AJ Allmendinger wins NASCAR Nationwide race

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (AP) ? Team owner Roger Penske gave AJ Allmendinger a second chance.

Now they both have a trophy to show for it ? and, perhaps, the foundation of a rebuilt racing career.

Allmendinger took the lead from Justin Allgaier with seven laps to go in regulation, then didn't get rattled through a late restart and two nerve-testing green-white-checkered overtime finishes, holding on to win Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America.

Afterward, he expressed appreciation for Penske, the team owner who originally let him go last season after he was suspended for violating NASCAR's substance abuse policy.

"It's just meant the world to me," Allmendinger said. "This was the only way I could repay him. I was trying so hard out there ? and, at times, probably over-trying."

Allgaier finished second, followed by Parker Kligerman, Owen Kelly and Sam Hornish Jr.

Allgaier won a road course race at Montreal last season but still tipped his cap to Allmendinger's road racing skills.

"I'm still not a road racer, I can assure you of that," Allgaier said. "Just watching AJ in front of me and seeing some of the places he was able to get away from me on that last green-white-checkered, I still have some stuff to learn."

It's Allmendinger's first win in NASCAR, but not his first at Road America. He won at the four-mile road course in Central Wisconsin in 2006, racing in the Champ Car Series.

"It's my favorite track now," Allmendinger said.

Billy Johnson led on a restart with eight to go, but he slid wide in Turn 5 and was passed by Allgaier and Allmendinger. Allmendinger then made the decisive move one lap later, snatching the lead from Allgaier at the top of the hill in Turn 6.

He'd have to defend his lead on three more restarts, fending off a charge from Allgaier with three laps to go and then facing two green-white-checkered finishes ? NASCAR's version of overtime.

Allmendinger once again took the lead, only to watch another caution come out for Michael Annett's accident to trigger a second overtime.

With drivers facing concerns about having enough fuel left on the second green-white-checkered restart, Allmendinger held on again to take the checkered flag and stop in Turn 5 to celebrate in front of the fans. Allmendinger even had enough fuel left to do a celebratory burnout.

"They weren't fun," Allmendinger said of all the restarts. "I had a lot of thoughts in my head about how bad that (stunk) having to do that. But it's part of the rules."

Regan Smith finished 32nd and leads the Nationwide Series standings by 28 points over Allgaier.

Defending race winner Nelson Piquet Jr. then had a rough moment before the race's halfway point, plowing into the back of Brian Scott's car. Piquet's hood crumpled in the crash, costing him any chance of contention.

Allmendinger then retook the lead on lap 26, bumping his way past Kelly on the exit of Turn 5. Allmendinger pulled away and quickly built a lead of more than two seconds ? and then Kelly lost second place when he came to a stop on the back side of the track, apparently out of fuel. After getting a push back to the pits from a safety vehicle, Kelly was able to get back in the race.

Most of the leaders then pitted with 19 laps to go ? right at the outer edge of most teams' fuel windows, making it unclear whether they had enough to make it to the end.

Meanwhile, Kenny Habul caused a moment of levity when he veered off course on the restart and collected a large advertising sign, which stuck to his nose for the better part of a lap before another caution came out.

The win was a big step for Allmendinger, whose racing career took a wrong turn last year when he failed a NASCAR drug test, resulting in a suspension and the loss of his ride at Penske Racing.

Allmendinger, who said he took a pill offered by a friend that turned out to be Adderall, was reinstated after completing a NASCAR-affiliated recovery program, and now is getting a limited second chance with the Penske team this year.

"I wouldn't have thought twice if he would have just kind of wrote it off and not called and went on," Allmendinger said of Penske. "He's got so much going on in his life. But he just kept checking up on me. I didn't expect anything from it. It was just nice to have a friend, somebody that I could bounce ideas off of."

Kilgerman, a friend of Allmendinger's off the track, is impressed by his resiliency.

"Once you've lost it all, I think you see a lot of times, you come back and you're better at what you do. I think we're seeing that right now with AJ."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aj-allmendinger-wins-nascar-nationwide-race-020640296.html

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Factbox: Snowden latest accused by Obama administration of leaking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's decision to charge former government contractor Edward Snowden with espionage marks the seventh time the Obama administration had attempted to punish those believed responsible for leaking classified information.

The following is a list of the seven cases and details surrounding them.

EDWARD SNOWDEN

Snowden, 30, is a former technical employee for Booz Allen Hamilton who was contracted to work for the National Security Agency.

In news media interviews, he has revealed that he was responsible for disclosing documents that showed that the top-secret National Security Agency has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies such as Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

Snowden said the government had worked through the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gather so-called metadata - such as the time, duration and telephone numbers called - on all calls carried by service providers such as Verizon.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department that was dated June 14 but came to light on Friday, Snowden was accused of theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person.

