Danica Patrick, first woman to lead a lap at Daytona 500

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., left, hugs his girlfriend Danica Patrick before her start in the NASCAR Nationwide Series auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. / AP Photo/Chris O'Meara

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.Danica Patrick made more history at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday.

She became the first woman to lead a lap and was the highest female finisher in the famed Daytona 500. She led five laps and finished eighth. Janet Guthrie had the previous best finish for a woman in the Daytona 500 — 11th in 1980.

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Danica Patrick

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Danica Patrick on making NASCAR history

"You spend a lot of time thinking about what to do when the time comes," Patrick said. "I kept asking up above what was working. You needed a hole, you needed people to help you out. I had a little bit of help today here and there, but I felt like if I was going to dive low, I had a feeling I was going to get freight-trained. ... At the end of the day, it was a solid day."

Patrick, the former IndyCar star and current Sprint Cup rookie, was in position to make a run at winner Jimmie Johnson in the final laps. But Patrick faded, dropping from third to eighth as more experienced drivers passed her.

"We stayed basically in the top 10 all day long," she said. "You can't really complain about that. It was nice."

Patrick stayed out of trouble in a 200-lap race that saw several top contenders knocked out early.

Patrick started the "Great American Race" on the pole after becoming the first woman to qualify in the top spot. She failed to lead the first lap, though, falling behind three-time race winner Jeff Gordon.

• Danica Patrick crashes in Daytona qualifier


• Daytona 500: Danica Patrick in spotlight

Nonetheless, it was a big moment for NASCAR and Patrick.

But Patrick got her chance to be out front near the midway point. Fans were on their feet as Patrick beat Michael Waltrip to the front of the field on a restart. She led laps 90 and 91 and three more later before making a pit stop.

Patrick also made history as an IndyCar driver. She led 19 laps as a rookie in the 2005 Indianapolis 500, becoming the first woman to lead open-wheel racing's premier event. She finished fourth.

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Pistorius' Brother Facing Own Homicide Trial

The attorney for Oscar Pistorius' family said today that the Olympian's brother is facing a culpable homicide charge relating to a 2008 road accident in which a motorcyclist was killed.

Carl Pistorius, who sat behind his younger brother, Oscar, every day at his bail hearing, will now face his own homicide trial for the accident five years ago, which his attorney, Kenny Oldwage, said he "deeply regrets."

Carl Pistorius is charged with culpable homicide, which refers to the unlawful negligent killing of another person. The charges were initially dropped, but were later reinstated, Oldwage said in a statement.

Full Coverage: Oscar Pistorius Case

Pistorius quietly appeared in court on Thursday, one day before his Paralympic gold-medalist brother was released on bail, Oldwage said. His next appearance is scheduled for the end of March.

Liza van Deventer/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

It was the latest twist in a case that has drawn international attention, after 26-year-old Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who ran in both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, was charged with the premeditated murder of his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

On Saturday, Carl Pistorius' Twitter handle was hacked, according to a family spokeswoman, prompting the Pistorius family to cancel their social media accounts.

Steenkamp's parents speak about the Valentine's Day shooting that ended their daughter's life in a sit-down interview on South African television tonight.

On Saturday, the model's father, Barry Steenkamp, told the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper that Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" and will "suffer" if his story that he shot Steenkamp because he believed she was an intruder is false.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

After a four-day long bail hearing, Pistorius was granted bail Friday by a South African magistrate.

The court set bail at about $113,000 (1 million rand) and June 4 as the date for Pistorius' next court appearance.

Pistoriuis is believed to be staying at his uncle's house as he awaits trial. As part of his bail conditions, Pistorius must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

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Syrian opposition says captures former nuclear site

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have captured the site of a suspected nuclear reactor near the Euphrates river which Israeli warplanes destroyed six years ago, opposition sources in eastern Syria said on Sunday.

