Reforms may speed aid for Greece

BRUSSELS — Greece has finally offered economic reforms that creditors consider closer to being acceptable, giving Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras a few days to turn a spirit of goodwill into a deal that might keep the country from a painful exit from the euro currency and roil international markets.

Even though a firm deal between Greece and its lenders to get Athens more loans remained elusive at an emergency summit Monday, leaders from the 19 euro nations and the International Monetary Fund said Tsipras' new reform plan offered the basis to break a four-month deadlock in talks.

“We are advancing toward an agreement,” said French President Francois Hollande. But the gap separating what Greece wants to yield in painful reforms and what creditors are demanding before providing more funds remained sizable.

Queen Elizabeth visits GermanyLONDON — Queen Elizabeth II was leaving today on a state visit to Germany that will include her first trip to a former concentration camp site.She and her husband Prince Philip plan to visit the Bergen-Belsen camp where diarist Anne Frank and her sister Margot died just weeks before the British liberated it on April 15, 1945. She will visit a memorial dedicated to the sisters and meet with aging survivors and liberators of the camp.Elizabeth will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Wednesday after a boat trip along the River Spree. She will also meet with President Joachim Gauck.