An enormous amount of money has been sent to Haiti to help the country recover from its devastating earthquake. So why has so little changed in Haiti – from piles of rubble to tent cities – since right after the quake struck?

That’s one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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What’s the status of relations between Turkey and Israel?

Karzan Omer Ali
Slemani, Iraq
—

Relations between Turkey and Israel are at their lowest point since the two countries embarked on a policy of strategic cooperation after the first Israeli-Palestinian accord in 1993.

Israel’s good ties with Turkey eased the Jewish state’s isolation in a region overwhelmingly hostile to its presence. Ankara benefited from a strong defense alliance with Israel’s powerful, high-tech military and an influx of Israeli tourists.

But ties began fraying after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of an Islamic-oriented party, became Turkey’s prime minister in 2003.

The situation quickly deteriorated after Israel’s winter 2008-09 war in the Gaza Strip. Erdogan criticized the steep Palestinian death toll, and memorably stormed off a stage with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Davos World Economic Forum days after the fighting ended.

Relations suffered another blow after Israeli naval commandos raided a Turkish ship that sought to bust Israel’s blockade of Gaza in May, killing nine activists. Israel says its troops acted in self-defense. But after the raid, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel, canceled joint military drills and began banning Israeli military aircraft from Turkish airspace.

Turkey is committed to binding contracts with Israeli companies, but further business is in doubt.

Josef Federman
AP News Editor
Jerusalem

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I have heard reports from people on the ground in Port-au-Prince that the rubble remains on the ground from the earthquake, tent cities have grown, residents are making housing inside dilapidated buildings, garbage is piled on the streets and the only buildings being built are of government interest.

My question: Where did the charity funds go to rebuild Haiti for the people of Haiti?

Angela Lewis,
Avon Park, Fla.
—

It’s true: Port-au-Prince looks much like it did in February, other than the fact it’s now raining every day. Of some 20 million cubic yards of rubble left by the disaster, less than 2 percent has been cleared. Serious reconstruction has not started.

Meanwhile, more people than ever are living under tarps and in tents: 1.6 million and counting. Some who didn’t lose their homes can no longer afford rent or are following foreign aid to the camps. And the tarps are falling apart.

It’s easy to look at all this and ask where the money went. The answer isn’t so simple. A lot of secondary crises that could have happened didn’t, or haven’t yet, like disease outbreaks, flooding catastrophes or famine – and some of that can be traced to the aid effort.

And the Haitian government, which was severely compromised in the quake and not so capable before, says the slow pace of reconstruction is important for preventing corruption and planning a sustainable city.

But it’s also reasonable to ask why more hasn’t improved. Presidential elections and hurricanes are both potentially on the way. Once the distraction of the World Cup is over, we may find out just how much frustration the grinding recovery has left behind.

Jonathan M. Katz
AP Correspondent
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

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Can you tell me how many states have now passed the Uniform POA Act?

Tommy L. Jones
St. Louis
—

The Uniform Power of Attorney Act was created in 2006 to set uniform standards for people to choose a representative to act on their behalf in a legal or business matter if they become incapacitated.

When planning their estate, people often grant “durable” power of attorney to a friend or relative to represent their interests in the event they cannot do so themselves.

Many states have different standards for granting durable power of attorney, and that’s led to confusion and occasional mischief by people claiming to represent others when they are not authorized to do so. The Uniform Power of Attorney Act was designed so every state can have the same standards and prevent the misuse of the law.

It’s been approved by seven states so far – Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado and Maine, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Beth Fouhy
Associated Press Writer
New York

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

It sounds simple enough as an approach to the Gulf oil disaster: Why not just detonate explosives at the source of the leak to seal it off and halt the gusher?

That’s one of the questions answered in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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I am used to the way seeding is done for fencing or the NCAA basketball tournament. However, in tennis, players always seem to be facing a seed they shouldn’t be playing at a given point in a tournament. How do tennis tournaments seed?

Greg Spahr
Wilmington, N.C.
___

Unlike in the NCAA basketball tournament, not all entrants are seeded at all in a tennis grand slam event. Only the top 32 players receive seeds, and everybody else is randomly drawn into the bracket. That can result in some surprisingly good first-round matches.

Even among the seeded players, the bracket is not automatically set up so the No. 1 player would eventually play No. 32, for instance. Players are randomly drawn within several groups: seeds 17 through 32, seeds 9 through 16, seeds 5 through 8, seeds 3 through 4, seeds 1 and 2. That means, for example, the No. 1 seed could potentially face either the No. 3 or 4 in the semifinals, and the No. 5 or 8 in the quarters.

