Even more troubling, dwindling budgets in a tight economy have pushed communities to cut spending on delivering meals to the homebound and shuttling folks who can no longer drive to grocery stores and doctor's offices.

These cuts, advocates for older Americans say, are coming when the services are needed more than ever. And those needs will grow tremendously over the next two decades.

The nation's population of those 65 and older will double between 2000 and 2030, according to the federal Administration on Aging. That adds up to one out of every five Americans 72.1 million people.

Just eight years from now, researchers say, a quarter of all Ohio's residents in half of the state's counties will be 60 or older. Arizona and Pennsylvania project that one in four of its residents will be over the age of 60 by 2020.

"The bottom line is, the baby boomers are hitting," Chuck Gehring of LifeCare Alliance, an agency serving seniors in central Ohio, told The Columbus Dispatch. "Are communities prepared for this? No."

Six years ago, the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging said less than half of cities it surveyed at the time were preparing to deal with the needs of older folks. It said the results "should serve as a wake-up call for communities to begin planning now."

Five years later, the Washington, D.C.-based group revisited the survey and found little had changed. There was still a great need for transportation and housing for aging boomers, it said.

"There are a lot of communities that recognize they need to do something but haven't done it yet," Sandy Markwood, the group's chief executive officer, told The Associated Press.

Some of the changes cities can make include offering training to help older people drive more safely, installing road signs that are easier to read or creating ride-share programs, said Jo Reed, who oversaw the latest survey.

The biggest reason why cities have made little progress is the economy.

Nearly 21,000 times last year, drivers for the Licking County Aging Program in Ohio took elderly residents in communities east of Columbus to medical appointments. The gasoline bill has more than doubled in the past four years, topping $7,000 a month.

"With federal funding for these programs very flat, the burden is on local communities," Dave Bibler, the agency's executive director, told The Dispatch.

Transportation usually tops the list of unmet needs in local aging-agency surveys, advocates say. Public transit routes and stops sometimes aren't flexible enough; volunteer transportation networks are popping up in a few places but remain rare.

"How do we keep people involved in the community once they stop driving?" said Cindy Farson, executive director of the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging. "It's one of those bottomless pits of need and demand. It's going to take a lot of creative thinking."

Home and apartments will need boomer makeovers too.

Two Ohio lawmakers have proposed a tax credit to install bar handles, light switches and ramps to improve accessibility in homes. Supporters say it will save money because fall-related hospitalizations in Ohio cost $298 million a year in medical costs.

Communities can do some preparations on the cheap, said Henry Cisneros, the former mayor of San Antonio and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration.

Cisneros, now executive chairman of Los Angeles-based CityView, an institutional investment firm geared toward urban real estate, said communities can be creative with zoning for denser housing and what he called "granny flats" next to houses.

Although the task looms large, communities that address these issues now could reap benefits that reach beyond the boomer bubble. Creative planners like to envision neighborhoods that appeal to those who are young and old.

Young people actually have similar tastes to seniors when looking for a place to live, coveting walkable communities with easy access to shopping, entertainment and transit. And boomers want affordable and accessible housing, transportation, recreation options and, when the time comes, in-home care and services to help them avoid nursing homes.

Edward Elberfeld, a retired art teacher, and his wife, Barbara, plan to stay in their home near downtown Columbus as long as they can. Elberfeld, 63, has been working with neighborhood residents to form a group of volunteers to help other seniors do the same.

Their "aging in place" effort is based on similar projects in affluent neighborhoods of cities such as Boston and Washington, D.C., where private, nonprofit corporations formed to provide services and social activities so seniors don't have to move.

When residents are no longer able to drive, or walk down steep basement stairs, volunteers would ferry people around, check on a basement furnace, or help landscape the yard. Residents usually pay an annual membership fee, but far less than the cost of staying in a nursing-home.

Minnie Figart-Braden, 63, who oversees a meals-on-wheels kitchen in the city, said it's best for people to realize that good plans and quality care might call for sacrifice. "The boomers have to learn to give," she said. "They have to be responsible enough to give back to the community, to see what's going on."

