In this task, you are given news articles and you need to generate a highlight, i.e., a short summary, with a maximum length of 10 lines.

[EX Q]: Washington (CNN) -- In what one member of Congress called "a charade," a couple that showed up at President Obama's first state dinner -- uninvited, the White House claims -- declined to answer questions surrounding the event before a House committee Wednesday. Under questioning from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, and others, Tareq Salahi repeated over and over again, "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question." The Salahis' attorney notified the committee in December that because of a pending investigation by federal prosecutors, they would not answer questions about how they gained entry to the White House on November 24, despite not being on the guest list to attend that night's state dinner for the prime minister of India. In a brief statement that opened the often-contentious hearing, Salahi chastised the committee for requiring the couple to appear despite having been told the two would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if subpoenaed. That, he alleged, is against the ethical rules of the Washington bar. He incensed some committee members by reiterating the couple's respect for U.S. troops, the Secret Service and the president. "You have shown effrontery here," said Daniel Lungren, R-California. He called it "an abomination" that the Salahis would invoke the name of those in uniform "and suggest that somehow what you do provides support to them." "The Constitution protects fools," Lungren said. "The Constitution protects stupidity. The Constitution protects errant thought. Thank God it does." "This was not a hearing looking for information," the couple's attorney, Stephen Best, told reporters after the hearing. "This was an opportunity for a public flogging." "I think today's procedure is a charade," Rep. Mark Souder, R-Indiana, said in the hearing, referring to the Salahis' refusal to answer questions. Other committee members also lambasted the couple, alleging they put their own desire for celebrity before the security of the president and are wasting the committee's time and taxpayers' money. "I don't respect your right to take the Fifth Amendment. Not at all," Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-New Jersey, told the couple. "Were you there?" he asked Salahi, referring to the dinner. When Salahi began, "On the advice ..." Pascrell interrupted him, asking, "Are you here right now? You gonna get an answer from your attorney on that?" Pascrell noted the committee had offered to allow the couple to speak behind closed doors. After conferring with his attorney, Salahi said, "Yes, but you didn't offer us any legal protection." Salahi's wife, Michaele, also invoked her Fifth Amendment right under questioning by committee members, but replied, "yes," when asked if she would return to testify after the investigation has concluded. Asked by Thompson whether the state dinner appearance was part of a "reality TV stunt," Tareq Salahi said the couple was under a non-disclosure agreement and "should not discuss matters related to the television matter." The Salahis contend they were told they could attend the program to honor India's prime minister, but the White House says they were not invited and were not on the guest list for the exclusive affair. Best said after the hearing the couple received "representations that they relied upon" that they were invited guests. Two Secret Service investigators were privy to this information from a person who knows the Salahis, he said. "This was not a stunt, and they committed no criminal act." There was no connection to any reality TV show, he said, and the Salahis were not seeking publicity. The couple has turned down multiple offers from the media to be "rewarded handsomely," he added. "Whatever the real story is, it's on the other side of the gates of the White House, not with the Salahis," Best said. "They thought they were invited. ... If it was a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding caused by representatives of the government." Tareq Salahi also noted in his opening statement that the couple's attorneys have offered to provide information to the committee, but that offer was declined by Thompson's staff. "Those offers are not satisfactory," Thompson said. "These lawyers were not at the state dinner and have no firsthand knowledge of the facts." Tareq Salahi also said the couple has provided phone records, e-mails and other documentary evidence to the committee. There also was criticism of the White House in Wednesday's hearing. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said the White House "continues to stonewall" and will not allow social secretary Desiree Rogers to testify on the security breach. Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs has said that allowing a White House staff member to testify before a congressional committee would violate the Constitution's separation of powers. "I don't know what the White House is trying to hide," King said. "Obviously, something went wrong, and it originated with the White House, not the Secret Service." Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, in previous testimony before the committee, took responsibility for the security breach, acknowledging that "appropriate procedures were not followed." Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pennsylvania, said Wednesday he thought it was "unfortunate" that Sullivan "had to take all that grief from us." "I hold you responsible for it," he told the Salahis. "Your actions ... made a mockery of this country, a mockery of our security," Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, told the couple. "I'm saddened, and I'm disappointed, and I'm outraged." Best reiterated afterward the Salahis do not want the events surrounding the dinner to detract from the "extraordinary institution" of the Secret Service. "They are Americans," he said. "They are proud Americans."