The latter two offenses fall under the U.S. Espionage Act and carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and fines.

FBI TRANSLATOR

Shamai Leibowitz was an FBI translator in 2009 when material that he heard while translating ended up on a blog. He reached an agreement with prosecutors before he was charged, and pleaded guilty in 2009 to one count of disclosing classified information. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

NSA WASTE

Former NSA official Thomas Drake was suspected in 2010 of revealing information about the agency's warrantless wiretapping program. He was indicted under the Espionage Act but said the only information he leaked was about waste in a NSA program, which he gave to the Baltimore Sun newspaper. The 10 felony counts were dropped when he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and he received no prison time.

WIKILEAKS SOURCE

Bradley Manning, an Army private first class, is on trial in a Maryland military court, accused of passing more than 700,000 classified files to WikiLeaks in the biggest leak of secret documents in U.S. history. Manning, who pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges in February, faces 21 additional counts including aiding the enemy and could get life in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last through the summer.

NORTH KOREA INTEL

Stephen Kim, a U.S. State Department contract analyst, divulged to a Fox News reporter information on U.S. intelligence's assessment of how North Korea would respond to new sanctions. A grand jury indicted him in 2010 for disclosing defense information and making false statements, based in part on Fox News records the government seized without notice. He has pleaded not guilty and a trial date is possible in late 2013 or early 2014.

BOOK SOURCE

Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was charged in 2011 with illegally disclosing classified information about Iran to James Risen, a New York Times reporter, for his book "State of War." The case is pending, as the government has tried unsuccessfully to force Risen to testify about his sources.

INTERROGATION LEAK

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was charged in 2012 with divulging to journalists secret information about the CIA's interrogation program, including the identity of a covert officer. In an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to one count and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He started serving the sentence in February.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-snowden-latest-accused-obama-administration-leaking-173602374.html

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Obama to lay out climate change plan in speech on Tuesday

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Saturday that he will outline a climate change plan on Tuesday centered around reducing pollution from carbon emissions as he attempts to make good on a pledge for his second term.

"This Tuesday, I'll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go - a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change and lead global efforts to fight it," he said in a White House video.

Obama made tackling climate change a top priority in his inaugural address in January when he began his second term. His speech will be at Georgetown University, the day before he goes on a three-nation tour of Africa.

In his video message, Obama outlined what would be a major national effort to address climate change. He said scientists will be needed to design new fuels, farmers to grow them, engineers to devise new sources of energy and workers to build the foundation for a clean energy economy.

"There's no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change. But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can," he said.

Sources familiar with his plans have said Obama is likely to roll out a number of measures on climate policy. They may include a strategy to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, which account for roughly 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

Controlling carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning coal and other fossil fuels, is seen as a vital step in confronting climate change.

Federal regulations are still pending on power plants that have yet to be built, after the Environmental Protection Agency missed an April deadline to roll out emissions rules.

However, environmentalists have been pushing Obama's administration to go after a bigger target and set tighter standards for the roughly 1,400 coal-fired burners that already feed the nation's electric grid.

It is unclear if Obama's speech on Tuesday will make any reference to TransCanada Corp's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport heavy crude oil from Canada's oil sands region to the refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Opponents say the 830,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, which awaits U.S. approval, would raise greenhouse gas emissions and lock the United States into oil dependency for decades into the future.

The White House's top energy and climate adviser, Heather Zichal, said recently that Obama will take several steps to make tackling climate change a second-term priority.

"In the near term, we are very much focused on the power plant piece of the equation," she said at an energy and environment forum.

Besides framing power plant emissions in the context of climate change, many of the steps outlined by Obama to curb demand for carbon-based fuels are likely to be modest.

He is likely to talk about the importance of conserving energy, for example.

Other steps he could announce include an expansion of energy efficiency standards for appliances and accelerate clean energy development on public lands. Another move could be to raise onshore oil and gas royalties, which was suggested by the administration earlier this year.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Rucker, Valerie Volcovici and Jeff Mason.; Editing by Eric Beech and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lay-climate-change-plan-speech-tuesday-044954622.html

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Small farmers turn to creative projects to survive

DEL REY, Calif. (AP) ? Farmer David Mas Masumoto knows his small peach orchard can't compete with the giant agribusinesses that dominate the nation's produce aisles.

So as he walks through his central California grove at harvest time, showing his two workers which trees to pick, his wife and daughter, Marcy and Nikiko, work a different side of the operation, preparing a recipe from the family's newly published cookbook.