Al-Kubar site, around 60 km (35 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, became a focus of international attention when Israel raided it in 2007. The United States said the complex was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.

Omar Abu Laila a spokesman for the Eastern Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army said the only building rebels found at the site was a hangar containing at least one Scud missile.

"It appears that the site was turned into a Scud launch base. Whatever structures it had have been buried," he said, adding that three army helicopters airlifted the last loyalist troops before opposition fighters overran the area on Friday.

The Syrian military, which razed the site after the Israeli raid, said the complex was a regular military facility but refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency unrestrained access, after the agency said the complex could have been a nuclear site.

The U.N. investigation appears to have died down since the national revolt against Preident Bashar al-Assad broke out in 2011, with the armed opposition increasingly capturing military sites in rural areas and on the edges of cities.

U.N. inspectors examined the site in June 2008 but Syrian authorities has barred them access since.

Abu Laila said Scuds appear to have been fired from Kubar at rebel-held areas in the province of Homs to the west.

The complex, he said, had command and control links with loyalist troops in the city of Deir al-Zor, where Assad's forces have been on the retreat and are now based mainly in and around the airport in the south of the city.

Footage showed fighters inspecting the site and one large missile inside a hangar. One fighter pointed to what he said were explosives placed under the missile to destroy it before attacking forces got to it.

Abu Hamza, a commander in the Jafaar al-Tayyar brigade, said in a YouTube video taken at Kubar that various rebel groups, including the al Qaeda linked al-Nusra front, took part the operation and that U.N. inspectors were welcome to come and survey the site.

In the last few months, opposition fighters have captured large swathes of the province of Deir al-Zor, a Sunni Muslim desert oil producing region that borders Iraq, including most of a highway along Euphrates leading to Kubar.

The province is far from the Assad's main military supply bases on the coast and in Damascus. Long-time alliances between Assad, who belongs to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Islam, and Sunni tribes in Deir al-Zor have also largely collapsed since the revolt.

But Assad's forces remain entrenched in the south of the city of Deir al-Zor and armed convoys guarded by helicopters still reach the city from the city of Palmyra to the southwest, according to opposition sources.

(Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Pakistan hit by nationwide blackout

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was hit by a nationwide blackout for more than two hours after the breakdown of a major plant caused power stations to stop working across the country, officials said Monday.

While power cuts are common in Pakistan due to chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, outages across the whole country are rare.

Late Sunday's blackout occurred when the HUBCO plant in southwestern Baluchistan province, which generates 1,200 megawatts a day of electricity, developed a technical fault, said official Rai Sikandar.

That breakdown prompted a "cascading effect" which caused plants nationwide to shut down, said the water and power ministry official.

"It was a technical fault in one of our power plants and not in the national grid," he insisted, adding that electricity was gradually being restored across Pakistan after it remained off for more than two hours.

Another ministry official said power should be back on across the country within two hours.

He said that all 24 power stations in the capital Islamabad were working again and electricity was being restored in parts of all the country's four provinces.

"1,200 megawatts of electricity is back in the national grid with the restoration of different power stations," said the official.

He added an inquiry would look into the causes of the technical fault at HUBCO. "It would be pre-mature at this stage to speculate about the nature of the fault that caused the plant to fail."

- AFP/jc

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YouTube code refers to paid channel subscriptions

Paid channel subscriptions on YouTube may be closer than previously thought.

After reports last month that YouTube was considering offering channels that would require a fee to access, code has now appeared that suggests Google is already laying the software foundation for subscription channels.

According to Android Police, the latest version of YouTube for
Android includes two lines of code that refer to paid channel subscriptions. The code, apparently intended to generate messages on users' screens, say:

You can only subscribe to this paid channel on your computer.

You can only unsubscribe from this paid channel on your computer.

YouTube had approached a handful of producers about developing content for a subscription platform that might the Google-owned video-sharing site hoped to launch this year, according to an AdAge report in January. YouTube was also mulling a plan to charge for other items, such as entire libraries of videos, live events, and even self-help or financial advice shows, AdAge reported.

