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Newsfeed MUD DAY DANIELMEARS—THEDETROITNEWS Jody Thomas and her 3-year old daughter, Kailyn Thomas, float around in the mud pit at the annual Wayne County Parks Mud Day at Hines Park in Westland, Michigan on Tuesday. It was also Kailyn's birthday. WASHINGTON Tacklingwhathehas called a humanitarian crisis, Pres- ident Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress for $3.7 billion to cope with a tide of minors from Cen- tral America who are illegally cross- ing the U.S. border, straining immi- gration resources and causing a po- litical firestorm in Washington. The White House said the money would help increase the detention, care and transportation of unaccom- panied children, help speed the re- moval of adults with children by in- creasing the capacity of immigra- tion courts and increase prosecution of smuggling networks. The money would also increase surveillance at the U.S. border and help Cen- tral American countries repatriate border-crossers sent back from the United States. Obama requested the money in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. Obama said he wants in- creased penalties for individuals who smuggle vulnerable migrants, such as children. IMMIGRATION Obamaseeks$3.7billionto deal with border kids ATLANTA A government scientist cleaning out an old storage room at a research center near Washing- ton made a startling discovery last week — decades-old vials of small- pox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box. The six glass vials were intact and sealed, and scientists have yet to es- tablish whether the virus is dead or alive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Still, the find was disturbing be- cause for decades after smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, world health authorities said the only known samples left were safely stored in super-secure laboratories in Atlanta and in Russia. Officials said this is the first time in the U.S. that unaccounted-for smallpox has been discovered. At least one leading scientist raised the possibility that there are more such vials out there around the world. The CDC and the FBI are investi- gating. HEALTH Forgotten vials of smallpox found in storage room WASHINGTON Cleveland won the unanimous backing of a Republican National Committee panel on Tues- day, all but guaranteeing the GOP's 2016 presidential pick will accept the party's nomination in perennially hard-fought Ohio. The Republicans' site selection com- mittee backed Cleveland over donor- rich Dallas, and the full 168-member RNC is expected to ratify the choice next month. The move signals the role Ohio — and its 18 electoral votes— plays in presidential campaigns. "As goes Ohio, so goes the presi- dential race," said party Chairman Reince Priebus. The RNC did not announce a start date for the convention but Priebus said that June 28 or July 18, 2016, are two options. An earlier-than-normal convention was a priority for Prie- bus, and leaders of Dallas' bid said the calendar was the main factor running against the Texas city. "June is not an option for us," said former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchi- son. "Reince really wants June." POLITICS Cleveland tops list to host GOP convention in 2016 TULSA, OKLA. Oklahoma farmer Kevin Whitney thought his iPhone was lost for good when it fell into a grain elevator last year. Eight months later, his phone was returned un- scathed after a trip to Japan. Whitney, the manager of the Apache Farmers Co-Op in Chicka- sha, Oklahoma, lost his phone in Oc- tober after it slipped out of his shirt pocket as he was unloading grain from a truck into a silo holding roughly 290,000 bushels of grain. "I knew it was lost forever and there was no retrieving the thing," said Whitney, 53. What Whitney didn't know was his phone was just beginning its journey. The phone traveled to another Okla- homa grain facility before going down the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers to a depot in Convent, Louisiana. From there, the grain was loaded onto ships bound for another grain depot on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. Whitney was shocked the phone made it through such an ordeal in pristine condition. LOST AND FOUND Farmer loses phone, returned 8 months later from Japan The Associated Press WASHINGTON A federal investigative agency is examining 67 claims of retal- iation by Veterans Affairs Department supervisors against employees who filed whistleblower complaints, including 25 complaints filed since June 1, after a growing health care scandal involving long patient waits and falsified records at VA hospitals and clinics became public. The independent Office of Special Counsel said that 30 of the complaints about retaliation have passed the ini- tial review stage and were being fur- ther investigated for corrective action and possible discipline against VA su- pervisors and other executives. The com- plaints were filed in 28 states at 45 sep- arate facilities, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said. Lerner provided the figures in testi- mony prepared for a Tuesday night hear- ing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The Associated Press ob- tained a copy of her testimony in ad- vance. In a related development, the VA said Tuesday it was restructuring its Office of Medical Inspector following a scath- ing report by Lerner's agency last week. Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said the department would appoint an interim director of the medical inspec- tor's office from outside the current of- fice and was suspending the office's ho- tline immediately. All complaints would be referred to the VA's Office of Inspec- tor General. The head of the medical inspector's office retired June 30 following a report by the Office of Special Counsel saying that his office played down whistle- blower complaints pointing to "a trou- bling pattern of deficient patient care" at VA facilities. "Intimidation or retaliation — not just against whistleblowers, but against any employee who raises a hand to identify a problem, make a suggestion or report what may be a violation in law, policy or our core values — is absolutely unaccept- able," Gibson said in a statement. "I will not tolerate it in our organization." WHISTLEBLOWERS Retaliation complaints jump at VA, group finds By Gene Johnson The Associated Press BELLINGHAM, WASH. Cale Holdsworth strode to the counter at Top Shelf Can- nabis, inspected and sniffed a glass jar filled with mar- ijuana, and said: "I'll take two grams." Holdsworth paid $26.50 and held up the brown bag containing his pot as people applauded the store's first transaction as Washington on Tuesday became the sec- ond state to allow people to buy marijuana legally in the U.S. without a doctor's note. "This is a great mo- ment," said the 29-year-old from Abilene, Kansas, as a swarm of reporters and television cameras recorded the moment. People began buying mar- ijuana at 8 a.m. at Top Shelf Cannabis, which started selling the drug as soon as it was allowed under state reg- ulations. Before it opened, several dozen people lined up outside the shop in this liberal college town of about 80,000 north of Seattle. Holdsworth was first in line, along with his girl- friend, Sarah Gorton, and her younger brother. They showed up at 4 a.m. Gorton said the trio was in Bellingham for her grand- father's 84th birthday. State law allows both Washington residents and people from out of state to purchase a limited amount of pot. "It's just a happy coinci- dence and an opportunity we're not going to have for a long time," said Gorton, a 24-year-old with dreadlocks and homemade jewelry. "I'm really thrilled to be a part of something that I never thought would happen." In Seattle, hundreds of people waited in the warm sunshine outside the city's first pot shop, Cannabis City, which opened at noon. Store owner James Lath- rop, holding a large scissors to cut the ribbon for the of- ficial opening, said it was time to "free the weed." The first customer, 65-year-old retiree Deb Greene, huggedandthanked Alison Holcomb, the au- thor of Washington's mari- juana law, before she placed her order for 8 grams, total $160.01 with tax. "It's so remarkable," Greene said. "We're show- ing the way." The start of legal pot sales in Washington marks a major step that's been 20 months in the making. Washington and Colo- rado stunned much of the world by voting in Novem- ber 2012 to legalize mar- ijuana for adults over 21, and to create state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales be- gan in Colorado on Jan. 1. MARIJUANA Pot shop's first customers cheer start of sales The Associated Press MINOTAIRFORCEBASE,N.D. The Air Force asserts with pride that the nation's nu- clear missile system, more than 40 years old and de- signed during the Cold War to counter the now-defunct Soviet Union, is safe and se- cure. None has ever been used in combat or launched accidentally. But it also admits to fray- ing at the edges: time-worn command posts, corroded launch silos, failing support equipment and an emer- gency-response helicopter fleet so antiquated that a replacement was deemed "critical" years ago. The Minuteman is no or- dinary weapon. The busi- ness end of the missile can deliver mass destruction across the globe as quickly as you could have a pizza delivered to your doorstep. But even as the Minute- man has been updated over the years and remains ready for launch on short notice, the items that support it have grown old. That partly explains why missile corps morale has sagged and dis- cipline has sometimes fal- tered, as revealed in a series of Associated Press reports documenting leadership, training, disciplinary and other problems in the ICBM force that has prompted worry at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The airmen who operate, maintain and guard the Minuteman force at bases in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming came to rec- ognize a gap between the Air Force's claim that the nu- clear mission is "Job 1" and its willingness to invest in it. "One of the reasons for the lowmoraleisthatthenuclear forces feel unimportant, and they are often treated as such, very openly," says Michelle Spencer, a defense consultant in Alabama who led a nuclear forces study for the Air Force published in 2012. She said in an inter- view the airmen — they're called Missileers — became disillusioned by an obvious but unacknowledged lack of interest in nuclear priorities among the most senior Air Force leaders. AGING Why nukes keep finding trouble: They're really old ELAINE THOMPSON — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, le , shakes hands with clerk Pam Fenstermacher a er purchasing marijuana at Cannabis City, Tuesday in Seattle. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2014 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 5 B