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days over fears of a run by customers trying to get their money out, after striking a pre-dawn bailout deal Monday that averted the country's imminent bankruptcy.
• The sudden midnight postponement of the much anticipated Tuesday bank opening by all but the country's two largest lenders was sure to hammer businesses already reeling from more than a week of no access to their deposits.
• ATMs have been dispensing cash but often run out, and an increasing number of stores and other businesses have stopped accepting credit or debit cards. The two largest lenders, the struggling Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, have imposed a daily withdrawal limit of 100 euros ($130).
• Cyprus clinched an eleventh-hour deal with the 17-nation eurozone and the International Monetary Fund early Monday for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout. Without it, the country's banks would have collapsed, dragging down the economy and potentially pushing it out of the euro.
• Under the deal, the country agreed to slash its oversized banking sector and inflict hefty losses on large depositors in troubled banks.
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• COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- U.S. officials are expanding a program intended to reduce poverty and improve life in rural areas through better access to federal funding.
• Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was expected in South Carolina on Tuesday to announce the expansion of the so-called StrikeForce initiative, which already operates in 10 states. The program will now also be available in the Carolinas, the Dakotas, Alabama and Virginia.
• The goal of StrikeForce is to help farmers, food producers and other businesses get access to money for projects such as new wells, greenhouses, community gardens, kitchen space, and summer meals for low-income school children. The money is often hard to access due to complicated grant applications, requirements for matching funds, and limited staffing.
• "You just don't have the technical wherewithal, technical assistance, in your city officials, council members, part-time mayors, even your city administrators, to know what the federal programs are," Vilsack, a former Iowa governor who is also an ex-mayor of a small town in Iowa, told The Associated Press this week. "Oftentimes these programs have matching requirements. For small communities operating by

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