The latest installment of Aging America, the joint AP-APME project examining the aging of the baby boomers and the impact that this silver tsunami will have on the communities in which they live.

As a member of Diddy-Dirty Money and Danity Kane, Dawn Richard was impressive. As a solo artist, she's extraordinary.

Her solo debut, "Goldenheart," is an R&B field day of progressive, electronic and smooth sounds that play like one amazing musical adventure. Her unique voice which echoes Brandy glides over each song like magic as she sings about heartache and breaking through in the music industry (check out "Return of a Queen.") And Richard, who co-wrote the 16-track independent release, doesn't skip a beat.

"Pretty Wicked Things" is spooky and eerie in a good way. "Northern Lights" is addictive, while "Tug of War" and "Frequency" are certified Quiet Storm anthems.

"Goldenheart" isn't just golden, it's grand.

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

* American Wind Energy Association interim CEO Rob Gramlich stated on Friday, "Billions of dollars of investment sat idled by uncertainty that now can flow into new wind projects and our manufacturing sector. Congress has sent the necessary signal in extending the PTC and many are able to move ahead -- and America's energy consumers, manufacturing sector, and working families are the winners."

* The American Wind Energy Association referenced Boston-based , which announced on Tuesday that it plans to increase its operating portfolio of wind projects by 50 percent or more following the tax credit extension.

* According to Paul Gaynor, the CEO of First Wind, the company has several projects that will start construction by the end of 2013, meaning "jobs and investment, and consumers will be getting clean energy at a competitive price."

* The flurry of activity seen by the extension of the Production Tax Credit follows the flurry of activity seen by companies which were eager to start construction of projects before the credit expired in 2012. In the past year, wind energy was the most-installed new electrical generating capacity in America, First Wind reported. First Wind commissioned five new projects last year.

* Some of First Wind's new projects which may be ready for early construction by the end of the year include wind farms in Maine, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Hawaii.

* This week, Google has alsoa $200 million investment in the wind energy industry, in the 161-megawatt Spinning Spur wind farm in Oldham County, Tex.

* Spinning Spur will signal Google's first investment in Texas renewable energy, though the company currently has ten other renewable energy projects in its portfolio.

* The Spinning Spur project is 35 miles from Amarillo and was developed by EDF Renewable Energy.

* According to the American Wind Energy Association, big wind projects are also proceeding in Nebraska, Minnesota and North Dakota. In addition, St. Louis-based companies Emerson, electric component maker ABB and carbon fiber manufacturer Zoltek are seeing benefits of the renewed activity that has resulted from the tax credit extension.

* "America's wind power industry is back on track," Gramlich said. "With a banner year behind us, we look forward to showing how wind energy can continue to strengthen America's energy future, and create jobs and business for our families and communities."

A total of 51 women, including the Melnick sisters, filed lawsuits in Boston against more than a dozen companies that made or marketed a synthetic estrogen known as DES.

The Melnick sisters' case was the first to go to trial. The settlement was announced Wednesday on the second day of testimony.

DES, or diethylstilbestrol, was prescribed to millions of pregnant women over three decades to prevent miscarriages, premature births and other problems. It was taken off the market in the early 1970s after it was linked to a rare vaginal cancer in women whose mothers used it. Studies later showed the drug didn't prevent miscarriages.

Attorney Aaron Levine, representing the Melnick sisters, told the jury during opening statements that Eli Lilly failed to test the drug's effect on fetuses before promoting it as a way to prevent miscarriages.

Lawyer James Dillon, for Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly, told the jury that there was no evidence the drug causes breast cancer in the daughters of women who took it.

Dillon also said that no medical records show that the mother of the Melnick sisters took DES or that, if she did take it, it was made by Eli Lilly. Leading researchers at the time recommended that DES be used for pregnant women who had consecutive miscarriages, he said.

DES was not patented and was made by many companies.

Boston attorney Andrew Meyer, who's handled numerous medical malpractice cases, said the settlement in this case could signal settlements in other cases.

