KIEV, Ukraine – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in Ukraine to begin a tour designed to promote democracy in post-Soviet states.

Clinton arrived in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev at dawn Friday after an overnight flight from Washington.

She also is scheduled to visit Poland to deliver a speech on democracy and human rights.

Besides Ukraine, Clinton is to visit Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Each of those four was once part of the Soviet Union and now has a stake in U.S. efforts to “reset” relations with Moscow.

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LOS ANGELES – A former San Francisco Bay area transit officer should be convicted of murder because he lost control and intentionally shot an unarmed black man on a train platform, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney David Stein gave an impassioned two-hour closing argument, saying the actions of defendant Johannes Mehserle on New Year’s Day 2009 don’t jibe with his contention that he mistakenly pulled his handgun instead of his Taser stun gun.

“The defendant’s desire to punish, to belittle, and to mistreat Oscar Grant not only resulted in chaos, distrust and disorder, it resulted in the death of an innocent person,” Stein said. “For that he must be held liable.”

Stein said Mehserle let his emotions get the better of him when he arrived on the platform and saw a raucous crowd watching other officers detain Grant and his friends after a report of a fight.

“He lost all control,” Stein told the jury. “That’s why you are here.”

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WASHINGTON – The oldest among us seem to have chosen their parents well. Researchers closing in on the impact of family versus lifestyle find most people who live to 100 or older share some helpful genes.

But don’t give up on diet and exercise just yet.

In an early step to understanding the pathways that lead to surviving into old age, researchers report in Thursday’s online edition of the journal Science that a study of centenarians found most had a number of genetic variations in common.

That doesn’t mean there’s a quick test to determine who will live long and who won’t — a healthy lifestyle and other factors are also significant, noted the team led by Paola Sebastiani and Thomas T. Perls of Boston University.

Nevertheless, Perls said the research might point the way to determining who will be vulnerable to specific diseases sooner, and there may be a possibility, down the road, to help guide therapy for them.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday ordered about 200,000 state workers to be paid the federal minimum wage this month because the state Legislature has not passed a budget.

Department of Personnel Administration Director Debbie Endsley sent the order in a letter to the state controller, who refused a similar order two years ago and may try to do the same thing this time. Most state employees will be paid the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour for the July pay period.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the change should be reflected in state employees’ next paycheck. Workers will be paid in full retroactively once a budget is passed.

The Legislature has failed to take steps to close California‘s $19 billion budget deficit, even as the new fiscal year began Thursday.

Schwarzenegger’s order does not affect a little more than 30,000 workers, including California Highway Patrol officers, who are in unions that recently negotiated new contracts with the administration. Those contracts included pay cuts and pension reforms that will save the state money.

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NEW ORLEANS – Many fishing boats signed up to skim oil sit idle in marinas. Some captains and deckhands say they have been just waiting around for instructions while drawing checks from BP of more than $1,000 a day per vessel. Thousands of offers to clean beaches and wetlands have gone unanswered.

BP and the Obama administration faced mounting complaints Thursday that they are ignoring foreign offers of badly needed equipment and making poor use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.

Based on some government estimates, more than 140 million gallons of crude have now spewed from the bottom of the sea since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, eclipsing the 1979-80 disaster off Mexico that had long stood as the worst in the Gulf.

In recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around. At the same time, there is mounting frustration over the time it has taken the government to approve offers of help from foreign countries and international organizations.

The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.

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