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BOSTON (Reuters Life!) –
Fueled by leftover chocolate and with components made from carrots, potato starch and flax, the world\’s first sustainable Formula 3 racing car has a top speed of 135 miles per hour and can go from zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds.

Sound nuts? Not yet — brake pads made from cashews are still under development.

Meet Lola, the England\’s University of Warwick\’s blend of muscle and eco-friendliness and the world\’s first racing car retrofitted with renewable and sustainable materials.

Researchers from the British university showed off their prize possession at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\’s (MIT) energy conference in Boston.

\”She\’s incredibly green, taking materials that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill. It lets people engage with recycling without the finger-wagging,\” said Kerry Kirwan, one of the car\’s designers at the university.

\”The public has really taken the car to its heart, because she\’s fun,\” he said.

Many of the car\’s components would more usually be found at a farmer\’s market — or in a trash bin, since most of the materials are actually industrial waste.

The 2.0-liter BMW engine has been converted to diesel from gasoline and configured to run on fuel derived from waste from chocolate factories or other plant-based oils.

Among Lola\’s other unique features is a radiator that converts ozone back to oxygen.

\”It\’s a racing car that cleans up as it goes along,\” said Steve Maggs, another member of the design team.

The WorldFirst Formula 3 racing car took the university more than nine months to develop and cost around $200,000.

Kirwan said that the thinking behind the project was to find a way to really put recycled materials to the test.

\”A lot of these technologies were a huge leap of application, something that shows the material under a really demanding application.\”

(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Patricia Reaney)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Sticking with its \”boys, have at it\” attitude, NASCAR placed Carl Edwards on probation for three races Tuesday for deliberately wrecking Brad Keselowski\’s car last weekend in Atlanta.

Edwards will be monitored by NASCAR through the April 10 race at Phoenix but may drive in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series.

NASCAR president Mike Helton said Edwards acted unacceptably Sunday but did not cross the line in what the sanctioning body will allow this season. NASCAR promised in January to give the drivers more leeway in policing themselves and settling scores in an effort to energize the sport.

\”We made it very clear to (Edwards) that these actions were not acceptable and did go beyond what we said back in January about putting the driving back in the hands of the drivers,\” Helton said. \”We believe (Edwards) understands our position at this point.\”

There had been a strong call from fans and analysts for NASCAR to suspend Edwards, who returned to the track down 153 laps from an earlier accident with Keselowski and intent on wrecking his car. He tried for at least one lap before succeeding with three laps to go, nudging Keselowski\’s car and sending it airborne. The car banged hood-first off a retaining wall before flipping back onto its wheels. No one was hurt.

Keselowski supported NASCAR\’s decision.

\”They are not in an enviable position when it comes to these matters, but they do an outstanding job,\” he said in a statement, adding it was unfortunate the accident overshadowed Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch\’s victory.

Edwards acknowledged his action was intentional but said he was surprised by Keselowski\’s car taking flight. Because NASCAR approved greater driver leeway before the season, a severe punishment for Edwards most likely would have quashed the \”have at it\” attitude after the first test.

The decision to lighten up after years of penalizing drivers for minor infractions — Dale Earnhardt Jr. was once punished for cursing on TV; Jeff Gordon was placed on probation for shoving Matt Kenseth — was in large part due to increased fan excitement created by some 2009 feuds.

Denny Hamlin had a monthslong dispute with Keselowski, an aggressive young driver who has made no apologies for banging fenders with established veterans. Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya played retaliatory bumper-cars in the season finale at Homestead.

Helton said the day after the finale that NASCAR had perhaps gone too far in sterilizing the competition and acknowledged that more emotion and personality could benefit the sport. The \”have at it\” era was announced less than two months later, and Helton was not backing down Tuesday.

\”The clear message, I think, we sent in January was that we were willing to put more responsibility in the hands of the driver,\” he said. \”But there is a line you can cross and we\’ll step in to maintain law and order when we think that line\’s crossed.\”

Just what is that line?

\”I think we see it when we see it,\” he replied.

Clint Bowyer, participating in a Goodyear tire test at Darlington, disagreed with NASCAR\’s assessment.