[EX A]: Tareq and Michaele Salahi decline to answer questions at congressional hearing .
House panel looking into how the couple attended state dinner in November .
White House says they weren't invited; Secret Service says procedures not followed .
Salahis' attorney says they can't answer questions because of pending investigation .

[EX Q]: KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday in a dramatic show of force designed to break up the Taliban's connection to heroin. The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday. The air strike occurred mid-day in Helmand province and was observed by CNN's Ivan Watson, who is embedded with the U.S. Marines operating in that province. The military dropped a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then followed with strikes from helicopters. Tony Wayne, with the U.S. State Department, said the strikes on poppy seeds, that can be used to make opium and heroin, is part of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs.  Watch U.S. military bomb poppy seeds » . "There is a nexus that needs to be broken between the insurgents and the drug traffickers," Wayne said. "Also, it is part of winning the hearts and minds of the population because in some cases they are intimidated into growing poppies." In a bid to encourage Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops the U.S. Agency for International Development has been offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation. Observers have noticed a significant decline in the opium trade in Afghanistan, with the number of poppy-free provinces increasing from 13 in 2007 to 18 in 2008, according to a U.N. report released last year. Opium cultivation in the country, which has 34 provinces, dropped by about 20 percent in a year, the U.N. reported in August. "It's a challenge to deliver assistance in a war zone -- you can hear fighter jets flying above us right now," said Rory Donohoe, a USAID development officer. "At the end of the day, what we found is successful is that we work in areas that we can work," he told CNN in a recent interview in Helmand province. "We come to places like this demonstration farm where Afghans can come here to a safe environment, get training, pick up seeds and fertilizer, then go back to districts of their own."  Watch Afghans speak about the change in their farming practices » . Many of Afghanistan's northern and eastern provinces have already benefited from USAID alternative farming programs, which have doled out more than $22 million to nearly 210,000 Afghans to build or repair 435 miles (700 kilometers) of roads and some 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers) of irrigation and drainage canals. Giving Afghan farmers improved access to markets and improved irrigation is successfully weaning them away from poppy production, according to officials at USAID. Over the years, opium and heroin -- both derivatives of the poppy -- have served as a major source of revenue for the insurgency, most notably the Taliban movement that once ruled Afghanistan. "If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way, the fighting will go away," said Abdul Qadir, a farmer in Lashkar Gah. "The Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear." Atia Abawi contributed to this report .
[EX A]: U.S. bombs poppy seeds in bid to break up Taliban's connection to heroin .
Poppy seeds used to produce opium and heroin .
Opium, heroin has been a major source of revenue for the Taliban .
USAID offering seeds, other help to encourage Afghan farmers to grow wheat .