"When one settles a case, they recognize they can lose it," he said. "The reason they can lose it is because there's enough evidence for the plaintiffs to be able to win it. So it's not just optics, it isn't."

Columbus, Ohio, resident Irene Sawyer also is suing Eli Lilly, alleging that her prenatal exposure to DES caused her breast cancer. She called the settlement "a huge victory" for DES daughters.

"The bottom line is that this company put out a drug without testing, without knowing the consequences of this drug," she said.

It's wonderful, she said, that drug companies "are starting to realize this is not right, that there are consequences."

The Melnick sisters, who grew up in Tresckow, Pa., said they all developed breast cancer in their 40s.

Levine told the jury that their mother did not take DES while pregnant with a fifth sister and that sister has not developed breast cancer.

The four Melnick sisters also had miscarriages, fertility problems or other reproductive tract problems long suspected of being caused by prenatal exposure to DES. They were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1997 and 2003 and had treatments ranging from lump-removal surgery to a full mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy.

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed alleging links between DES and vaginal cancer, cervical cancer and fertility problems. Many of those cases were settled.

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Associated Press writer Jay Lindsay contributed to this report.

The Irish have turned one of the best rivalries in women's basketball into a one-sided affair lately, winning five of the past six meetings.

The senior All-American scored 19 points hitting big shot after big shot in the second half to lift fifth-ranked Notre Dame to a 73-72 victory over the top-ranked Huskies on Saturday.

This was the latest victory for the Irish (12-1, 1-0 Big East), who also ended UConn's season the past two years by beating the Huskies in past two Final Fours.

"I think when we play them, there is a lot on the line, whether it is a Big East Championship or them being ranked higher than us or in the Final Four," Diggins said. "This is good for us."

No team has had this kind of success against UConn in the past 20 years.

The last team to beat UConn five out of six times was Miami back in the early 1990s before the Huskies started winning national championships.

The Irish were expected to be down this season with three starters graduated. It didn't matter with Diggins still on the team.

With UConn poised to pull away in the second half, Diggins hit back-to-back 3-pointers to keep her team in the game.

Later with the shot clock about to run out, Diggins hit a leaner from the wing.

Finally, with the Irish down by one with 49 seconds left, she got fouled on a drive and calmly sank both free throws. It would be the last points of the game.

"I think Skylar has changed things for us," Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said. "She believed we can win and has the confidence and that is contagious."

The Huskies (12-1, 0-1) had a few chances to pull out the win in the final 30 seconds, but in front of a sellout crowd of 10,127, they fell short.

Breanna Stewart had her shot blocked in the lane. The Huskies maintained possession and then after a timeout, Stewart missed a jumper from the top of the key. Kelly Faris grabbed the rebound giving UConn one more chance, but Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis caught the ball in the corner and her wide-open 3 fell off the rim.

The Irish grabbed the loose ball and Diggins ran out the clock.

"How many times can we put up our defense," McGraw said. "I thought about our football team getting that goal line stand (against Stanford) three times in a row, if they can do it, we can do it."

The Irish women were headed down South after the game to get ready for Tuesday's contest against South Florida. Notre Dame was going to first spend a day in Orlando.

McGraw laughed at the thought that her team would head to Disney World after beating the No. 1 team in the country. She put the victory in perspective.

"It's great to win when they are ranked No. 1," she said. "It's great for our team, but it's still January 5. We're just trying to get better."

The Huskies had come into the game unbeaten and a week earlier had stunned then-No. 1 Stanford 61-35 on the Cardinal's homecourt ending their 82-game home winning streak. They had already beaten five ranked teams by an average of 24 points.

"It's definitely been an up and down week" said Stefanie Dolson, who scored 17 points to lead Connecticut. "We were all extremely excited and on a high when we beat Stanford the way we did. We came into this game and we weren't ready. I don't think we were ready for how hard Notre Dame was going to come at us. They out-toughed us."

UConn trailed by two at the half and took a 48-44 lead on Dolson's layup with 16:18 left in the game. The Huskies led 63-60 with 8 minutes left before Notre Dame scored five quick points. Neither team could get more than a two-point lead the rest of the way.

Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma was OK with the shots his team got in the end.

"You got the best 3-point shooter in the country with a wide open 3 to win it and it doesn't go in," he said. "I'd be more upset if the wrong guy took the wrong shot at the wrong time. We came out of timeout and got the shot we wanted and it didn't go in."

Mosqueda-Lewis finished with 17 points.

Stewart, the high school player of the year last season, scored all 10 of her points in the second half after missing her first five shots. She also had six blocks and nine rebounds.

"She looked out of sorts a little bit, struggled a little bit," Auriemma said. "But then again you think about what she did, 10 points, nine rebounds, six blocks, that's not a bad day. I think that's what we expect from her. Shots she missed we come to expect she'll make all those."

The Irish won both regular-season meetings last year, before being blown out in the Big East championship game. They won the decisive meeting in the Final Four, 83-75, in overtime.

Notre Dame's lone defeat this season came at home to No. 2 Baylor, 73-61, on Dec. 5.

The two teams, who have played 12 times over the past four seasons, will play again in South Bend on March 4, in the final game of the regular season.

It's not certain if the two teams will play again after Notre Dame leaves for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

UConn led 18-15 midway through the first half before Notre Dame went on a 12-2 run sparked by Kayla McBride, who led Notre Dame with 21 points. She had back-to-back jumpers. Michaela Mabrey hit a 3-pointer and Natalie Achonwa a free throw to cap the burst.

Mabrey's second 3-pointer of the half gave the Irish a 34-26 lead with 5 minutes left in the half before UConn closed with a 12-4 burst to make it 38-36 at the break.

___

Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg

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"These counties are eligible because they are contiguous to one or more primary counties in Tennessee. The Small Business Administration recognizes that disasters do not usually stop at county or state lines. For that reason, counties adjacent to primary counties named in the declaration are included," said Frank Skaggs, director of SBA's Field Operations Center East in Atlanta.

"When the Secretary of Agriculture issues a disaster declaration to help farmers recover from damages and losses to crops, the Small Business Administration issues a declaration to eligible entities affected by the same disaster," Skaggs added.

Under this declaration, the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program is available to eligiblefarm-related and nonfarm-related entities that suffered financial losses as a direct result of this disaster. With the exception of aquaculture enterprises, SBA cannot provide disaster loans to agricultural producers, farmers, or ranchers.

The loan amount can be up to $2 million with a 4 percent interest rate for eligible small businesses and 3 percent for non-profit organizations with terms up to 30 years. The SBA determines eligibility based on the size of the applicant, type of activity and its financial resources. Loan amounts and terms are set by the SBA and are based on each applicant's financial condition. These working capital loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable, and other bills that could have been paid had the disaster not occurred. The loans are not intended to replace lost sales or profits.

Applicants may apply online using the Electronic Loan Application (ELA) via SBA's secure website at .

Disaster loan information and application forms may also be obtained by calling the SBA's Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955 (800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) or by sending an email to . Loan applications can be downloaded from the SBA's website at . Completed applications should be mailed to: U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX 76155.

Completed loan applications must be returned to SBA no later than February 12, 2013.

For more information about the SBA's Disaster Loan Program, visit our website at.

Release Number: 13-189, VA 13092

Contact: Michael LamptonPhone: 404-331-0333

SOURCE U.S. Small Business Administration

The capture of the city of Konna marks a dangerous escalation in the Islamists' confrontation with the Malian government, which is based hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the south in the capital, Bamako.

The fighting in central Mali also comes amid speculation that a regional military intervention to oust the extremists may not come until September at the earliest.

Malian President Dioncounda Traore asked France, Mali's former colonial power, for help to counter the advance of the extremists.

France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said Traore sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and a similar letter to French President Francois Hollande seeking assistance from France.Araud said Hollande will respond to the letter on Friday.

Araud, who spoke to reporters after emergency U.N. Security Council consultations on Mali on Thursday, said urgent action is needed against the groups who captured Konna.

"This terrorist attack weakens even more the stability of Mali and thereby that of its neighbors," he said.

