YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    • U.S. military guards watch detainees in a cell block at Camp 6 in the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2010. (John Moore/Getty)

      More than 150 doctors and other medical professionals are asking President Barack Obama to allow them to treat hunger strikers in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

      "It is clear that they do not trust their military doctors," the physicians wrote in an open letter published in The Lancet medical journal on Tuesday. "Without trust, safe and acceptable medical care of mentally competent patients is impossible. Since the detainees do not trust their military doctors, they are unlikely to comply with current medical advice."

      More than 100 of the 166 prisoners still in Guantanamo are on a hunger strike; some of them have been striking for as long as five months. Nearly half of the hunger strikers are being "enterally fed," according to the military, which means military doctors snake tubing connected to a can of Ensure up their nostrils and down the backs of their throats. Many of the detainees consider this to be torture.

      The World Medical Association and the United Nations say that mentally competent prisoners who refuse to eat should not be force-fed, but the U.S. civilian prison and military prison policy is that prisoners should not be allowed to starve themselves.

      Thirteen of the hunger strikers sent a letter last month to their military doctors asking for independent medical attention.

      "I do not wish to die, but I am prepared to run the risk that I may end up doing so, because I am protesting the fact that I have been locked up for more than a decade, without a trial, subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment and denied access to justice," read the letter, which was published in the Guardian. "I have no other way to get my message across."

      The detainees said the doctors' "dual loyalties" to both follow military orders and treat their patients meant they could not trust them. A Pentagon spokesman told the Guardian there was "no precedent" for outside doctors to treat detainees.

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    • NATO soldiers board a helicopter after a security handover ceremony outside Kabul, June 18, 2013. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

      President Barack Obama warmly welcomed the announcement on Tuesday of fresh reconciliation talks between Afghanistan's government and the Taliban, as well as plans to launch a new round of direct negotiations between the insurgent force and the United States.

      U.S. officials said one of the likely items on the U.S.-Taliban agenda would be the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held captive by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network since 2009.

      "This is an important first step toward reconciliation," Obama told reporters after a meeting with French President François Hollande on the sidelines of the G-8 summit of rich countries. "It's a very early step—we anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road—but the fact that the parties have an opportunity to talk and discuss Afghanistan's future I think is very important."

      U.S. and Taliban negotiators will hold formal talks "in a couple of days" in the Gulf state of Qatar, where the Taliban will officially open an office on Tuesday,

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    • House GOP Conference chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

      In the midst of negotiations in Congress over an immigration overhaul, House Republicans are planning a series of meetings with Hispanic-Americans in the nation's capital as part of a partywide effort to woo minority voters.

      The House Republican Conference, chaired by Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is planning four meetup sessions between Hispanic-Americans and Republican lawmakers at the Capitol Building this summer.

      “It’s important that we’re having this two-way conversation and hearing the ideas and concerns from a broad base of people from around the country," McMorris Rodgers told Yahoo News in an interview. “More than anything we want them to know that we want to have this relationship with them. ... It’s our effort to build relationships with people all around the country to talk to them about issues that impact their daily lives.”

      The conference plans to host the first meeting on Wednesday with Hispanic faith leaders; two meetings on July 18, one with women and the

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