US-EMBASSY SECURITY

WASHINGTON — The map of closed American embassies — and those that remain open — in the Middle East and Africa provides a window into the Obama administration’s concern about a potentially imminent al-Qaida terrorist attack on overseas U.S. interests. By Matthew Lee. AP Photos.

EMBASSY SECURITY-AL-QAIDA

WASHINGTON — Far from being on the brink of collapse, al-Qaida’s core leadership remains a potent threat — and one that experts say has encouraged the terror network’s spread into more countries today than it was operating in immediately after 9-11. By National Security Writer Lara Jakes.

FORT HOOD SHOOTING

FORT HOOD, Texas — Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who fired 146 bullets in his deadly assault on Fort Hood, calmly tells the jury that he killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in the 2009 attack as the Army psychiatrist’s long-delayed trial began in a Texas military courtroom. AP Photos. AP Video.

OBAMA

PHOENIX — President Barack Obama proposes a broad overhaul of the U.S. mortgage finance system, including winding down government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He declares that taxpayers should never again be left “holding the bag” for the mortgage giants’ bad bets. By AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace. AP Photos.

OBAMA-RUSSIA

BURBANK, California — President Barack Obama says he was “disappointed” that Russia had granted temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, defying Obama administration demands that the former government contractor be sent back to the U.S. to face espionage charges. By AP White House Correspondent Michael Blood.

BUSH-HEART PROCEDURE

Former President George W. Bush successfully undergoes a heart procedure in Dallas after doctors discovered a blockage in an artery during his annual physical, Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said. By Michael Graczyk and Lauran Neergaard. AP Photo.

MANNING-WIKILEAKS

MANNING-WIKILEAKS — Lawyers for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning are having some success in limiting government efforts to show that the classified material he disclosed through WikiLeaks damaged American interests. Manning’s sentencing hearing continues Wednesday at Fort Meade, near Baltimore. By David Dishneau.

US-LIBYA

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department has filed the first criminal charges in the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, two U.S. officials say. By Donna Cassata. AP Photo.

CANADA-PYTHON-BOYS KILLED

TORONTO — A 100-pound (45-kilogram) python blamed in the strangling deaths of two Canadian boys apparently escaped from its enclosure, slithered through a ventilation system and fell through the ceiling into the room where the young brothers were sleeping, authorities say. By Rob Gillies. AP Photos.

WASHINGTON POST-END OF AN ERA

WASHINGTON — The sale of The Washington Post to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos rocked the world of journalism, but it was also a shock to the community where it’s published: The hometown newspaper of the U.S. capital is no longer locally owned.

UN-ARGENTINA-FERNANDEZ

UNITED NATIONS — Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez used the opportunity of presiding over the U.N. Security Council for the first time Tuesday to take aim at the veto power of its five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. By Edith M. Lederer. AP Photos.

UN-SUDAN

UNITED NATIONS — Sudan’s government has not renewed work permits for 20 of the 37 U.N. refugee agency staffers in the country, which has forced cutbacks in services to displaced people in Darfur, the United Nations says. By Peter J. Spielmann.

MUNICIPAL BUILDING-SHOOTING

SAYLORSBURG, Pennsylvania — A disabled junk dealer feuding with local officials over his debris-strewn property packed a rental car with guns and ammunition before opening fire at a town meeting and killing three men, authorities say. By Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale. AP Photos.

ARGENTINA-BUILDING EXPLOSION

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina —A natural gas explosion wrecks a tall apartment building in the Argentine city of Rosario, killing at least eight people, injuring 60 and causing officials to evacuate much of the downtown. Officials said 19 people were unaccounted for. By Almudena Calatrava. AP Photos.

CARS INTO BEACHGOERS

LOS ANGELES — A lawyer for a man charged with murder and assault for allegedly driving his car through a weekend throng on California’s famed Venice Beach boardwalk and killing an Italian tourist, says it was an accident that has left his client devastated. By Michael R. Blood and Sarah Parvini . AP Photos. AP Video.

HAITI-CHOLERA REPORT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti should be held accountable for introducing cholera into the Caribbean nation, a Yale University report says. By Trenton Daniel.

WHITEY BULGER

BOSTON — Jurors in the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger began their deliberations Tuesday in a sweeping racketeering indictment that accuses the reputed crime boss of participating in 19 murders during a two-decade reign over Boston’s underworld. By AP Legal Affairs Writer Denise Lavoie. AP Photos.

BAHAMAS-CUBAN MIGRANTS

MIAMI — A protest by Cuban-Americans over the treatment of migrants in the Bahamas has brought renewed attention to longstanding complaints about the conditions of confinement in the island nation for people seeking to reach the United States, often with the help of human smugglers. By Ben Fox.

BOSTON MARATHON-TSARNAEV PATIENT

BOSTON — Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev befriended a brain-damaged anti-U.S. government conspiracy theorist through their mother’s health care aide job years before the deadly attack, a lawyer says. By Bridget Murphy and Jay Lindsay.

WARM 2012

WASHINGTON — A new massive U.S. study says the world in 2012 sweltered with continued signs of climate change. Rising sea levels, snow melt, heat buildup in the oceans, and melting Arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets, all broke or nearly broke records, but temperatures only sneaked into the top 10. By AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein. AP Photo.