Rachel Cohen
Associated Press Writer
New York

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Why haven’t explosives (non-nuclear) been considered as an option to seal the Gulf oil spill?

Theo Noell
Boston
___

Tony Wood, director of the National Spill Control School at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said one big problem with setting off an explosion could be the huge amounts of methane coming out of the well.

Methane freezes into a slushy substance called methane hydrate at the depth and temperatures it encounters at the well. But heat, as from an explosion, could turn it back into a gas, Wood said, and that could cause a problem in three ways.

For one thing, the gas could form a bubble that grows to become immense as it rises to the surface, possibly big enough to capsize ships. Also, the gas could asphyxiate people at the suface. And because methane is flammable, it could cause an explosion at the surface, he said.

Malcolm Ritter
AP Science Writer
New York

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Is there any new info on unemployment extensions?

Connie Crass
Smyrna, Tenn.
___

There are efforts in Congress to pass legislation that would continue extended jobless benefits through the end of November. The Senate isn’t expected to vote on the continuation until next week.

But first, let’s back up. As the economy struggled through the worst recession since the Great Depression, Congress added a total of up to 73 extra weeks of unemployment benefits on top of the 26 weeks customarily provided by states. That’s the longest period of unemployment benefits since the program began in the 1930s.

But the extended program doesn’t last forever. In fact, it expired June 2. That means that the nearly 10 million people currently receiving jobless benefits will start to gradually run out of benefits over the next six months or so, unless the extra benefits are restored. The Labor Department estimates 325,000 people will lose benefits by the end of this week.

Those benefits can be restored if legislation extending the program is passed. The legislation that includes the benefit extension also includes some controversial tax increases and may face a difficult vote in the Senate next week.

Some people have used up all 99 weeks of benefits, and with unemployment at 9.7 percent, haven’t been able to find work. There aren’t any moves afoot to add more weeks on top of the 99 that have already been approved.

Christopher S. Rugaber
AP Economics Writer
Washington

___

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

Let’s say you’ve been making consistent payments on a loan, hoping that will improve your credit score. Is there anything you can do to make sure your lender reports your good behavior to the credit agencies?

Curiosity about credit reporting requirements inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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Where are the international boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico? All the news reports seem to suggest that the territory is all in the U.S.

Jean Clanin
Columbus, Ohio
___

It’s a more complicated question than it sounds, starting with the fact that the laws and treaties use nautical miles (just over 6,076 feet) rather than statute miles (5,280 feet).

U.S. territorial waters end 12 nautical miles (about 13.8 statute miles) from shore, and the United States has limited jurisdiction to enforce some laws for another 12 nautical miles. The rest is the “high seas.”

However, international agreements give nations a 200-nautical-mile (230-statute-mile) “exclusive economic zone,” or EEZ, where they have jurisdiction over such matters as fishing rights and mining – including oil and gas – but not over where planes fly or ships sail.

Treaties between the United States and Mexico set boundaries for EEZ oil and gas rights in the Gulf of Mexico within two areas known as “doughnut holes,” more than 200 miles from either country’s shore. They also describe, in intricate detail, how much oil and gas each nation should get from reservoirs that cross those dividing lines.

Have a look at this report for more information about the “doughnut holes,” including a map showing where they’re located: http://bit.ly/ayyJCn. And you can find out more about boundaries in the sea here: http://bit.ly/blYvGj.

Janet McConnaughey
Associated Press Writer
New Orleans
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Seven years ago I bought a home for cash, and I later went to a mortgage broker and took out a loan for $75,000, hoping to pay it off quickly and improve my credit rating. I recently went to refinance and found that the payments I am making are not on my credit report – the mortgage company says they don’t report the payments. Is there not a law to make them report my good credit? Can I force them to report it?

Jeff Gordon
Chattanooga, Tenn.
___

Most lenders do report loan and payment data to one or all of the three credit reporting agencies – TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. But there is no law that requires a lender to share information with these private companies, and no way to demand a report be submitted.

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the rules for what sort of information must be reported and how often it should be updated if a lender takes part in the voluntary reporting system, said Norm Magnusen of the Consumer Data Industry Association, a trade group.