The Islamists seized the town of Douentza four months ago after brief standoff with a local militia, but pushed no further until clashes broke out late Wednesday in Konna, a town of 50,000 people, where fearful residents cowered inside their homes.

"We have chased the army out of the city of Konna, which we have occupied since 11 a.m.," declared Sanda Abou Mohamed, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine militant group, speaking by telephone from Timbuktu.

A Mali army spokesman refused to comment on the loss of Konna, which is just 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the government-held town of Mopti, a strategic port city along the Niger River.

However, a soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said the army had retreated from Konna. He said several soldiers were killed and wounded, though he did not have precise casualty figures. "We didn't have time to count them," he said.

The United Nations said it was concerned about the reported military movements by rebel groups along the front line in Mali, and urged them to adhere to a Dec. 4 cease-fire, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

While Konna is not a large town, it has strategic value as "the last big thing ... on the road to Mopti," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Atlantic Council.

"I think the real target here is to seize the airstrip in Mopti, either to hold it or blow enough holes in it to render it useless," Pham said. "If you can seize the airstrip at Mopti, the Malian military's and African militaries' ability to fly reconnaissance in the north is essentially clipped."

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger.Most Malians adhere to a moderate form of Islam, where women do not wear burqas and few practice the strict form of the religion.

In recent months, however, the terror syndicate and its allies have taken advantage of political instability to push out of their hiding place and into Mali's towns, taking over an enormous territory they are using to stock weapons, train forces and prepare for global jihad.

The Islamists grabbed control of the major towns across northern Mali Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal following a military coup in the capital last March that overthrew the democratically elected president of Mali.

In their quest to implement their strict version of Islamic law, known as Shariah, Ansar Dine has been carrying out public amputations and whippings, and even stoned to death a couple who were accused of adultery.

The Islamists insist they want to impose Shariah only in northern Mali, though there long have been fears they could push further south. While the capture of Konna is likely to exacerbate those concerns, Bamako remains 435 miles (700 kilometers) away.

Local residents said the government air force is sending out planes to battle the rebels from a nearby military airport.

Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, communications adviser for the Ministry of Defense, would not speak about the loss of Konna or the military operations under way.

"But it is certain that we seek every opportunity to move northward and liberate the cities of Timbuktu , Kidal and Gao," he said.

Ousmane Cisse, a resident of Sevare, a town near Mopti, said he saw wounded people arrive at a local hospital.

"In the morning I was in front of the hospital and I saw two ambulances transporting the wounded who came from the site of the fighting, but I couldn't tell you how many there were," he said.

The retreat by the Malian military is sure to raise questions about its ability to help lead a regional intervention.

Late last year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations.

The U.N. Security Council has authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions, including training Mali's military, which has been accused of serious human rights abuses since the coup.

Nesirky, the U.N. spokesman, said the world body is supporting mediation efforts by the West African regional group ECOWAS and looks forward to the resumption of negotiations, scheduled for Jan. 21.

He said U.N. special envoy Said Djinnit is in Mali promoting negotiations, a national dialogue and development of a roadmap for transition, and U.N. envoy for the Sahel, Romano Prodi, was also in Bamako on Thursday.

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Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Rukmini Callimachi and Edith M. Lederer also contributed to this report.

___

Baba Ahmed can be reached at www.twitter.com/Babahmed1

A fourth woman has accused Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment--this time in public. Sharon Bialek told reporters in a press conference Monday that Cain groped her and exhibited "sexually inappropriate" behavior toward her when he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

Bialek, a former NRA employee who worked for the association in between 1996 and 1997, said the encounter occurred shortly after she was laid off from the group's education fund in July 1997.

She said she had approached Cain for help in looking for a new job and had traveled to Washington, D.C., where she had dinner with the then-NRA head. She told reporters that upon her arrival in D.C. she discovered that Cain had secretly upgraded her hotel room to a suite.

After dinner, the two were sitting in his car when she claimed he "suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals" and moved her head toward his crotch.

"I was surprised and shocked, and I said, what are you doing? You know I have a boyfriend," Bialek recalled saying. "This is not what I came here for."

