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ATLANTA (AP) — The New York Yankees have bolstered their rotation by acquiring right-hander Brandon McCarthy from Arizona.

The Diamondbacks, who are sending New York cash in Sunday's deal for left-hander Vidal Nuno. The trade was announced by the Yankees.

The move comes after Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia had a setback with a degenerative cartilage problem in his right knee. New York was unable to work out a trade for the Cubs' Jeff Samardzija, who instead was dealt to Oakland.

McCarthy, who turns 31 on Monday, was 3-10 with a 5.01 ERA with Arizona this season. In nine seasons with the White Sox, Rangers, A's and Diamondbacks, McCarthy is 45-60 with a 4.21 ERA.

McCarthy, informed of the trade before Sunday's game against the Braves, plans to meet the Yankees in Cleveland.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Transportation Security Administration says it's asking passengers at some overseas airports that offer U.S.-bound flights to power on their electronic devices.

The TSA says its officers may ask passengers to turn on devices such as cellphones. It says devices that won't turn on won't be allowed on planes, and those travelers may have to undergo additional screening.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh (JAY') Johnson recently ordered the TSA to put extra security measures in place at some international airports with direct flights to the United States.

American intelligence officials have been concerned about new al-Qaida efforts to produce a bomb that would go undetected through airport security.

The TSA will not disclose which airports will be conducting the additional screening.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Private contractors for the U.S. Department of Energy have spent at least $3.5 million in legal expenses to battle two critics of a massive construction project at the nation's most polluted nuclear site, according to a letter obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

The letter is from the chairwoman of a U.S. Senate subcommittee that is investigating whether there was retaliation against two Hanford Nuclear Reservation workers who raised safety concerns and then lost their jobs at the former nuclear weapons production site.

"The Department of Energy may be providing an incentive to contractors to engage in protracted litigation with whistleblowers by reimbursing the contractors' legal expenses," said the letter from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Energy Department officials did not immediately return telephone and email requests for comment.

McCaskill heads the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, which is investigating the treatment of former Hanford workers Walter Tamosaitis and Donna Busche.

The two longtime Hanford employees lost their jobs after raising concerns about the design and safety of the $12.3 billion Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford. The one-of-a-kind plant is intended to convert up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from production of nuclear weapons materials into a stable glass form for disposal.

Work has been stopped on key portions of the long-delayed plant to resolve numerous technical issues.

Tamosaitis and Busche's concerns contributed to the halt in construction. The two have filed lawsuits as whistleblowers, and their cases remain in litigation. They met with Moniz last year to discuss their concerns.

Hanford is near the city of Richland, about 150 miles west of Spokane. For decades, it made plutonium for nuclear weapons, and now is engaged in a multibillion-dollar cleanup of the resulting radioactive wastes.

Bechtel National has the contract to build the plant, and URS Corp. is the major subcontractor.

According to McCaskill's letter, the Energy Department has reimbursed URS $3 million and Bechtel $500,000 in legal expenses to deal with the two critics' allegations.

"I would like to understand the criteria used by the contracting officer to determine that this expenditure was allowable and reasonable," McCaskill wrote. She requested a reply by July 11.

McCaskill also wondered if the two private contractors would be reimbursed for the costs of testifying before her subcommittee in March. She said URS estimated its costs in preparing to testify at more than $650,000.

"I would like to know whether DOE regularly reimburses contractors for costs associated with responding to congressional requests and preparing for hearings," her letter said.

McCaskill also questioned nondisclosure agreements the two contractors required employees to sign. The agreements prohibit employees from disclosing confidential information without the contractors' permission. McCaskill wondered if such agreements prevented other workers from coming forward with safety and environmental concerns.

"As you know, reporting those concerns, including to Congress, is protected by law," McCaskill wrote.

The watchdog group Hanford Challenge praised the letter.

"It is an ongoing abuse of taxpayer money to reimburse contractors' legal fees in whistleblower cases," director Tom Carpenter said.

The system allows employers to "rid the workplace of a truth-teller and get the government to pay unlimited attorney fees to fight the case," Carpenter said.

He also noted both Tamosaitis and Busche paid their own expenses to attend the March subcommittee hearing, and they were not allowed to testify.

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A counselor at the local Veterans Affairs office looked at Rebecca King, a victim of domestic violence and abuse who was seeking help for depression, and told her she would not be able to see a psychologist. She looked too nice and put together for someone depressed, King was told.

Like others who've failed to receive help at troubled VA offices, the Army veteran then gave up.

"I have a son, I'm his only support system, I have to keep it together" King recalled telling the VA office in El Paso, trying to explain why she didn't look disheveled.

She is now among nearly 1,800 people who have turned to the American Legion, which has held town-hall meetings and opened temporary crisis centers in Phoenix, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and El Paso. People can gain access to health benefits, schedule doctor's appointments, enroll in the VA and even get back pay.

The centers come in the wake of the VA scandal that brought to light long wait times and false record-keeping among other things, and are being established in towns where the VA audit showed wait times were longer. Between now and October, crisis centers will come to Fort Collins, Colorado; Saint Louis, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. They also plan to visit Clarksburg, West Virginia; White City, Oregon and Harlingen, Texas.

Jessica Jacobsen, deputy director of the VA's regional public affairs office in Dallas, said the VA will use community partners, such as the American Legion, to help "accelerate access and get veterans off wait lists and into clinics."

"This is an example of this type of partnership and how it is successful," Jacobsen said, noting the VA is helping the Legion with the crisis centers, providing them with counselors, nurses, schedulers and benefits rates.

But the VA shouldn't view getting veterans access to benefits and doctors as out of the ordinary, says Verna Jones, director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division.

"This is not extra, this is what is supposed to be happening," she said.

On the first day the Legion's crisis center team arrives in a town, they typically hold a town-hall meeting, where they take questions from veterans — sometimes, the head of the local VA is there to answer as well. In the days following, veterans come to the Legion post and talk to counselors, who assess the best way to tackle a given problem, be it benefits, retroactive payment, scheduling a doctor's appointment or enrolling a veteran in the VA's system for the first time.

During the center's three days in El Paso, 74 veterans were told they are eligible to more than $461,000 in retroactive payments for uncollected benefits, American Legion Post 58 commander Joe Ontiveros said.

King divorced her husband, who was also in the military, after years of abuse and moved back to El Paso in 2012. She got by until January, when she learned her ex-husband wanted to take their son for the summer.

"I started having nightmares, started feeling depressed," she said. A counselor at the VA dismissed her claims, saying a depressed person would not be well-dressed and with a nice hairdo.

"I told her I didn't want to look how I'd been looking," King said. The counselor said that in order to prescribe medication, King would have to be evaluated by a doctor.

"She said they would schedule an appointment, but I was never called back," she said. "I've been calling and calling but nothing."

After talking with the American Legion representatives at the El Paso crisis center, King will get help — an appointment with a psychologist that had yet to be scheduled as of Friday. "I believe this will be helpful," she said.

Navy veteran Rik Villarreal had given up on the VA as well. Twenty years after a torpedo nearly crushed his hand, he lives with chronic pain. When the VA closed his case, the document also acknowledged he had Complex Regional Pain Syndrome — the same diagnosis he received from a private neurologist to which the VA had sent him.

"I appealed, but they didn't return my emails. They tire you out, you get to a point where you say: 'The VA wins.' That's when you give up," he said.

His mother encouraged him to go to the El Paso crisis center — "Mijo, you gotta get over there," he said she told him — where he sat with an American Legion attorney who told the VA representatives to reopen his case.

When told he might be due some retroactive payment, Villarreal shrugged it off: "I don't want money. All I want is treatment for the pain."