A paid content platform would offer viewers an alternative to traditional TV, as well as deliver new revenue streams through subscriptions and ads placed in the channels.

YouTube has floated the idea of launching subscription services in the past but has so far balked at the idea. YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar said in February 2012 that his company was considering allowing content providers to create their own, unique subscription-based video service on the site.

CNET has contacted YouTube for comment on the code and will update this report when we learn more.

(Via The Verge)

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Iran: Military captured foreign "enemy drone"

TEHRAN, Iran Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saturday that it captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran.

Gen. Hamid Sarkheili, a spokesman for the military exercise, said the Guard's electronic warfare unit spotted signals indicating that foreign drones were trying to enter Iranian airspace. Sarkheili said Guard experts took control of one drone's navigation system and brought it down near the city of Sirjan where the military drills began on Saturday.

"While probing signals in the area, we spotted foreign and enemy drones which attempted to enter the area of the war game," the official IRNA news agency quoted the general as saying. "We were able to get one enemy drone to land."

Sarkheili did not say whether the drone was American.

A Pentagon spokesperson had no comment on the drone for CBS News.

Iran has claimed to have captured several U.S. drones, including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone in December 2011 and at least three ScanEagle aircraft.

State TV said the Guard's military exercise, code-named Great Prophet-8, involved ground forces of the Guard, Iran's most powerful military force. State TV showed tanks and artillery attacking hypothetical enemy positions. He said various systems, including unmanned planes that operate like suicide bombers, were tested.

"Reconnaissance as well as suicide drones, which are capable of attacking the hypothetical enemies, were deployed and their operational capabilities were studied," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.

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Fiery Last-Lap Daytona Crash Injures 15 Fans

A fiery last-lap crash at the Daytona International Speedway injured a number of spectators today, who were seen being carried away from the stands on stretchers.

Fifteen spectators were taken to the hospital, according to ESPN, with one on the way to surgery with head trauma.

The 12-car crash happened moments before the end of the Nationwide race, and on the eve of the Daytona 500, one of NASCAR's biggest events.

The crash was apparently triggered when driver Regan Smith's car, which was being tailed by Brad Keselowski on his back bumper, spun to the right and shot up the track. Smith had been in the lead and said after the crash he had been trying to throw a "block."

Rookie Kyle Larson's car slammed into the wall that separates the track from the grandstands, causing his No. 32 car to go airborne and erupt in flames.

When a haze of smoke cleared and Larson's car came to a stop, he jumped out uninjured.

His engine and one of his wheels were sitting in a walkway of the grandstand.

"I was getting pushed from behind," Larson told ESPN. "Before I could react, it was too late."

Driver Michael Annett was taken to the hospital after he slammed head-on into a barrier during the chaos. NASCAR officials told ESPN the driver was awake and alert.

Tony Stewart pulled out the win, but in victory lane, what would have been a celebratory mood was tempered by concern for the injured fans.

"We've always known this is a dangerous sport," Stewart said. 'But it's hard when the fans get caught up in it."

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Tens of thousands in Spain protest economic policy, corruption

MADRID (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched through cities across the country on Saturday to protest deep austerity, the privatization of public services and political corruption.

Gathering under the banner of the "Citizen Tide", students, doctors, unionists, young families and pensioners staged rowdy but non-violent demonstrations as a near five-year economic slump shows no sign of recovery and mass unemployment rises.

"I'm here to add my voice. They're cutting where they shouldn't cut; health, education ... basic services. And the latest corruption scandal is just the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg," said Alberto, 51, an account administrator for a German multinational in Madrid, who preferred not to give his surname.

Protests in Spain have become commonplace as the conservative government passes measures aimed at shrinking one of the euro zone's highest budget deficits and reinventing an economy hobbled by a burst housing bubble.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has introduced some of the deepest budget cuts in Spain's democratic history in an attempt to convince investors the country can weather the economic crisis without falling back on international aid.