Bialak claimed that when she protested, Cain replied, "You want a job, right?

She told reporters Cain backed off after she asked him to stop, and he drove her back to her hotel.

Bialek, who identified herself as a stay-at-home single mom who lives in Chicago and is a registered Republican, said she didn't file a complaint with the NRA in part because she was no longer formally employed by the group--and also because she was "very embarrassed." She was joined at the press conference by her attorney, celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, who offered sworn affidavits from two friends to whom Bialek spoke shortly after the alleged encounter.

"I was very very surprised and very shocked," Bialek said, adding that she had come forward to be a "face" for women who had been harassed by Cain. "I want you, Mr. Cain, to come clean. Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people ... I implore you. Make this right."

The Cain campaign issued a statement denying Bialek's claims.

"All allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false," the campaign said in a statement. " Mr. Cain has never harassed anyone."

Bialek is the fourth woman to accuse Cain of sexual harassment when he was head of the NRA, but she's the only accuser who has spoken publicly.

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1. Coca-ColaIt's one of the most famous examples of patent medicine-turned snack food ever. The original intent of Coca-Cola, as you probably know, was a health drink. It was sold for five cents at soda fountains (a dollar or so in today's money) because people thought carbonated beverages would increase their wellness. Pemberton's company also sold Pemberton's Indian Queen Hair Dye and Pemberton's Globe Flower Cough Syrup.

2. Graham Crackers Graham Crackers were in invented in 1829 by Reverend Sylvester Graham, who felt the bland food was a perfect prescription for those prone to excessive amounts of "self-abuse." Apparently dry crackers would bore the sexual appetite right out of you.

3. Corn FlakesOK, it might be a stretch to call Corn Flakes a snack food, but I'm sure I'm not alone in downing a bowl of cereal when I want a little something. Will Keith Kellogg was looking for something to improve the diet of hospital patients and decided that corn flakes were a great bread substitute that helped digestion.

4. Goo-Goo ClustersDuring the Great Depression, Goo-Goo Clusters were marketed to consumers as a "nourishing lunch for a nickel." Sure, I employ that theory on candy all of the time: Peanuts are protein, chocolate has calcium, marshmallow has... marshmallow.

5. Fig NewtonsAlthough the Fig Newtons are marketed as "fruit and cake" these days, back in 1892, they were considered digestive aids. A lot of doctors thought that digestion problems were the root of all kinds of other illnesses, so you see a lot of digestive aids from that era. They were originally fig rolls instead of the square pastry we're familiar with now.

6. Moxie Moxie was one of the first mass-produced soft drinks commercially available, and I now consider myself a pop culture failure because I had never heard of it until now. In fact, it's where we get the word "moxie" from. But back to its "medicinal" roots. It was created sometime around 1876 by a doctor whose friend, Lieutenant Moxie, was using the extract of a South American plant to prevent paralysis, "softening of the brain," nervousness and insomnia. The good doctor took Moxie's plant extract and stuck it in soda water, calling it "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food."

7. Heath Bar Heath Bar could have just as well been called the Health Bar the use of the best milk chocolate, almonds, butter, and pure sugar cane was thought to pep a person up. "Heath for better health!" was its motto for many years.

8. 7-UpThis oneis probably not a big shocker for you, since many of us still use the miracle tonic to soothe an upset stomach. Originally called "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda," it contained lithium citrate, so it really was a mood-stabilizing drink. It was marketed as a hangover cure, which a lot of people probably needed since it was launched just two weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Never fear (or maybe I should be apologizing) the lithium was removed from the product in 1950.

9. Dr Pepper Like Coke and 7-Up, Dr Pepper was sold as a brain tonic and pick-me-up and was available at drugstores to cure what ails ya.

10. McVitie's Digestive BiscuitsThe first time I went overseas, I remember being charmed by the fact that some cookies were referred to as "digestives." What a great idea a guilt-free cookie covered in chocolate! The idea started with McVitie's back in 1892. Because the biscuit contained a high amount of sodium bicarbonate, the inventor theorized that eating the biscuits after a large meal would be beneficial to one's health. They're still called digestives, but McVitie's now prints a disclaimer on them that says "The ingredients in this biscuit do not contain any substances that assist digestion."