They saute fresh peach slices in butter and brandy, then whip heavy cream and pour wholegrain batter into a waffle iron, creating one of the dozens of dishes from "The Perfect Peach."

"The cookbook," says Nikiko Masumoto, 27, who co-authored the book with her parents, "is a natural extension of what we've been trying to do for years on the farm: to use creative ways to share our story and galvanize people about our fruit."

Like the Masumotos, small-scale growers throughout the U.S. are looking for creative ways to set themselves apart as they find that survival requires more than just selling crops. Experts say these practices are shifting notions of how small farms operate. Since the little guys can't beat corporate giants on price or production, they're cashing in on something the big shots can't provide: an intimate, personal experience.

Across the nation, family businesses are capitalizing on small farm culture by selling products such as jam, olive oil and lemonade. They're also writing books, hosting dinners and renting rooms. The ventures allow the public to share the experience and flavor of small farm life.

"The opportunities for farmers are significant today, because many of us as eaters want to make the connection to the food system, the land and the farmer," says Craig McNamara, founder and president of the Center for Land-Based Learning in Winters, Calif., which trains and mentors new farmers.

In industry terms, it's called value-added agriculture, and statistics show the practice is growing. According to the most recent data available, farm operators generated $10 billion in 2007 from farm-related activities other than crop or livestock wholesale, an increase of nearly 80 percent from 2002.

Value-added agriculture projects are "a way to have a product to sell year-round, even during winter months," says Shermain Hardesty, leader of the small farm program at the University of California, Davis.

"It reinforces farmers' connection to consumers," says Hardesty, who teaches a popular class on the specialty food business. "And by getting involved in marketing their identities, they can expand their profitability."

The examples abound. Just south of Hood River, Ore., Draper Girls' Country Farm lets people pick their own fruit or rent a room, in addition to selling jams and jellies and cinnamon-sugar dried apples. The 40-acre farm also makes fresh non-pasteurized apple cider in its own mill.

The Free Spirit Farm in Winters, Calif., grows produce on 7 acres and delivers it directly to over 40 restaurant chefs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

And the 40-acre Green Mountain Girls Farm in Northfield, Vt., which raises pastured goats, chickens, pigs and turkeys and grows vegetables and fruit trees, offers farm stays, cooking classes and workshops on how to milk goats and make cheese and yogurt.

"Contemporary people are fairly distant from farms, so we're trying to reconnect them directly with family scale faming and rebuild their skills, so they can use them on a daily basis," said farm co-owner Mari Omland. "We offer something deeply personal, highly authentic, hands on."

For the Masumotos, who have worked California's fields for four generations, it took time to figure out how to best sustain their operation as giant agribusinesses swallowed other family farms.

The corporations that produce millions upon millions of pounds of fruit in the San Joaquin Valley take up massive tracts of land. Gerawan Farming, for example, controls 9,000 acres. And nearby Wawona Packing Co. grows stone fruit on 6,000 acres.

The Masumotos, by comparison, produce stone fruit on just 25 acres.

David Mas Masumoto switched to organics in the 1980s, but found that selling sustainably-farmed fruit proved challenging in an era of perfectly uniform supermarket peaches.

He wrote a book, "Epitaph for a Peach," about the struggle to save his heirloom peaches and way of life. And over the years, the family turned that unlikely crop and uncommon lifestyle into a hip, profitable business by involving consumers in the farm through stories.

Each year, people from Los Angeles, San Francisco and beyond come to the farm to pick their own ripe fruit and spend the day interacting with the farmers. Masumoto writes a farming column for the local paper, and Nikiko Masumoto uses Twitter and Facebook to update the public about the harvest.

The family hopes the cookbook adds to those efforts.

In addition to recipes ranging from peach gazpacho to peach shortcake, the book includes essays that provide glimpses into a small farm's life and vulnerabilities ? the sweat, the mistakes, even death. It's an intentional effort, says Masumoto, because artisanal agriculture is highly personal and transparent when compared with the anonymity and homogeneity of corporate farming.

"The new agriculture is about story-based farming. It cares about the community, the farmworkers and the environment," Masumoto says. "The more we can differentiate from corporate farms, the more we can gain a new identity and be financially successful."

---

Follow Gosia Wozniacka on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GosiaWozniacka

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/small-farmers-turn-creative-projects-survive-134720483.html

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PlayStation 3 firmware update fix coming June 27th, promises to fix bricked systems

Are you one of the "small number" of folks with a PlayStation 3 that was bricked in this week's 4.45 firmware update? Though Sony's been aware of the issue since the update launched, apparently a fix isn't coming until June 27th -- that's nine days after 4.45 launched to an unsuspecting populace. The PlayStation Europe Twitter account announced as much this morning in a tweet. "We have identified the issue related to PS3 software update (4.45) that impacted a small number of PS3 systems earlier this week," the feed reads.