But, with more than half of the country's young people out of work and growth not expected until sometime next year, the measures have only scratched the surface of the budget shortfall which is expected to be more than double the target in 2014.

Meanwhile, corruption scandals which have hit the ruling party as well as the once-popular royal family has left many Spaniards disenchanted with their leaders on all sides of the political spectrum.

In Madrid, under a clear, cold winter sky, Saturday's marches convened from four different points by early evening in Neptune Square, between the heavily policed and barricaded parliament, the Ritz Hotel and the stock exchange.

Carrying placards which condemned everything from cuts in the health sector to massive bailouts granted to Spain's banking system, crowds banged drums and chanted, while dozens of riot police stood on the sidelines.

The march coincided with the anniversary of a failed coup attempt in 1981 by Civil Guard officers who stormed Parliament and held deputies hostage until the next day.

(Reporting By Paul Day; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Berlusconi slams Europe's 'lords of austerity'

ROME: Italy's Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday said Europe's "lords of austerity" had tried to get rid of him, speaking in apparent breach of rules for candidates to stay silent the day before elections.

"I contradicted the lords of austerity who are now trying to get rid of me," Berlusconi was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying in Milan in an interview with Greek television.

Leftist candidate Antonio Ingroia asked for sanctions against the billionaire tycoon but Berlusconi's office said the interview had been given only with the explicit agreement that it be released on Monday after polls close.

The comments were then widely quoted by Italian media.

In the interview, the scandal-tainted Berlusconi said outgoing prime minister Mario Monti was "subservient and always on his knees in front of Mrs Merkel (German Chancellor Angela Merkel) and now she does not want to lose him".

"The same thing would happen with (centre left leader and poll favourite Pier Luigi) Bersani. But I would give her a run for her money," he said.

"Austerity increases the public debt and lead to a recessionary spiral that pushes up unemployment and can result in the loss of social calm," he added.

Berlusconi, who is currently a defendant in two trials for tax fraud and for having sex with an underage prostitute, also said prosecutors were "a worse mafia than the Sicilian mafia".

Italians take to the polls on Sunday and Monday, Berlusconi expected to come a close second after Bersani.

- AFP/jc

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Google laptop shows Apple a thing or two

The 3.3-pound Google Chromebook Pixel sports a 12.85-inch, 2,560x1,700-pixel display and an Intel Core i5 processor.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook.

Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G.

What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close to matching the MacBook's aesthetics. (I'm focusing strictly on the hardware for the moment.)

Google is saying, at least in the case of touch, hey Apple, you don't get it.

Not everyone may agree with that. Take the laptop flat-earthers. They will say touch is stupid (or "pointless" as one columnist said) on a laptop. Yeah right, just like the mouse was a stupid idea.

Then there's Apple's your-arm-wants-to-fall-off on vertical touch surfaces excuse. That will eventually give way to a touch-screen MacBook of some sort. You heard it here first.

The point is, Google knows (they're not stupid) that touch is important on a laptop. As does Microsoft (Windows 8 and Surface). That leaves Apple in Luddite land.

4G: And some might say that a Chromebook needs 4G more than a MacBook because the Chromebook is so immersed in the cloud. Hmm, my MacBook spends lots of time in the cloud too. And the last time I used it on the road, I was constantly hauling out my Verizon MiFi or running down my iPhone's battery with the Personal Hotspot. Come on, LTE belongs in a laptop.

And the operating system? I believe that cool hardware is the first step in luring consumers to a new operating environment.

While Chrome OS is still a work in progress (and lacks key features that many users need), with the success of
Android, I do think it's possible that an improved Chrome OS combined with a second-generation Chromebook Pixel could reel in more consumers.

Google certainly has my attention.

Google Chromebook Pixel.

(Credit:
CNET)

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