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"We must extend the fight against the enemy's ideological and cultural infiltration," Kim said in an October speech at the headquarters of his immensely powerful internal security service. Kim, who became North Korea's supreme leader after the death of his father a year ago, called upon his vast security network to "ruthlessly crush those hostile elements."

Over the past year, Kim has intensified a border crackdown that has attempted to seal the once-porous 1,420-kilometer (880-mile) frontier with China, smugglers and analysts say, trying to hold back the onslaught.

The assault that he fears? It's being waged with cheap televisions rigged to receive foreign broadcasts, and with smuggled mobile phones that if you can get a Chinese signal along the border can call the outside world. Very often, it arrives in the form of wildly popular South Korean soap operas smuggled in on DVDs or computer thumb drives.

In North Korea, a country where international phone calls and Internet connections exist only for a tiny fraction of a tiny elite, and televisions and radios must be permanently preset to receive only state broadcasts, it's Korean-language TV heartache they crave.

"South Korean dramas, that's what everyone wants," grumbled a Seoul-based Christian missionary who runs a string of safe houses in this part of China, where his network helps people living underground after fleeing North Korea. One safe house is reserved for traders who sell everything from electronics to shoes inside North Korea and who smuggle everything from Bibles to soap operas on the side. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the safety of his network.

There's "Autumn in My Heart," a 12-year-old tear-jerker replete with switched babies, forbidden love, and a comatose heroine. And "Stairway to Heaven," an epic of more forbidden love, more switched identities, blindness, insanity, a brain tumor and an evil stepmother. Everywhere in the soaps, there are tales of unrequited love, conniving rivals and handsome young men who just don't realize they'd find true love with the girl next door.

But if it looks absurd a Stalinist nation vowing to crush an assault of bad lighting and overacting the dilemma is deadly serious for Kim, who needs to find a way to modernize his country and its economy while holding onto absolute power.

Today, changing technologies, ambitious smugglers and well-funded critics of Pyongyang mean that everything from DVD melodramas to illegal Chinese cellphones to Korean-language radio news broadcasts funded by the U.S. government make their way into North Korea. Their presence exposes an ever-growing number of North Koreans to the outside world and threatens the underpinnings of the Kim regime.

Kim's crackdown has been largely aimed at the border with China, long the route for much of the outside information making its way into North Korea, as well as for refugees trying to get out.

Entire border security units have been replaced inside North Korea, fences have been strengthened and punishments ramped up for anyone caught trying to get through, according to smugglers, analysts and Chinese with family ties across the border. Meanwhile, special security units have been formed to seek out any contraband information or technology that Pyongyang sees as a threat.

"There has definitely been a push to roll back the tide of the flow of information," said Nat Kretchun, associate director of an international consulting group InterMedia, which released a report earlier this year about information flow into North Korea, based on surveys of hundreds of recent North Korean defectors. The study was commissioned by the U.S. State Department.

His conclusion: North Korea is increasingly anxious to keep information at bay, but has less ability to control it.

People are more willing to watch foreign movies and television programs, talk on illegal mobile phones and tell family and friends about what they are doing, he said.

"There is substantial demand" for things like South Korean movies and television programs, said Kretchun. "And there are intensely entrepreneurial smugglers who are more than willing to fulfill that demand."

For now, though, times are tough along the border, with smugglers saying North Korean guards have become far stricter about searching for contraband.

In a country where one family has held absolute control for more than 60 years, a communist enclave that survived the downfall of the Soviet Union and a devastating 1990s famine, the notion of allowing knowledge of the larger world is deeply feared.

"Even a hint of illusion or submission to the enemy is the shortest road to death and self-destruction," Kim said in his October speech, according to the state news agency KCNA.

