By Gabriela Baczynska and Aleksandar Vasovic KIEV/DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - U.S. and European leaders agreed on Monday to impose wider sanctions on Russia's financial, defense and energy sectors as Ukraine said its forces advanced toward the crash site of Malaysian flight MH17. The new sanctions, which U.S. President Barack Obama and leaders of Germany, Britain, France and Italy discussed in a conference call, are aimed at increasing the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin after the Malaysian airliner was shot down over territory held by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine. "It's precisely because we've not yet seen a strategic turn from Putin that we believe it's absolutely essential to take additional measures and that's what the Europeans and the United States intend to do this week," said Tony Blinken, a national security adviser to Obama.

China's ruling Communist Party has put former security chief Zhou Yongkang -- one of its most powerful men -- under investigation, it said Tuesday, the most senior official to fall for decades. Zhou, who retired from China's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) in 2012, is being probed for "serious disciplinary violation", the ruling party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, its internal watchdog, said in a statement. With the official announcement of the long-rumoured probe, Zhou becomes the most senior member of the Communist Party to be investigated since the infamous Gang of Four -- a faction that included the widow of founding leader Mao Zedong -- were put on trial in 1980.

TAVARES, Fla. (AP) — When Arun and Usha Pancholi were deciding where to spend their retirement years, they wanted a place that combined the culture and camaraderie of life in India with the comforts and conveniences they had grown accustomed to after nearly five decades in Minnesota and Ohio.