WASHINGTON – Don’t be offended if your doctor writes that you’re SOB, or that an exam detected BS.

The aim is to help, not insult: A project is beginning to test if patients fare better when given fast electronic access to more of their medical chart — the detailed notes that doctors record about you during and after every visit. You just might have to look up some of the technical jargon, like those abbreviations for “shortness of breath” and “bowel sounds.”

Didn’t know about those notes? Researchers involved in the “OpenNotes” project say they are surprised at how many patients don’t.

“You really have to be a partner with your doctor to do well,” says Dr. Tom Delbanco of Harvard and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who heads the study and thinks better use of those notes will help.

“It’s your body. It’s your record. It’s your illness. You should have ready access to everything about it.”

Yes, your clinic may have an electronic records system that lets you log in to make an appointment, check your cholesterol test or review your medications. But Delbanco and nursing colleague Jan Walker have found few include those doctor notes that provide details about a patient’s health.

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KABUL, Afghanistan – The goal is to transform Afghanistan into a modern nation, fueled by a U.S.-led effort pouring $60 billion into bringing electricity, clean water, jobs, roads and education to this crippled country. But the results so far — or lack of them — threaten to do more harm than good.

The reconstruction efforts have stalled and stumbled at many turns since the U.S. military arrived in 2001, undermining President Barack Obama’s vow to deliver a safer, stable Afghanistan capable of stamping out the insurgency and keeping al-Qaida from re-establishing its bases here.

Poppy fields thrive, with each harvest of illegal opium fattening the bankrolls of terrorists and drug barons. Passable roads remain scarce and unprotected, isolating millions of Afghans who remain cut off from jobs and education. Electricity flows to only a fraction of the country’s 29 million people.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — The United States has made an enormous and costly commitment to building a new Afghanistan, but an Associated Press investigation finds that the results have been paltry. First in an occasional series, “Fixing Afghanistan.”

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NEW ORLEANS – Scientists got an extra day to evaluate whether the giant cork bottling BP’s busted well in the Gulf of Mexico will hold, while officials overseeing the disaster pondered their next step.

After days of watching, engineers still saw no signs of any leak in the well cap that has shut in the crude for three days. The oil giant and the government were becoming increasingly confident in the temporary stopgap.

“Everybody has been so worried about it blowing,” said Willianet Barksdale, a security guard on the public beach at Gulf Shores, Ala. “Maybe this means it’s holding and this is almost over.”

But the pressure readings were still lower than expected. Scientists were mapping the seafloor and conducting tests to determine if the well simply bled more than initially thought, leaving less oil to put pressure on the cap. Robots patrolled the sea floor in search of any problems.

The trial run — which began Thursday and was extended Saturday — is now set to end Sunday afternoon.

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey on Friday unveiled its first drone airplane, a surveillance craft able to fly for 24-hour stretches over the rugged mountains where Kurdish rebels are waging a deadly insurgency.

Turkey’s eagerness to produce its own military technology mirrors its increasingly robust and independent diplomacy in the region. And producing its own drone fleet would allow Turkey to sever an important link with Israel, which has provided Turkey with drones even amid rising tensions over Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip.

While the success of the Turkish-made drone is far from assured, Turkish engineers said they were confident it would become part of the country’s arsenal. Ozcan Ertem, head of the project, said an armed version of the Anka, or Phoenix, was possible but not in the works for now.

Some 43 countries have now developed unmanned aerial vehicles, which have proved to be extremely effective in gathering intelligence and, in U.S. hands, staging attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Ertem said four or five countries, including Pakistan, which has also sought drones from the U.S., are expected to place orders for the Anka once the Turkish Air Force issues an order probably later this year. The first system, comprising three planes and remote-control units, was expected to be delivered to the Turkish Air Force in 2013.

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NEW ORLEANS – The oil has stopped. For now.

After 85 days and up to 184 million gallons, BP finally gained control over one of America’s biggest environmental catastrophes Thursday by placing a carefully fitted cap over a runaway geyser that has been gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico since early spring.

Though a temporary fix, the accomplishment was greeted with hope, high expectations — and, in many cases along the beleaguered coastline, disbelief. From one Gulf Coast resident came this: “Hallelujah.” And from another: “I got to see it to believe it.”

If the cap holds, if the sea floor doesn’t crack and if the relief wells being prepared are completed successfully, this could be the beginning of the end for the spill. But that’s a lot of ifs, and no one was declaring any sort of victory beyond the moment.

The oil stopped flowing at 3:25 p.m. EDT when the last of three valves in the 75-ton cap was slowly throttled shut. That set off a 48-hour watch period in which — much like the hours immediately after a surgery — the patient was in stable, guarded condition and being watched closely for complications.

“It’s a great sight,” said BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, who immediately urged caution. The flow, he said, could resume. “It’s far from the finish line. … It’s not the time to celebrate.”

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