The enemy works out of places like Hunchun, a brutally cold, money-hungry border town of car parts shops, cavernous indoor markets piled with shiny polyester clothing and off-brand electronics so cheap it seems almost impossible. Just a few miles from both North Korea and Russia, it's a town where nearly all signs are in three languages Chinese, Korean and Russian and where you can find a smuggler in just a few phone calls. Even if they rarely give a name, and are often identified only by their mobile phone numbers.

"Let me worry about how to do it," laughed one smuggler, asked how he gets his goods into North Korea. He is a friendly man, dressed business-casual in black corduroys and a black sweater.

Asked what he could get across the border, he made clear that business was thriving. Televisions, including ones able to pick up foreign stations? No problem. DVD players? Sure. Chinese movies? Yes.

But when asked about South Korean DVDs, the man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His partner spoke up. No South Korean items not DVDs, thumb drives, cosmetics or food.

"Nothing," the partner said firmly.

Soap operas, at first, might not seem like conduits of underground information. But they are threats nonetheless, offering windows into worlds that North Koreans both lack and desire.

North Korean viewers living in tiny two-room homes and struggling to feed their families can see houses with bedrooms just for children, and dinners with endless food. They see everyday people casually complaining about policemen and politicians. Scenes like that are provocative in a country where defectors say criticizing the ruling family can send entire families to sprawling prison camps, and where bicycles are considered luxury items for many.

Plenty of other smugglers are willing to carry what the man in Hunchun is not.

Millions of foreign TV and movie recordings are thought to be floating around North Korea, though they are most easily available in cities near the Chinese border. With the crackdown, analysts say smugglers appear to have shifted to new techniques, at least for videos: carrying recordings on tiny thumb drives, and then transferring the programs to DVDs inside North Korea.

Because once information starts to flow, information cannot be turned off like a spigot. At most it can be slowed.

In many ways, Kim is facing an authoritarian contradiction.

North Korea has been trying albeit haltingly and slowly to revitalize its barely functioning economy and crack open a door to the outside. Foreign tourists are now commonplace in Pyongyang, though on tightly controlled trips, and Kim has told his people that they should never go hungry again. Western movies occasionally are shown on state television. North Korean officials now actively court foreign investors.

As a result, North Korea has found itself flirting with modernity more than a million of the 24 million North Koreans now have mobile phones, for instance, though they can only place and receive calls domestically while trying desperately to keep a tight grip on the public.

"They want to modernize but the cost of this effort is information, which could easily destabilize the regime," said Victor Cha, former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, and now a professor at Georgetown University. "Without control of information, there is no regime."

Exactly when the latest crackdown began isn't clear. Many analysts date it to early 2011, as Pyongyang watched the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world. But it also appears to have intensified since the December 2011 death of North Korea's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il, and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Un. The younger Kim, almost completely unknown until late 2010, is believed to be about 29 years old.

In the clearest sign of the crackdown, the number of North Korean refugees reaching South Korea in 2012 has dropped by almost half, to about 1,400, compared to last year. While that statistic doesn't include every North Korean who fled across the border, many of whom spend years living underground in China, it is widely seen as a general indication of the increased frontier security.

But the North Korean market for outside knowledge, nearly all observers say, has become insatiable. It's been more than a decade since everyday North Koreans caught their first real glimpses of the outside world, when a breakdown in government control during the 1990s famine combined with the arrival of cheap Chinese electronics. The hunger for the larger world resembles, in many ways, the appetites in China in the years after Mao Zedong's 1976 death, when Beijing began opening the door for the world's mass media.

Today in North Korea, the idea of winning a fight against information seems an impossible goal.

If nothing else, said a onetime smuggler who eventually fled to South Korea, too many powerful North Koreans are making money in the business. He clearly remembers his early televised revelations, when DVDs showed him so much that his own country didn't have.

"I felt sad about the state of my country when I watched the DVDs," said the defector, who now lives in Seoul and spoke on condition he not be named, fearing retribution against family still living in North Korea. "I could see Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States ... these other places were so much better off."

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Associated Press writers Sam Kim and Hyung-jin Kim contributed from Seoul.

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Follow Tim Sullivan on Twitter at twitter.com/SullivanTimAP.