Fighting Continues as U.S. Seeks Truce in Gaza

JERUSALEM — To a backdrop of airstrikes and mounting casualties, American efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the latest Gaza fighting between Israel and Hamas continued on Wednesday but the struggle to achieve even a brief pause in the fighting emphasized the obstacles to finding any lasting solution.

Israeli airstrikes overnight continued into Wednesday morning, hitting government buildings, the smuggling tunnels under the southern Rafah border crossing and a bridge on the beach road that is one of three linking Gaza City to the central area of the strip. The Hamas health ministry said the Palestinian death toll stood at 140 at noon, with 1,100 injured. At least a third of those killed are believed to have been militants.

The eight-day conflict in the Gaza Strip also appeared to have spilled onto the streets of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with what the police described as a bomb blast aboard a civilian bus. Eleven people were injured, one of them seriously.

The latest exchanges, which included the interception of at least two rockets fired from Gaza, came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was held talks with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Israeli leaders in Jerusalem. She flew on Wednesday to Cairo where Egyptian-brokered cease-fire talks have been inconclusive.

Around noon on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government media office, a bomb hit the house of Issam Da’alis, an adviser to Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister. The house had been evacuated. Earlier, a predawn airstrike near a mosque in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp killed a 30-year-old militant, a spokesman said, and F-16 bombs destroyed two houses in the central Gaza Strip.

There were 23 punishing strikes against the southern tunnels that are used to bring weapons as well as construction material, cars and other commercial goods into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula.

Within Gaza City, Abu Khadra, the largest government office complex, was obliterated overnight. Damage was also caused to shops, including two banks and a tourism office, and electricity cables fell on the ground and were covered in dust.

Separately, an F-16 bomb created a 20-foot crater in an open area in a stretch of hotels occupied by foreign journalists. Several of the hotels had windows blown out by the strike around 2 a.m., but no one was reported injured. By morning, the hole in the ground had filled with sludgy water, apparently from a burst pipe, appearing almost like a forgotten swimming hole with walls made of sand and cracked cinder block.

Surveying damage near a government complex, Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said Gaza civilians were “in the eye of the storm,” and accused Israel of “inflicting pain and terror” on them. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of locating military sites in or close to civilian areas.

Overnight, as the conflict entered its eighth day, the Israeli military said in Twitter posts that “more than 100 terror sites were targeted, of which approximately 50 were underground rocket launchers.” The targets included the Ministry of Internal Security in Gaza, described as “one of the Hamas’ main command and control centers.”

While there was no immediate or formal claim of responsibility for the bus bombing in Tel Aviv, a message on a Twitter account in the name of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip, declared: “We told you IDF that our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are, ‘You opened the Gates of Hell on Yourselves.’ ” The letters I.D.F. refer to the Israel Defense Forces.

On several occasions since the latest conflagration seized Gaza last week, militants have aimed rockets at Tel Aviv but they have either fallen short, landed in the sea or been intercepted. Hundreds of rockets fired by militants in Gaza have struck other targets.

But the bombing seemed to be the first time in the current fighting that violence had spread directly onto the streets of Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday — the deadliest day of fighting in the conflict — Mrs. Clinton arrived hurriedly in Jerusalem and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to push for a truce. Her planned visit to Cairo on Wednesday to consult with Egyptian officials in contact with Hamas placed her and the Obama administration at the center of a fraught process with multiple parties, interests and demands.

Before leaving for Cairo, news reports said, Mrs. Clinton headed to the West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, which is estranged from the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip and has increasingly strained ties with Israel over a contentious effort to upgrade the Palestinian status at the United Nations to that of a nonmember state. Mrs. Clinton was to meet again with Mr. Netanyahu before heading for Egypt, the reports said.

Mr. Abbas’s faction is favored by the United States, but it is not directly involved in either the fighting in Gaza or the effort in Cairo to end it. Like Israel and much of the West, the United States regards Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Officials on all sides had raised expectations that a cease-fire would begin around midnight, followed by negotiations for a longer-term agreement. But by the end of Tuesday, officials with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza, said any announcement would not come at least until Wednesday.

Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram from Gaza; Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; Alan Cowell from London; Peter Baker from Phnom Penh, Cambodia; David E. Sanger and Mark Landler from Washington; Andrea Bruce from Rafah; and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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The Petraeus Affair: How Jill Kelley Inadvertently Brought Down the CIA Director

By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall

11/21/2012 at 08:30 AM EST

Exclusive excerpt from this week's PEOPLE Magazine:

Jill Kelley had e-mailed the Tampa mayor before: to invite him to parties; to tell him she had talked him up to her pal "Dave" Petraeus; to drop the name of Gen. John Allen. But this time it was personal. On Nov. 14 she e-mailed Mayor Bob Buckhorn at 6:18 a.m. about the news crews camped outside her home: "To put insult to injury, your police dept. gave the local 911 tapes to the press! . . . I'm scared and cannot believe what my City – in which I have contributed so much of my love, time, money and leadership – has now done to me and my innocent family."

Buckhorn did nothing about Kelley's complaint and, asked by the Tampa Bay Times about the release of her embarrassing calls to police invoking "diplomatic protection" she's not entitled to, the mayor answered, "Public record." For Kelley, 37 – an unpaid community liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, who placed herself at the nexus of Tampa's military-civilian circles since moving there with her husband, Scott, and twin, Natalie Khawam, a decade ago – the mayor's response was a sign that her fall was now going to be as steep and spectacular as her climb. 

As the world saw this week, she had a lot of company on the way down. By cozying up to two four-star generals – and then flaunting her access to them – Kelley inadvertently exposed a scandal that involves both Petraeus, who stepped down as head of the CIA after admitting an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, and Allen, whose promotion to head NATO forces in Europe is in limbo while what government officials describe as suggestive e-mails he wrote to Kelley are reviewed by the Defense Department.

 
How did every thread in the web link back to a chatty, flirty mom of three in Florida? For military lifers like Petraeus and Allen stationed at Central Command in Tampa, the relative glitz Kelley and her sister brought proved enchanting. "Here's the thing about commanders: They can get isolated. It's nice to have civilian friends who support you and the mission," says an active duty Army community-outreach official. "Mostly it's a nice thing. This one backfired." ...

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OB/GYNs back over-the-counter birth control pills

WASHINGTON (AP) — No prescription or doctor's exam needed: The nation's largest group of obstetricians and gynecologists says birth control pills should be sold over the counter, like condoms.

Tuesday's surprise opinion from these gatekeepers of contraception could boost longtime efforts by women's advocates to make the pill more accessible.

But no one expects the pill to be sold without a prescription any time soon: A company would have to seek government permission first, and it's not clear if any are considering it. Plus there are big questions about what such a move would mean for many women's wallets if it were no longer covered by insurance.

Still, momentum may be building.

Already, anyone 17 or older doesn't need to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill — a higher-dose version of regular birth control that can prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after unprotected sex. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration held a meeting to gather ideas about how to sell regular oral contraceptives without a prescription, too.

Now the influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is declaring it's safe to sell the pill that way.

Wait, why would doctors who make money from women's yearly visits for a birth-control prescription advocate giving that up?

Half of the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended, a rate that hasn't changed in 20 years — and easier access to birth control pills could help, said Dr. Kavita Nanda, an OB/GYN who co-authored the opinion for the doctors group.

"It's unfortunate that in this country where we have all these contraceptive methods available, unintended pregnancy is still a major public health problem," said Nanda, a scientist with the North Carolina nonprofit FHI 360, formerly known as Family Health International.

Many women have trouble affording a doctor's visit, or getting an appointment in time when their pills are running low — which can lead to skipped doses, Nanda added.

If the pill didn't require a prescription, women could "pick it up in the middle of the night if they run out," she said. "It removes those types of barriers."

Tuesday, the FDA said it was willing to meet with any company interested in making the pill nonprescription, to discuss what if any studies would be needed.

Then there's the price question. The Obama administration's new health care law requires FDA-approved contraceptives to be available without copays for women enrolled in most workplace health plans.

If the pill were sold without a prescription, it wouldn't be covered under that provision, just as condoms aren't, said Health and Human Services spokesman Tait Sye.

ACOG's opinion, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, says any move toward making the pill nonprescription should address that cost issue. Not all women are eligible for the free birth control provision, it noted, citing a recent survey that found young women and the uninsured pay an average of $16 per month's supply.

The doctors group made clear that:

—Birth control pills are very safe. Blood clots, the main serious side effect, happen very rarely, and are a bigger threat during pregnancy and right after giving birth.

—Women can easily tell if they have risk factors, such as smoking or having a previous clot, and should avoid the pill.

—Other over-the-counter drugs are sold despite rare but serious side effects, such as stomach bleeding from aspirin and liver damage from acetaminophen.

