WASHINGTON Navy names ship for ex-lawmaker Giffords

The Navy has named a ship for Gabrielle Giffords, the recently retired congresswoman from Arizona who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head received in January 2011.

In a ceremony at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unveiled an artist's rendering of the USS Gabrielle Giffords.

The littoral combat ship is among the Navy's most versatile and can operate in shallower coastal waters than larger ships.

Mabus also announced that the ship's "sponsor" is Roxanna Green. She's the mother of Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who was among six people killed in the shooting. Thirteen, including Giffords, were wounded. The sponsor's initials will be welded into the keel of the ship.

Turkish leader: Iran willing

to negotiate nuclear program

WASHINGTON Turkey's top diplomat said Friday that Iran is ready to negotiate an end to the standoff with Western powers over its nuclear program, suggesting that the controversy could be resolved quickly if the deep distrust between the two sides could be overcome.

Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu also criticized economic sanctions against Iran as ineffective and warned that any military strike against the country's nuclear facilities would inflame the region while doing little to curb Iran's ambitions. Israeli and U.S. officials have not ruled out military options to impede Iran's progress.

Davutoglu, in Washington to consult with the Obama administration on the Syrian and Iranian crises, said he perceived a new willingness among Iran's leaders to cut a deal on limits to its nuclear program. Washington Post

Doctors at Greek hospitals battle drug-resistant superbug

BERLIN Greek doctors are fighting a new invisible foe at their hospitals: a pneumonia-causing superbug that most existing antibiotics can't kill.

The hospital-acquired germ killed as many as half of people with blood cancers infected at Laiko General Hospital, a 500-bed facility in central Athens.

The drug-resistant K. pneumoniae bacteria have a genetic mutation that allows them to evade such powerful drugs as AstraZeneca's Merrem and Johnson & Johnson's Doribax. A 2010 survey found 49 percent of K. pneumoniae samples in Greece aren't killed by the antibiotics of last resort, known as carbapenems, according to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network.

The superbug first appeared in Greece in 2007 after spreading through the United States and then Israel. Bloomberg

Regulators cite Calif. utility for ammonia leak at nuclear plant

LOS ANGELES Federal regulators say an ammonia leak that caused an emergency alert at Southern California's San Onofre nuclear plant was caused by employees who failed to recognize degraded equipment and fix it.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission report Friday faults plant operator Southern California Edison for failing to follow its own procedures at the twin-reactor site north of San Diego.

The report says the problem had "very low safety significance." Some workers were evacuated but there was no public danger. Associated Press