Some small companies may decide not to report to the agencies if they have a low volume of loans, he suggested, because there is an expense involved in doing so. Borrowers who want their payment history added to their credit reports should ask the lender if it reports to one or more agencies before accepting the loan.

The information on a credit report is used to determine a credit score, a rating intended to gauge a borrower’s trustworthiness. Everyone is entitled to one free credit report from each agency each year. Details are available at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.

Eileen AJ Connelly
AP Personal Finance Writer
New York

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Is there any evidence to support a possible link between frequent cell phone use and brain tumors?

Don Huebscher
Eau Claire, Wis.
___

Overall, cell phone users have no increased risk for the two most common forms of brain cancer. That’s the conclusion from the largest study so far, covering phone users in 13 countries (but not the United States). The study was published May 17 in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

The research found no evidence of risk based on larger numbers of phone calls or longer calls. There was a suggestion of increased cancer risk for a small proportion of the heaviest cell phone users, but the researchers said those results were inconclusive.

The study “illustrates how difficult it is to identify and corroborate, or definitively rule out, any possible association” between cell phone use and cancer, Dr. John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, said recently.

So the research will continue, particularly when it comes to children and teens.

Kit Frieden
AP Health and Science Editor
New York
___

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

It’s a simple idea that makes sense, at least in theory, as a solution to the Gulf oil spill: Why not just suck up the oil with a massive vaccum device?

A query about the feasibility of such an approach is one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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I saw a story in the paper with the headline, “Pennsylvania legislators hope to mirror Arizona’s immigration bill,” and I was wondering: Are many other states following suit?

Robert Wainwright
Johnstown, Pa.
___

After Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a controversial bill against illegal immigration April 23, Republican lawmakers in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and South Carolina introduced similar legislation in their state capitols.

The effort in Minnesota died when the legislative session ended May 17, and the bid in South Carolina appears headed for the same fate as lawmakers prepare to adjourn June 3. The legislative session in Pennsylvania runs to early December but the bill has shown little traction yet.

Ann Morse, who monitors immigration legislation for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said lawmakers are wary about paying for anticipated legal challenges and will likely wait to see how the Arizona law fares in court. A lawsuit filed by major civil rights groups Monday in Phoenix, the fifth legal challenge, asks a federal judge to declare the measure unconstitutional and block it from taking effect in late July.

“It seems to me unlikely that something would pass this year,” Morse said.

A Texas legislator, meanwhile, plans to introduce a similar bill in next year’s legislative session.

Elliot Spagat
Associated Press Writer
San Diego

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On the Gulf oil spill: I’ve read that they’ve attempted to burn the oil, contain it with booms and have microbes eat it, but all have failed due to weather and sea conditions. Isn’t there some vacuum-type suction device that could suck up at least some of the oil from the surface?

Sonja Hric
Portland, Ore.

___

BP is using chemical dispersants to fight the oil spill, but at least one high-profile advocate has convinced the company to employ devices that essentially would vacuum up the oil.

Kevin Costner has invested more than $24 million to develop centrifuge devices designed to clean water polluted by oil. He and a business partner, New Orleans attorney John Houghtaling II, successfully lobbied government officials to urge BP to lease the machines from their company, Ocean Therapy Solutions. On Tuesday, a BP official said the devices will be tested within a week.

Houghtaling says the devices are capable of cleaning up to 200 gallons of water per minute, or 210,000 gallons per day, by separating the oil and storing it in tanks.

Houghtaling said Costner has been working on the project for more than a decade, building on technology developed by the federal government, but hadn’t found any takers in the oil industry before this spill.

Mike Kunzelman
Associated Press Writer
New Orleans

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Is there any way to obtain one’s credit score without having to pay for it online?

Van Kovacs
Vancouver, Wash.
___

When most people refer to a credit score, they are talking about a number in a range from 300 to 850 produced using a formula developed by FICO Inc. In general, each individual has three FICO scores, created based on the information filed with the credit reporting agencies TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. The scores may vary based on what information lenders and other companies provide to those agencies.

Federal law requires each of these companies to provide individuals with one copy of their credit report each year, but not their credit score. That may soon change — a proposed amendment to the financial reform legislation currently being debated by Congress would require one free credit score per year as well.

Right now, the only way to get a free score is to apply for a mortgage — if the lender that handles your application uses a credit score, it must be shared with you.

Each of the three agencies, along with FICO Inc. itself, sells access to scores.

