Guidelines

Every year, on a holiday set aside to honor the U.S. flag, Old Glory is set on fire. It happens in Flag Day ceremonies organized by veterans, scout troops, and municipal governments. Flames are the ultimate honor, according to the U.S. Code, for flags that are tattered and worn. So on Thursday, at a municipal park in Northampton Township, Bucks County, and in other places across the country, old flags that have faded with time or been whipped by the wind will be retired — placed in a pit and burned.

Fifteen years ago, Capreece Lackey, 42, had steady work that she never put on her resumé. In fact, it landed her in jail, when she was arrested for prostitution next to a rusty railroad bridge in North Philadelphia. "I had no soul," said Lackey, who was convicted on the prostitution charge, as well as a lesser charge of obstruction of traffic. "I didn't care what I did. I was addicted to crack cocaine. " Lackey has been sober since 1999, but because of her criminal record, she's still paying the price in unemployment and poverty.

CHICAGO - A small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are getting sex-changing treatments, according to reports in the medical journal Pediatrics. It's an issue that raises ethical questions, and some experts urge caution in treating children with puberty-blocking drugs and hormones. An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, "I a boy" and has stuck with that belief.

A FEDERAL judge yesterday found that admitted fraudster Bonnie Sweeten ripped off more than $1 million from clients and co-workers at a Bucks County personal-injury law firm where she worked before lying to a 9-1-1 operator about having been abducted and then jetting off to Disney World. That finding and others by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. potentially exposes Sweeten to 10 years in prison. Yohn deferred final arguments and sentencing until next Thursday. Sweeten, 41, who has been in federal custody since June 2010, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Chimps are about 96 percent genetically identical to humans, and like us they are self-aware enough to recognize themselves in a mirror. But physically, we show some remarkable differences. They don't get the same kind of heart disease humans get. They develop some of the brain abnormalities associated with Alzheimer's disease, but not others. And despite being more sexually promiscuous than humans, they don't get the same sexually transmitted diseases. They heal better than we do and don't get sleep apnea, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, or acne.

The Obama administration needs to live up to its promise to reduce meat and poultry producers' overuse of antibiotics, which has been linked to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections among humans. Leading health experts believe that new guidelines are needed to protect consumers from difficult-to-treat illnesses that have been increasing at an alarming rate. Farmers routinely give antibiotics to hogs, cattle, poultry, and other animals to treat illnesses, prevent infection, and to spur the animals' growth while giving them less feed.

Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo is back in Philadelphia to be resentenced Wednesday, but the real focus will be on a 74-year-old federal judge who must wrestle with how to respond to a rebuke from his bosses. Ordered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to resentence Fumo, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter must now decide whether to give Fumo more time or simply fix his legal errors and reinstate Fumo's hotly debated 55-month sentence. The defense wants the judge to stand pat. The prosecutors want Buckwalter to impose at least 15 years; Fumo has already served two years and two months.

Anybody who hoped Gov. Corbett's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission might call for a halt to natural gas drilling missed the whole point of the exercise - the issue was not whether drilling will take place in Pennsylvania, but how it will be conducted. The 30-member commission, weighted heavily with business and political leaders who support natural gas extraction, on Friday unanimously approved a set of recommendations whose details are still under wraps. A final report will be delivered to Corbett by Friday.

WASHINGTON - President Obama has signed executive orders that lay out how far military commanders around the globe can go in using cyber attacks and other computer operations against enemies and as part of routine espionage in other countries. The orders detail when the military must seek presidential approval for a cyber assault on an enemy and weave cyber capabilities into U.S. war-fighting strategy, defense officials and cyber security experts said. Signed more than a month ago, the orders cap a two-year Pentagon effort to draft U.S. rules for cyber warfare.

Four former Synthes Inc. executives who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an illegal clinical trial of bone cement in which three people died are now awaiting word from U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis about the guidelines he will use to sentence them and the date for sentencing. The defendants are Michael Huggins of West Chester, Thomas Higgins of Berwyn, Richard Bohner of Malvern, and John Walsh of Coatesville. The four men were in court earlier this week as their lawyers argued for guidelines that might lessen the potential prison and probation time.