AGING AMERICA-LVING TO 120

WASHINGTON — Ninety birthdays maybe, but not 120: Americans hope to stretch out life expectancy another decade or so, but they are ambivalent, even skeptical, about a fountain of youth. A new poll by the Pew Research Center explores attitudes about a scientific quest: Creating treatments that one day might slow the aging process and let people live decades longer than is normal today. By AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard.

MILITARY SUICIDES

CHICAGO — Combat appears to have little or no influence on suicide rates among U.S. troops and veterans, according to a military study that challenges the conventional thinking about war’s effects on the psyche. By AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner.

RECLUSE’S GOLD FORTUNE

CARSON CITY, Nevada — The last remnants of a fortune of coins found packed in ammunition boxes in the garage of a recluse who died last summer was auctioned Tuesday for more than $3.1 million — but not before bidders got assurances they could return any of the rare $20 gold pieces that some collectors spotted as counterfeit. By Scott Sonner. AP Photo.

COFFIN JUMP

SERENA, Illinois — A daredevil freed himself from shackles and a locked casket while plummeting to the earth at 130 miles per hour on Tuesday, eventually parachuting gently into a northern Illinois field. By Andrea Thomas. AP Photos.

SKATEBOARDING IN HAVANA

HAVANA — Che Pando can still recall how tough things were in the 1980s when he and a handful of other skateboarders first started shredding in public squares. They were seen as socially suspicious, and sometimes experienced arrest and rough treatment by police. But now a small but thriving urban tribe of pierced youths prowls Havana’s streets, looking to have fun and, just maybe, land the perfect trick. By Peter Orsi. AP Photos.

BUSINESS & FINANCE:

TRADE GAP

WASHINGTON — A sharp decline in the trade deficit with other nations suggests the U.S. economy grew this spring at a faster pace than previously estimated, helped by a record level of exports. By AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger. AP Photo.

WALL STRET

NEW YORK — Warnings of weaker profits helped pull the stock market down on Tuesday, despite some positive economic news. By AP Business Writer Matthew Craft. AP Photo.

WASHINGTON POST-BEZOS

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is revered as one of the brightest minds in corporate America, but even he is still puzzling over how to reverse the financial slide threatening The Washington Post and other major U.S. newspapers.

With: WASHINGTON POST-STOCK.

BANK OF AMERICA-FRAUD LAWSUITS

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has accused Bank of America Corp. of civil fraud, saying the company failed to disclose risks and misled investors in its sale of $850 million of mortgage bonds during 2008. By Marcy Gordon.

With: SEC-UBS SETTLEMENT.

GENERAL MOTORS-VOLT PRICE

DETROIT — General Motors is knocking 13 per cent off the sticker price of the Chevrolet Volt electric car as it tries to keep pace with rivals in the U.S. market for plug-in vehicles.

With: GM-NEW FACTORY.

EARNS-21st CENTURY FOX

LOS ANGELES — Entertainment media company 21st Century Fox shrank its fiscal fourth-quarter loss after the owner of Fox News Channel and FX shed the publishing division that caused a big write-down a year earlier. By AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

FILM-ELYSIUM

NEW YORK (AP) — In the desert of big-budget summer moviegoing comes, like fresh water, Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium,” a dystopic science-fiction thriller bristling with more ideas than all this year’s superheros and action films combined. Like Blomkamp’s first and previous film, the South African alien apartheid allegory “District 9,” ”Elysium” is a rogue burst of originality — a futuristic popcorn adventure loaded with contemporary themes of wealth discrepancy, immigration and health care. By AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle. AP Photos.

FILM-ANISTON-SUDEIKIS

NEW YORK — It doesn’t take much to get Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis going on a good comedic riff. Just the mention of some random subject and the two engage in banter like they’re reading from some comedic script. By John Carucci. AP Photos.

Theatre-SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKING LOT

NEW YORK — Acting in one of Shakespeare’s plays is difficult enough without having to dodge a 3,600-pound SUV. That’s just one of the challenges facing the cast performing “Richard III” this summer in a working outdoor municipal parking lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome streets in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. By AP Drama Writer Mark Kennedy. AP Photos.

OBIT-GEORGE DUKE

NEW YORK — George Duke, the Grammy-winning jazz keyboardist and producer whose sound infused acoustic jazz, electronic jazz, funk, R&B and soul in a 40-year-plus career, has died. He was 67. By AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu.

FEATURES:

VENEZUELAN RODEO

HIALEAH, Florida— On a sandy stretch of land between tree farms and cattle ranches, Edgar Abreu awaits his match: A black bull behind a red metal gate.The gate lifts and the bull runs. Abreu, a balding 57-year-old handyman, and another cowboy chase the animal on their horses. Abreu rides up alongside the bull, grips his hand around the tail and yanks the animal to the ground. The bull rolls over and comes to a rest on its stomach. The scene is reminiscent of rodeos in countless Venezuelan towns, as well as some other parts of Latin America. But this tournament is being held at a ranch in Hialeah, about 10 miles from the Miami’s towering condo and office buildings. The men on horseback are competing to represent the U.S. in a world championship in Venezuela later this year. By Christine Armario. AP Photos. AP Video.

GO FOR THE FOOD-PORTLAND

PORTLAND, Maine — Go for the lobster. Stay for the duck fat. Because culinary excursionists undoubtedly are drawn to Maine for a taste of the state’s signature crustacean. And they won’t be disappointed. But once you’ve had your fill of butter-drenched claws and tender hunks of lobster tail tucked into hot dog rolls, head to the state’s largest city where there are many — perhaps even too many — great food finds to explore. By AP Food Editor J.N. Hirsch.