Eileen AJ Connelly
AP Personal Finance Writer
New York

___

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

Some supporters of Arizona’s strict new immigration law say illegal immigrants are responsible for a lot of the state’s crime. Is this true?

That’s one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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Do you expect hurricanes to become stronger due to El Nino?

Bill Suarez
Cape Coral, Fla.
___

No. Dr. Gerry Bell of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center explains: “El Nino acts to suppress Atlantic hurricanes, both in number and intensity.”

However, Bell adds, El Nino isn’t the only climate factor affecting Atlantic hurricanes. Another is a set of tropical conditions that varies over decades at a time and is responsible for high-activity and low-activity eras.

“The Atlantic has been in a high-activity era since 1995,” Bell says. “The previous high-activity era lasted from the mid-1930s to 1970.”

Randolph E. Schmid
AP Science Writer
Washington

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One of the reasons being given for the need for Arizona’s new immigration law is that illegal immigrants commit a high percentage of the crimes in Arizona. What are the statistics for this, and compared with the country in general? Is it a valid claim?

C. Ford
Portland, Ore.
___

There are no definitive studies or government reports that quantify the percentage of crime committed by illegal immigrants throughout Arizona and nationally.

Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate say attempts to do so have suffered from a lack of complete data from the government. In some cases, police agencies take the word of jailed people on whether they are in the country legally. Some police agencies track immigrant arrests, while others don’t have the ability to readily check on the immigration status of those booked into jail. Four of Arizona’s 15 sheriff’s departments, for example, have special authorization to tap into federal databases to check on the immigration status of those arrested.

The best indicators are snapshots.

The Arizona Department of Corrections said 15 percent of the more than 40,000 people serving time in the state’s prisons are illegal immigrants. The figures, though, don’t include people who are convicted of misdemeanors or serve their sentences for felonies in county jails.

In Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county – where 60 percent of Arizonans live – Sheriff Joe Arpaio said 14 to 18 percent of those booked into county jails are illegal immigrants, depending upon fluctuations in the size of the jail population.

Illegal immigrants account for 7.2 percent of the 6.3 million people who live in Arizona, according to the federal government’s latest general population and illegal immigrant estimates. The Pew Hispanic Research Center estimated that illegal immigrants account for 7.9 percent of Arizona’s population. Neither estimate specifies the number of illegal immigrants living in Maricopa County.

The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict immigration laws, says screening efforts by some police agencies in Arizona and other states show high rates of incarceration for illegal immigrants, but adds that it’s unclear if those communities are representative of the country.

The pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center points to the latest federal crimes statistics that show Arizona’s violent crime rate has fallen each year from 2005 to 2008 and its property crime rate has dropped each year from 2002 to 2008. The center also says that a century of research has shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

Jacques Billeaud
Associated Press Writer
Phoenix

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Is there a listing of the sportswriters, with their cities and papers that they write for, who voted for the AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year? In both the original vote and the revote?

Bruce Raffel
Reisterstown, Md.
___

Five days after Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing was suspended for four games for a positive drug test, a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the NFL voted for a second time to name him The Associated Press NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.

He didn’t receive anywhere near the 39 votes he got when the original balloting took place in January, but the 18 he got in Wednesday’s revote were still enough to claim the honor.

AP has published a complete list of sports journalists who participated in the vote, with details about who they voted for and whether they changed their vote the second time around. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/apGa6H

Cushing said Thursday that he never used any banned substances, even though he tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

Cushing confirmed he tested positive for HCG, a fertility drug that is on the league’s banned substance list.

“The question of how it got into my body is still unclear,” he said. “It’s something that I’m very personally concerned about, just the fact that how it’s there and what’s going to determine it from happening again, and that’s something we’re going to have to medically investigate.”

Barry Wilner
AP Football Writer
New York
and
Kristie Rieken
AP Sports Writer
Houston

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

Why is Alaska’s Bay of Valdez pronounced more like the Bay of ValDEEZ?

That’s one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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The recent AP article on the WTC steel returning to Coatesville, Pa., reminded me of the somber video showing row upon row of emergency vehicles that were destroyed in the 9/11 attack.

What became of these vehicles?

Bill Yagerlener
West Bloomfield, Mich.
___

At least 95 emergency vehicles were destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, including ambulances, fire engines and ladder trucks. Some doors and other parts of the wrecked vehicles were given to museums and others were given to investigators. Most others were turned into scrap metal.