—And there's no need for a Pap smear or pelvic exam before using birth control pills. But women should be told to continue getting check-ups as needed, or if they'd like to discuss other forms of birth control such as implantable contraceptives that do require a physician's involvement.

The group didn't address teen use of contraception. Despite protests from reproductive health specialists, current U.S. policy requires girls younger than 17 to produce a prescription for the morning-after pill, meaning pharmacists must check customers' ages. Presumably regular birth control pills would be treated the same way.

Prescription-only oral contraceptives have long been the rule in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and a few other places, but many countries don't require a prescription.

Switching isn't a new idea. In Washington state a few years ago, a pilot project concluded that pharmacists successfully supplied women with a variety of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills, without a doctor's involvement. The question was how to pay for it.

Some pharmacies in parts of London have a similar project under way, and a recent report from that country's health officials concluded the program is working well enough that it should be expanded.

And in El Paso, Texas, researchers studied 500 women who regularly crossed the border into Mexico to buy birth control pills, where some U.S. brands sell over the counter for a few dollars a pack. Over nine months, the women who bought in Mexico stuck with their contraception better than another 500 women who received the pill from public clinics in El Paso, possibly because the clinic users had to wait for appointments, said Dr. Dan Grossman of the University of California, San Francisco, and the nonprofit research group Ibis Reproductive Health.

"Being able to easily get the pill when you need it makes a difference," he said.

___

Online:

OB/GYN group: http://www.acog.org

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U.S. suspects' alleged terror plot beset by hurdles, FBI says

The alleged aspiring terrorists "liked" each other's jihadist Facebook postings. When they played paintball in Corona to prepare for Holy War, they commended each other for going full-throttle for shaheed (martyrdom) against timid opponents.

One man vowed to start hiking to get to know mountain terrain, and maybe try skydiving to see how he handled fear. Yet even as he expected to go on a suicide mission once he reached the Middle East, at home in Ontario, he briefly fretted over selling his car to fund the trip.

The federal complaint unsealed this week against four Southern California men depicts them as intent on joining Al Qaeda and killing American and coalition troops. But their alleged road to martyrdom was rutted with endless logistical problems, dubious connections overseas and their own equivocating over the smallest decisions: How do you pack for a jihad?

Ralph Deleon, 23, told two of his cohorts and an FBI informant "to bring thermal underwear, an XBox, sports magazines, and durable shoes." They cleanly shaved to avoid suspicion in transit to the Middle East — just before their friend in Kabul, the fourth defendant, told them to arrive with full beards to gain the trust of the Taliban.

That friend got sick and had to miss his scheduled suicide mission. His cohorts in the U.S. told him to hold off on his next mission at least until they arrived, so he could introduce them to their handlers before he killed himself. They had already talked him out of leaving Afghanistan altogether for Yemen.

Miguel Santana, 21, Arifeen Gojali, 21, and Deleon booked their tickets from Mexico City to Istanbul on Thursday, and were taken into custody during a vehicle stop in Chino the next day, authorities said. Santana is a Mexican national who was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. Deleon is a legal permanent resident from the Philippines. Gojali is an American of Vietnamese descent.

The central figure in the alleged plot is Sohiel Kabir, 34, a native Afghan and naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in Pomona and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001. He converted Santana and Deleon to Islam in 2010, then left for Afghanistan to make arrangements for the three of them to join the Taliban or Al Qaeda. (Santana and Deleon subsequently recruited Gojali in September.) Kabir was apprehended Saturday in Kabul.

Federal officials took the defendants' plans extremely seriously, and expended "extraordinary resources" to track and stop them, said David Bowdich, special agent in charge of counter-terrorism in Los Angeles, at a news conference Tuesday.

Undercover FBI operatives began chatting with Santana online in February, and the informant had infiltrated the group by March.

"Not only were they playing paintball, they were going to shooting ranges," Bowdich said. "They saw this as jihad."

The charges appear to be based largely on the work of the undercover informant, who has been on the FBI payroll for more than four years and has received $250,000 and "immigration benefits" for his work. According to the affidavit included in the criminal complaint, he was once convicted of trafficking pseudoephedrine, a chemical precursor to methamphetamine.

News of the arrests rattled neighbors of the defendants, who lived in quiet neighborhoods in Ontario, Upland and Riverside.

Just a few months earlier, Deleon was regularly playing basketball in the driveway of his parents' Ontario home with his 15-year-old next-door neighbor, Martin Garcia.

