(Continued from page 29)

tate loans.
• As Spain's leaders struggle for a solution to their banking crisis, the country's borrowing costs have soared close to the level that forced the governments of Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek financial rescues.
• As much as €100 billion ($126 billion) may be needed to bolster Spanish banks, the credit rating agency Fitch said Thursday. Fitch, which had previously said €30 billion was needed, downgraded the country's debt rating to two notches above junk and warned that further downgrades were possible.
• Spain sold €2 billion ($2.52 billion) in bonds Thursday, but had to pay investors much higher rates than in previous bond sales. There is a growing sense that time is running out for Spain's government and banks to continue muddling through.
• ___

• MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Timothy Michael Poe won over the crowd and the judges of NBC's "America's Got Talent" even before he began to sing, with his moving story of blocking a grenade blast in 2009 to save his buddies in Afghanistan -- an act of heroism he said broke his back and left him with a brain injury.
• When a judge remarked during the episode broadcast Monday on the disappearance of Poe's stutter during his cover of a Garth Brooks song, he spun another tale: He discovered his talent only after his speech therapist suggested he sing in the shower to help with the stutter.
• The truth, according to an ex-wife, was that Poe not only was never hurt on the battlefield, he had been singing "pretty much his whole life" and spent four years fronting an alternative rock and cover band in Rochester, Minn. A MySpace page last updated in February 2009 for the Rochester band Crawl Space lists Poe as vocalist.
• Singing was the least of Poe's fictions, according to the Minnesota Army National Guard, which has issued statements contradicting Poe's account on the television show, igniting a firestorm online, especially among veterans and on military blogs, over Poe allegedly claiming glory and sympathy to which he's not entitled.
• The Guard says its records show Poe never was injured in combat in Afghanistan or Iraq.
• ___

(Continued on page 31)