[EX Q]: New Delhi (CNN) -- Here's the best way to understand the new India in 30 seconds. Watch this commercial—or better yet, if you don't understand Hindi, read on. A smarmy-looking politician addresses a rural gathering, promising to give the people access to water. His speech is interrupted by a boyish young man, a villager, who pulls out his smartphone and plays a YouTube video for all to see: it's the same politician, making the same promises at the last election, years ago. "I might be from the village," cries out the young man, "but don't think you can fool me!" The commercial—marketing an Indian mobile service provider—cuts to its familiar Hindi jingle, loosely translated as "no making fools of us anymore, no making fools of us." The story struck me because it weaves together some important trends and forces in India as the nation undertakes the biggest elections in world history. The first trend is the immense proliferation of Internet-enabled smartphones. In most Western countries, people have discovered the Internet and grown with it in stages: from painfully slow dial-up connections, to broadband, to Wi-Fi, to 4G mobile Internet. India's story has been very different. Until recently only a small elite—about a tenth of the population—could access the Internet, mostly through PCs. Even today, there are only 57 million broadband  subscribers in the country, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or TRAI. By comparison, there are about 900 million mobile subscribers—a recent boom. Many of these mobile users are buying cheap smartphones and data packages to access the Internet. The offshoot is the opposite of what happens in the West: Hundreds of millions of Indians have never used a PC—and likely never will—but they can now begin to access the Internet on their phones. The Internet is aspirational in India; it's the new motorbike or washing machine. The second trend is the rise of rural India. Again, according to TRAI, 40% of mobile subscribers are now in villages and small towns. Even with the recent boom, rural subscriptions are still growing at more than twice the rate of urban ones. These rural subscribers, as the commercial shows, often don't speak English. But there's no longer a great shame in being unable to speak the language of their colonial masters; instead, there's a new pride and confidence in India's many regional dialects and languages. There's new rural money, and a yearning to be stakeholders in their futures and to fight for more accountable government. The third trend is India's youth bulge. More than 100 million voters in India's elections are first-timers who turned 18 in the last five years. Half of all Indians are under age 30; the average age in India is 28. Many of these young, brash Indians have cast off the fatalism of their forefathers. Growing up in an India of fast growth and development, they have more confidence in their culture, identity and language. Put that together with trends No. 1 and No. 2, and the result is amplified. For the first time in India's history, a majority of Indians are connected and engaged. They know about the skeletons in every politician's closet—and that information is power. Some suggest that these trends mean India's elections will be fought and decided on social media. Politicians have taken their cue, rushing to every platform available: Twitter, Facebook and Google Hangouts. The numbers seem staggering at first. Facebook says Narendra Modi, the front-runner to be India's next prime minister, is the second most "liked" politician in the world (13 million likes), after U.S. President Barack Obama (40 million likes). According to Twitter, there has been a 600% increase in political Tweets from India in the last year. Since January the two biggest parties, the BJP and the Congress, have grown their Twitter followings by 55% and 351% respectively. India's Internet and Mobile Association says a strong social media campaign could swing up to 4% of votes. Commentators have cited that data to brand India's elections the country's first-ever "social media election." For now, I'm skeptical. Some of the outreach attempts have been amateur at best: As Vox.com pointed out, the BJP's Twitter handle last week auto-tweeted anyone who mentioned the party on Twitter, including me and hundreds of others. In any case, the number of actual social media users represents a tiny percentage of the Indian electorate. Facebook says it has 100 million users in India: it sounds like a lot but it accounts for less than a tenth of Indians. One reason for this -- apart from limits to Internet access -- could be that Twitter and Facebook remain English language services, relatable to a small subset of Indians. Unlike China, which has a Chinese-language microblogging service called Sina Weibo, with hundreds of millions of users, India for now has no such indigenous, umbrella platform. Why? India is no monolith. There are dozens of languages, and an equal number of different Indias. Despite India's growth and increased connectivity, which suggests a more unified nation, the country may actually be becoming more regional-focused, with more pride in local languages, trends and politicians. This is also why I think it's far too early to call India's elections for any one politician or party. The three trends of mobile reach, the rural rise and the youth bulge are each combustible forces bubbling in a cauldron of uncertainty. Indians may want accountability and change, but it's too soon to tell which way that will manifest itself. It remains unclear whether Indians will vote for their regional interests, or cast their ballot thinking about a macro national picture. Watch India's elections very closely. They're immensely consequential—for India, and the world. But placing too much importance on social media chatter could be misleading. Calling these elections too early could be embarrassing, too. It is, as the ad-jingle goes, a fool's errand.
[EX A]:
A commercial shows India voter catching a politician recycling old, unfulfilled promises .
Ravi Agrawal: The power of mobile technology is helping shape India's elections .
He says other key trends include the new prominence of rural areas and of young voters .
Agrawal: It's a mistake to try to predict the outcome based on these trends .