"I was in shock. I was like, damn!" Garcia said. "He's actually a really nice guy. He'd offer to take me out to dinner when we played basketball together."

"Then he became Muslim. He would try to influence me to become Muslim, tell me all these nice stories and it sounded pretty cool."

Deleon's younger brother told Garcia that Deleon was moving to Afghanistan.

"He just said he was tired of all that life," Garcia said. "He was just a regular teenager, partying and all that before."

Ulises Vargas, 23, said he attended classes at Ontario High School in 2006 with Deleon, and ate lunch with him and other friends almost daily. Deleon was outgoing — someone who played on the football team, made Homecoming Court and cracked jokes at lunch.

"It's surreal because it's somebody that you knew," Vargas said.

Deleon's father politely declined to comment, saying only, "It's too difficult."

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Clinton to Visit Middle East in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East on Tuesday to try to defuse the conflict in Gaza, the White House announced.

Mrs. Clinton, who accompanied Mr. Obama on his three-country Asia trip, left on her own plane immediately for the region, where she will stop first in Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, then head to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and finally to Cairo to consult with Egyptian officials.

The decision to dispatch Mrs. Clinton dramatically deepens the American involvement in the crisis. Mr. Obama made a number of late-night phone calls from his Asian tour to the Middle East on Monday night that contributed to his conclusion that he had to become more engaged and that Mrs. Clinton might be able to accomplish something.

With the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday, a senior official in the prime minister’s office said Israel decided to give more time to diplomacy before launching a ground invasion into Gaza. But Israel has not withdrawn other options.

“I prefer a diplomatic solution. I hope that we can get one but if not, we have every right to defend ourselves with other means and we shall use them,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle.

“As you know, we seek a diplomatic unwinding to this, through the discussions of cease-fire,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “But if the firing continues, we will have to take broader action and we won’t hesitate to do so.”

About three hours before Mr. Ban was scheduled to meet Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, sirens sounded across the city in the early afternoon announcing an incoming rocket from Gaza. The military wing of Hamas said it had fired at the city. The rocket fell short, landing harmlessly in the West Bank just south of Jerusalem and the military said it landed on open ground near a Palestinian village.

The rocket attack on the city, which is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was the second in less than a week. The earlier rocket last Friday landed in a similar location, the police said.

The Israeli military said that in the course of the morning its air force had struck at 11 Palestinian squads involved in planting explosives and firing rockets, as well as underground rocket launchers and a store of weapons and ammunition. The military said it had also used tank shells and artillery fire against unspecified targets in Gaza.  

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll had climbed by late Tuesday morning to 112, roughly half of them civilians, including children. Three Israelis died in a rocket attack last week.

After an Asian summit dinner in Phnom Penh on Monday night, Mr. Obama called President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt to discuss the situation, then spoke with Mr. Netanyahu and called Mr. Morsi back. He was up until 2:30 a.m. on the phone, the White House said. He consulted with Mrs. Clinton repeatedly on the sidelines of the Asian summit meetings on Tuesday.

“This morning Secretary Clinton and the president spoke again about the situation in Gaza, and the they agreed that it makes sense for the secretary to travel to the region so Secretary Clinton will depart today,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama. “Her visits will build on the engagement that we’ve undertaken in the last several days.”

Mr. Rhodes said that “any resolution to this has to include an end to that rocket fire” by Hamas militants on Israeli communities but “the best way to solve this is through diplomacy.”

He added: “It’s in nobody’s interest to see an escalation of the military conflict.”

Mrs. Clinton will not meet with Hamas representatives on her trip, but with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which is at odds with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip. “We do not engage directly with Hamas,” Mr. Rhodes said.

Instead, Mr. Obama is focused on leveraging Egypt’s influence with Hamas to press for a halt to the rocket attacks. “We believe Egypt can and should be a partner in achieving that outcome,” Mr. Rhodes said.

Mr. Rhodes reaffirmed that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself and said Mr. Obama did not ask Mr. Netanyahu to hold off a ground incursion into Gaza.

In Jerusalem, an official in the prime minister’s office said that the country’s top nine ministers, who make up the inner security cabinet, held discussions late into the night on the state of the diplomatic efforts and Israel’s military operation in Gaza. The goal of the operation, Israel says, is to end years of rocket fire by Gaza militants against southern Israel.

Peter Baker reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Gaza City.