There are about 20 Fire Department and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey vehicles that are sitting in a storage room at a Kennedy Airport hangar, along with other World Trade Center artifacts. Some will eventually be moved to the Sept. 11 memorial museum, including a fire truck partially crushed by the collapse of the north tower.

Amy Westfeldt and Colleen Long
Associated Press Writers
New York

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If the Spanish, in 1790, named the “Bay of Valdez” after Admiral Antonio Valdes – head of the Spanish Marines and Minister of the Indies at the time – why is it pronounced “Val-deez” instead of “Val-dez”? Shouldn’t it have the Spanish pronunciation?

Saul Garza
Dallas
___

You can likely blame the Spanish-American War for today’s spelling and pronunciation of Valdez (val’-DEEZ), Alaska.

The picturesque community is located in Prince William Sound, not far from where the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil in 1989.

According to the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive, Salvador Fidalgo, a Spanish cartographer, was sent to Alaska in 1790 to re-establish Spanish claim to the area. In honor of Admiral Antonio Valdes, the Minister of the Indies and head of the Spanish Marines, he named the area “Bay of Valdes.”

The small town boomed in the winter of 1897-98 as gold-seekers inundated the community to follow the “All-American Route” over the Valdez Glacier to prospects in interior Alaska.

But that was also the time of the Spanish-American War.

Rick Dunkin, the public programs manager for the Valdez Museum, says that’s when it is speculated changes were made to the town’s name out of deference to the Americans. (Alaska was still an American territory at the time.)

“It was Valdes and spelled with an ‘s’ originally,” Dunkin said. “It’s speculated city fathers got together and said, ‘We’re not going to have any of that.’”

They changed the spelling and pronunciation to make it less Spanish sounding, he said.

Mark Thiessen
AP News Editor
Anchorage, Alaska

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The widespread publication of the Times Square car bomb suspect’s photo, lifted from social media sites, got me wondering: Even if I have maximum privacy settings on a social network, is my profile picture public domain at all times? If I do something that’s newsworthy, does the media have the right to publish that photo?

Ron Hanson
Indianapolis
___

Many social networks, including Facebook, show your profile photo to the public no matter what your privacy settings are, so the safest bet is not to post a photo of yourself if you don’t want it published anywhere.

News outlets routinely lift photos and other information from social networks when someone is in the news, because they can give valuable insight into their lives. And the law affords more protections to news organizations than it does to, say, a business that uses the photos to make money or advertise a product.

While the matter is still an open question and subject to litigation, if your photo is relevant to a breaking news story, a news organization is generally able to use it – particularly if it was taken in a public place, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. To her knowledge, she said, no one has successfully sued a news outlet over the use of a photo in a breaking news situation such as the Times Square bombing attempt.

There have been times, however, when news organizations have agreed to compensate a photographer. That has to do with copyright law.

Wendy Seltzer, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, said photographers retain copyright unless they explicitly give or license photos to news outlets. However, news organizations can claim the right to use an image under “fair use” rules, if it’s necessary to do their reporting, she says.

Barbara Ortutay
AP Technology Writer
New York

You see them piled up around homes, businesses, entire towns when a nearby river is rising, threatening a catastrophic flood. But what happens to all those sandbags after the floodwaters recede?

That’s one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also tweet your questions to AP, using the AskAP hashtag.

Ask AP can also be found on AP Mobile, a multimedia news service available on Internet-enabled cell phones. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

====

I have seen television commercials for GM saying that they paid back their government handout “with interest” and “five years earlier” than planned. I’d like to know: How did they do it? Where did they get the money? And did they really pack back exactly the amount that they received plus interest, or are they putting a positive spin on the numbers?

Daryle Urban
Ozawkie, Kan.
___

General Motors Co. repaid loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments worth $8.1 billion five years ahead of schedule, with interest.

But the company doesn’t note in its TV commercials that the majority of the taxpayer investment in GM rests in the U.S. government’s 61 percent ownership of the automaker. GM has said it hopes to conduct a public stock offering later this year or in 2011 to allow U.S. taxpayers to begin recouping their $52 billion investment.

GM paid off its loan from a $16.4 billion escrow fund created by the U.S. government as part of the auto company’s bankruptcy last year. The fund was developed to give GM some cushion in case the economy tumbled but required the company to seek permission from the U.S. Treasury before spending it.

By paying off the loans early, GM is essentially saying that it does not need the government cushion and is beginning to make money on its revamped lineup of midsize passenger cars and crossover vehicles. The loan repayment signifies that the company is no longer on life support and is slowly making progress toward its goal of returning to profitability.

