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• PAU'S HONOR
• When Spain walks into Olympic stadium on Friday night for the opening ceremomy, they'll be led by Pau Gasol. The basketball star has been designated the nation's flag bearer, one of the highest honors an Olympic athlete can get.
• "It's an amazing honor," Gasol said. "I feel very lucky and privileged to be carrying the flag and leading all of our athletes into the stadium. It will be a very memorable moment in my career."
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• INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- When this summer's drought turned her prized lawn brown, Terri LoPrimo fought back, but not with sprinklers: She had it painted green, making her suddenly lush-appearing yard the envy of her neighborhood.
• The Staten Island, N.Y., resident and her husband, Ronnie, hired a local entrepreneur to spruce up their yard by spraying it with a deep-green organic dye. By Monday, the couple's property was aglow with newly green blades of grass and no watering needed to sustain it.
• "It looks just like a spring lawn, the way it looks after a rain. It's really gorgeous," said LoPrimo, a 62-year-old retiree.
• With two-thirds of the nation covered by a drought that stretches from coast to coast, residents and businesses in normally well-watered areas are catching on to the lawn-painting practice employed for years in the West and Southwest to give luster to faded turf.
• LoPrimo paid $125 to green up her roughly 830-square-foot lawn. She said it was worth every penny to keep her home of 33 years graced by an attractive yard.
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• JERUSALEM (AP) -- With just days left before a court-imposed deadline to reform Israel's military draft law expires, the nation's political leaders are at loggerheads on how to resolve what has become perhaps the country's most pressing -- and divisive -- domestic issue.
• The impasse over whether and how to scrap the mass exemptions from military

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