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N.Y. police officer says not guilty of plan to cook, eat women

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City police officer pleaded not guilty on Monday to conspiring to kidnap, torture, cook and eat women.

Gilberto Valle, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged and arrested in October with conspiring to cross state lines to kidnap the women and with illegally accessing a federal database.

Prosecutors said some of the women were acquaintances of Valle but it was not clear if he knew or had met all of them. Valle, who an official said had no prior criminal record, was not charged with carrying out any of his suspected plans.

At a brief hearing Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Valle’s attorney, Julia Gatto, told the judge she would again seek to have her client freed on bail after two other judges previously denied her request.

Investigators uncovered a file on Valle’s computer containing the names and pictures of at least 100 women, and the addresses and physical descriptions of some of them, according to the criminal complaint. It said he had undertaken surveillance of some of the women at their places of employment and their homes.

Gatto argues that Valle, a 6-1/2 year NYPD veteran, was all talk and should be released on bail.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The case is U.S. v. Gilberto Valle, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-847.

(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Blake Shelton Has Unforgettable Night on The Voice

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

11/20/2012 at 08:15 AM EST

Cassadee Pope (Blake Shelton inset)

Tyler Golden/NBC (2)

It was a night of creative growth on The Voice Monday, as the top 10 wowed the coaches in unexpected ways.

"This may be the best episode of The Voice we've ever had," Blake Shelton said. But it was the top talent among the remaining handful of singers that really gave his statement weight.

Christina Aguilera and Shelton kicked off the night with "Just a Fool," a duet from her new album Lotus, which ushered in rousing performances from each team.

Melanie Martinez, the eccentric star of Team Adam, pleased fans with her offbeat take on the White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army." Cee Lo Green called her performance "one of the coolest things that's happened this season." It even had Shelton feeling envious. If there was one singer who wasn't on his team that he could coach, "It's you, Melanie," he told her.

Dez Duron took a grown-up approach to his choice of song with Nina Simone's "Feeling Good." "I'm so happy that you brought not only your stage presence to the table, but you dug deeper," his coach Aguilera said. "You made everyone's heart melt tonight."

Green's Trevin Hunte set out to show that he could go beyond ballads with Usher's "Scream," and the bold move paid off. Coupled with a sublime gospel choir, Hunte's moving vocals won over his astonished coach. "It was so sweet to me. It makes me cry," Green said.

Shelton hinted at an important development with a Tweet early in the night. "One of the biggest nights of my career on The Voice tonight for a couple reasons... Watch," he said.

His own Cassadee Pope had the honor of singing "Over You," the song Shelton and wife Miranda Lambert co-wrote about his late brother. Pope faced a big challenge, but the tenderness of her voice and the energy in her performance had Shelton on his feet in standing ovation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at an artist standing up there," he said of his singer who had just honored his brother with her performance.

The Voice returns Tuesday night with the elimination round.

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason that making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

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Family of man shot by sheriff's deputies calls for FBI probe

The family of an Inglewood man gunned down by L.A. County sheriff's deputies this month is requesting an FBI probe of the shooting and subsequent investigation by the Sheriff's Department.

Jose de la Trinidad, 36, was shot and killed by deputies Nov. 10, just minutes after leaving his niece's quinceanera with his older brother.

After police attempted to pull the older brother over for speeding, he sped off. After pleading with his brother to stop, Jose de la Trinidad was let out of the car in the 1900 block of East 122nd Street in Willowbrook, family members said.

There the unarmed man was shot and killed by deputies. But there is some dispute over what happened in those seconds before deputies opened fire.

Sheriff's Department officials said the deputies believed Jose de la Trinidad was reaching for his waistband and, fearing he had a weapon, used necessary force.

The slain man's family, however, said that a 19-year-old woman who witnessed the shooting from her bedroom window reported that she saw De la Trinidad with his hands behind his head before shots were fired.

The family's attorney, Luis Carrillo, said the witness heard the older brother's car screech to a stop and then watched Jose de la Trinidad get out of the vehicle.

"When they told him to stop, his hands went up behind his head and he kept them there," the witness told a private investigator working for Carrillo, according to a transcript of interview notes read to The Times.

Carrillo said the witness, whom he did not identify, was pressured to change her story by sheriff's deputies who were going door-to-door that night looking for information on the shooting.

"It's the classic 'He was reaching for his waistband' defense that is used any time an officer shoots an unarmed man," Carrillo said. "They tried to get her to change her story."