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Hundreds of sandbags are used to keep back floodwaters during the spring floods. What happens to the sandbags when the flood is over?

Dolores Baker
Fredonia, Kan.
___

Sandbags that come in contact with floodwaters cannot be reused because the waters are contaminated with pesticides, sewage and other toxic pollution.

In Fargo, N.D., where the Red River overflowed its banks in 2009 and threatened to do so again in March, used sandbags are trucked to a site on the outskirts of town and emptied into large piles. The sand can be reused for limited purposes such as providing fill for road and building construction, but not for children’s sand boxes or other household uses where people would be likely to touch it.

Even before this year’s 1.5 million sandbags were dismantled, there were still 70,000 tons of used sand in the Fargo piles.

John Flesher
AP Environmental Writer
Traverse City, Mich.

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How are the members of a firing squad chosen for an execution, like the one that’s coming up in Utah?

Lex Marsh
Englewood, Colo.
___

Members of the five-person execution team in Utah must by law be certified peace officers in the state. Squad members are selected by the executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections in consultation with the county sheriff from the jurisdiction where the crime occurred.

By law, the identities of those selected to serve on the firing squad are kept secret. The executioners are armed with matched .30-caliber rifles, four of which are loaded with a live round. The fifth is loaded with a blank. The rifles are randomly assigned to the executioners so none knows which rifle carries the blank, or carries the burden of knowing his bullet killed the condemned.

The executioners fire from behind a gunport bricked into the cinder block wall of the execution chamber, a 20-by-24-foot room inside the prison. The room was completed in 1998 and was previously used for an execution by lethal injection.

Prior to the execution, the condemned will be strapped into a specially designed chair, his head covered with a hood and a white target pinned to his chest over his heart.

The last person to die in Utah by firing squad was John Albert Taylor in 1996.

Jennifer Dobner
Associated Press Writer
Salt Lake City

Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By The Associated Press

The volcano in Iceland has made a mess of airtravel for the past several days. Is it likely to influence global weather in any way?

Curiosity about the volcano’s impact inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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You answered a question that said unemployment was 24.9 percent at top of Great Depression. And now it is 9.7 percent (and was recently 10.1 percent). However, another estimate of unemployment is how many people have stopped looking for work, dropped off the rolls, work part-time and want to work full-time, etc., and that figure for today is around 16 or 17 percent. What would it have been in the ’30s?

Greg Gibbs
Minneapolis
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Counting people who have given up looking for work and part-timers who would prefer to be working full-time, the so-called “underemployment” rate is now 16.9 percent. In October 2009, it hit 17.4 percent – the highest on records going back to 1994.

The government didn’t calculate this figure back in the Great Depression.

However, Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and president of the National Association for Business Economics, estimates that the so-called underemployment rate would have been 45 percent in 1933. That’s the year when the unemployment rate spiked to 24.9 percent.

Jeannine Aversa
AP Economics Writer
Washington

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Is the volcanic ash in the atmosphere likely to affect global weather? Has the ash increased the Earth’s albedo significantly?

Greg Robinson
St. Paul, Minn.
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First, a definition: Earth’s albedo is its tendency to reflect sunlight back into space, which would have a cooling effect on climate.

And the answer to both questions is, “No.”

The Iceland volcano simply hasn’t blown enough material into the atmosphere to bring about such a cooling, nor injected it at high enough altitudes to make it hang around long enough. What’s more, material ejected from volcanoes at high latitudes like Iceland’s tends not to spread globally.

And for the record, it’s not the ash itself that can affect climate. Rather, it’s sulfur dioxide that the volcano spits out.

Malcolm Ritter
AP Science Writer
New York

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I read in an AP story that Brittany Favre gave birth, making Brett Favre a grandfather. The writer goes on to say that the NFL knows of no current players who are also grandfathers. My question is: Is Brett Favre the first active player ever to become a grandfather? What about in Major League Baseball, where Satchel Paige and others played into their 50s?

Tom Jeffs
Edison, N.J.
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To the NFL’s knowledge, Favre is the first active player to become a grandfather.

It is more common in baseball because so many players remain in the sport into their 40s. One famous example is Stan Musial, who became a grandfather in September 1963 at the age of 42, during his final season. In his first at-bat after his grandchild was born, Musial hit a home run.

Rachel Cohen
AP Sports Writer
New York

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.