"A new system software update is planned to be released on June 27 that resolves that issue," it adds. There's also a bit of an apology, but that won't do much for the folks who are without their PlayStation 3 for the next six days. PlayStation's US arm also confirmed that the update will arrive in North America on the same date.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony

Comments

Via: The Verge

Source: Sony, @PlayStationEU

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/21/playstation-3-firmware-update/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Kerry to push for coordinated aid to Syrian rebels (The Arizona Republic)

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Senate immigration deal would double number of U.S. border agents

By Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal agents on the U.S.-Mexican border would double to about 40,000 under a deal reached on Thursday in the Democratic-led Senate to draw more Republicans to a landmark immigration bill headed toward anticipated passage.

Some questioned the costs and benefits of up to $50 billion in the extra border security, which also will include high-tech surveillance equipment such as manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, radar and seismic devices.

But concerns were overshadowed by the deal's main goal: win votes for an overhaul of U.S. immigration law that will open a pathway to citizenship for up to 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid was expected to set a test vote for as early as Monday in a bid to have the deal added to the White House-backed bill in the form of an amendment.

A senior Democratic aide predicted the amendment would get upward of 60 votes in the 100-member chamber, more than enough to clear any procedural roadblocks.

A vote on passage of the bill is expected before the Senate departs at the end of next week for its Fourth of July holiday recess.

Backers are aiming for at least 70 votes on passage to increase pressure on the more resistant Republican-led House of Representatives to give the bill final congressional approval.

Republican John McCain, a member of the "Gang of Eight" senators who wrote the bipartisan bill, voiced doubt about the high cost of additional border security.

"I don't know if it's totally well spent," he said.

But McCain added, "I think it's important that we do this to give people confidence that we have border security, so in that respect it's well spent."

A leading conservative voice embraced the deal.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American lawmaker from Florida and another member of the Gang of Eight, said the deal was a "dramatic improvement in border security" during an interview on Fox News.

Rubio, touted as a possible 2016 presidential candidate, had hinged his support on improvements in border security. His endorsement is seen as crucial to winning conservative backing for the biggest changes in U.S. immigration law in a generation.

The proposal would double the overall number of U.S. border patrol agents, according to senior Senate Democratic aides.

That would mean assigning 21,000 new officers to the border with Mexico in an attempt to shut down illegal crossings by foreigners.

"I am now confident ... that the Senate will pass a strong, bipartisan immigration reform bill and that it will ultimately reach the desk of the president for his signature," Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said.

The immigration bill, which is supported by President Barack Obama, currently calls for adding 3,500 Customs and Border Protection officers by 2017.

Besides doubling the number of border agents, the deal also calls for completing the construction of 700 miles of border fencing or walls, Senate aides said. About 650 miles have been built in one form or another, although some portions will have to be upgraded.

At an estimated price tag of about $40 billion to $50 billon, the amendment would represent a potentially massive investment of federal resources in securing the border at a time when conservatives are complaining about government outlays.

As originally written, the legislation called for about $6 billion in new border security spending.

CRITICS STILL UNHAPPY

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama mocked the deal even though he has called for tougher border enforcement. He noted that it was drafted after congressional analysts estimated the bill would trim illegal immigration by just 25 percent.

"The bill gets in trouble on the floor and they scurry around to get an amendment to throw 20,000 agents ... somewhere on the border in the future, we promise." Sessions said, adding that such promises have been made in the past but not honored.

Sessions and other conservatives have pushed for delaying any pathway to citizenship for 11 million people until the government virtually eliminates illegal border crossings.

But the Senate repeatedly has repelled such attempts. On Thursday, it voted 54-43 to kill an amendment by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican, which would have delayed permanent legal status for undocumented immigrants until the government met strict border enforcement goals.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate's immigration bill would save the federal government nearly $900 billion over 20 years as illegal immigrants became legal, tax-paying residents.

A Democratic aide said those projected savings gave senators the leeway to craft such an expensive border security amendment.

House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who has promised to consider an immigration bill this year, told reporters the CBO deficit-reduction estimates, if "anywhere close to being accurate, would be a real boon for the country."

While the legislation authorizes the beefed-up security programs, it would be up to Congress in the future to appropriate the funding.

A Senate aide said the newly legalized residents would not get "green cards" allowing permanent resident status until the border security measures were in place.

Gaining permanent resident status would take 10 years under the bill, giving the federal government the time to deploy the added border officers and equipment.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai and David Lawder; Editing by Fred Barbash and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-immigration-deal-double-number-u-border-agents-030840734.html

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