Sheriff's officials sharply reject the accusation and said that, as of Monday, they had yet to speak with any witnesses.

"It's a curious accusation because how can we intimidate people who we have not yet spoken to?" said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman of the Sheriff's Department.

Despite Carrillo's claims that uniformed deputies were going door-to-door seeking witness statements the night of the shooting, Whitmore insisted that no witness interviews were conducted that night.

Sheriff's officials have released few details about the shooting and say the incident will be investigated by multiple agencies, which is standard protocol for deputy-involved shootings.

Officials at the FBI office in Los Angeles said they have not decided wither the accusations merit an investigation.

The driver, who family members believe may have been intoxicated after a night of celebrating, sped off again before crashing his vehicle at the intersection of El Segundo and Avalon boulevards. He ran away but was apprehended by deputies.

On Monday, as more than a dozen family members huddled in a South Pasadena law office, Carrillo and De la Trinidad's widow, Rosie, demanded answers. His mother, Sofia de la Trinidad, seemed overwhelmed by the moment. "Mi hijo, mi hijo," she said, sobbing.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do, I still can't believe this has happened," the widow said. Making plans for a funeral and consoling her two daughters has left little time to process her husband's death, she said.

Family friends have set up a memorial fund in De la Trinidad's name at Wells Fargo Bank. They hope it will cover the costs of a private memorial ceremony planned for this week.

"He was the breadwinner," his wife said, fighting tears. "I don't even know how am I going to bury him."

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

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Gaza Clash Escalates With Deadliest Israeli Strike

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Smoke rose over Gaza City on Sunday, as Israel widened its range of targets to include buildings used by the news media.

CAIRO — Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas demanded new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, even as the conflict took an increasing toll on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.

The talks came as an Israeli bomb struck a house in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, killing 11 people, in the deadliest single strike since the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday. The strike, along with several others that killed civilians across the Gaza Strip, signaled that Israel was broadening its range of targets on the fifth day of the campaign.

By the end of the day, Gaza health officials reported that 70 Palestinians had been killed in airstrikes since Wednesday, including 20 children, and that 600 had been wounded. Three Israelis have been killed and at least 79 wounded by unrelenting rocket fire out of Gaza into southern Israel and as far north as Tel Aviv.

Hamas, badly outgunned on the battlefield, appeared to be trying to exploit its increased political clout with its ideological allies in Egypt’s new Islamist-led government. The group’s leaders, rejecting Israel’s call for an immediate end to the rocket attacks, have instead laid down sweeping demands that would put Hamas in a stronger position than when the conflict began: an end to Israel’s five-year-old embargo of the Gaza Strip, a pledge by Israel not to attack again and multinational guarantees that Israel would abide by its commitments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stuck to his demand that all rocket fire cease before the air campaign lets up, and Israeli tanks and troops remained lined up outside Gaza on Sunday. Tens of thousands of reserve troops had been called up. “The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Reda Fahmy, a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament and of the nation’s dominant Islamist party, who is following the talks, said Hamas’s position was just as unequivocal. “Hamas has one clear and specific demand: for the siege to be completely lifted from Gaza,” he said. “It’s not reasonable that every now and then Israel decides to level Gaza to the ground, and then we decide to sit down and talk about it after it is done. On the Israeli part, they want to stop the missiles from one side. How is that?”

He added: “If they stop the aircraft from shooting, Hamas will then stop its missiles. But violence couldn’t be stopped from one side.”

Hamas’s aggressive stance in the cease-fire talks is the first test of the group’s belief that the Arab Spring and the rise in Islamist influence around the region have strengthened its political hand, both against Israel and against Hamas’s Palestinian rivals, who now control the West Bank with Western backing.

It also puts intense new pressure on President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was known for his fiery speeches defending Hamas and denouncing Israel. Mr. Morsi must now balance the conflicting demands of an Egyptian public that is deeply sympathetic to Hamas and the Palestinian cause against Western pleadings to help broker a peace and Egypt’s need for regional stability to help revive its moribund economy.

Indeed, the Egyptian-led cease-fire talks illustrate the diverging paths of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the original Egyptian Islamist group. Hamas has evolved into a more militant insurgency and is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, while the Brotherhood has effectively become Egypt’s ruling party. Mr. Fahmy said in an interview in March that the Brotherhood’s new responsibilities required a step back from its ideological cousins in Hamas, and even a new push to persuade the group to compromise.

Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner, Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Peter Baker from Bangkok.

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