\”I think there\’s a too far in everything and that was too far. Bottom line. Simple as that,\” Bowyer said. \”That was a pretty scary incident that could\’ve been a lot worse.\”

The fairly lenient punishment — many view probation as a slap on the wrist — drew swift and mixed reaction from drivers who jumped to their Twitter accounts during Helton\’s 20-minute announcement.

\”Huh!\” wrote Kevin Harvick, who was suspended one race in 2002 for insubordination — he parked his truck at the door of the NASCAR hauler when he was summoned to discuss rough driving at Martinsville.

\”I\’m thinking about asking for a refund for all of my penalties!!!!\”

But Scott Speed and Michael Waltrip applauded NASCAR\’s decision.

\”You can\’t ask the driver to take their gloves off one week and then tell em to put \’em back on the next,\” Waltrip wrote.

Helton said NASCAR saw two distinct parts to the accident: Edwards\’ action; Keselowski\’s car going airborne. The more serious of the two, in NASCAR\’s opinion, is figuring out why Keselowski\’s car acted as it did.

\”That\’s something that is very important to us, and we want to study very closely to figure out things that we can do to help prevent this very quickly in the future,\” Helton said. \”This is a very important element of all of this, that I would ask all of us to be reminded of the fact of the car getting airborne was a very serious issue.\”

___

AP Sports Writer Pete Iacobelli contributed to this report from Darlington, S.C.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) –
Cisco Systems on Tuesday unveiled super-fast Internet hardware that promises to boost US competitiveness and bolster economic recovery by moving mountains of data at astounding speeds.

The leader in networking equipment said its new router \”triples the capacity of its predecessor,\” and \”enables the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second.\”

The system also would enable \”every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously; and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes,\” Cisco said.

The new Cisco hardware is for the backbones of telecom firms and other Internet service providers that will be able to vastly ramp up the amount of data they handle and how fast it travels.

\”They are the plumbers of the Internet,\” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said of Cisco.

\”They are the ones that make sure that the pipes are clean and large enough to handle the flow of traffic and remain up and running.\”

AT&T said it is testing the new routers in its network and is eager to use the technology on a wide scale.

The US telecom giant has found itself \”bandwidth constrained\” as people\’s lives increasingly revolve around the Internet and accessing rich content such as digital movies, videos and television shows.

Cisco chief executive John Chambers called digital video \”the new killer app\” and said that most gadgets connecting to the Internet are evolving to handle demand for such content.

The high-performance platform could also be tempting for Google, which recently revealed plans to create its own high-speed broadband Internet network.

\”It\’s going to take a long time to deploy it,\” Enderle said of the new Cisco hardware. He expected people in the United States to begin seeing the effects of the new Cisco Internet hardware mid-decade.

\”This is very important for Cisco, for the country, and for us individually,\” Enderle said.

\”This could make the country more competitive, not just by selling the technology but by how it increases the ability of players here to perform in an Internet Age economy.\”

With 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the Cisco CRS-3 \”is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace,\” the company said.

Internet traffic is predicted to grow fivefold by the year 2013, with 90 percent of that content being digital video, according to Cisco senior director of service provider marketing Doug Webster.

Add to that data demands fueled by a booming global smartphone market and an unabated trend of software applications being offered online as services.

Along with ramped up capacity, the new routers have been made with \”twice the intelligence\” to keep data flowing efficiently, smoothly deliver video, and prioritize emergency telephone calls, Webster told AFP.

\”The Internet is becoming a part of all aspect of our daily lives,\” Webster said. \”We need assurance that it is in strong shape and can keep up with the incredible demand for services.\”

The routers will be available about mid-year at a starting price of 90,000 dollars per unit. Cisco said it is in discussions with Internet service providers around the world.

\”Bandwidth can basically be the foundation for economic prosperity and social transformation,\” Webster said, noting that high-speed Internet can be used to improve health care, education, and transparency in governments.

Not all analysts were swept up in Cisco\’s euphoria, saying that the new router is evolutionary, not revolutionary and that other parts of the Internet infrastructure will need to be upgraded for users to notice much improvement.

Internet service providers still stinging from the economic meltdown could be slow to open wallets to invest in the new routers, some analysts cautioned.

GLENSIDE, Pa. – Stirring memories of his campaign for the White House, President Barack Obama made a spirited, shirt-sleeved appeal for passage of long-stalled health care changes Monday as Democratic congressional leaders worked behind the scenes on legislation they hope can quickly gain passage.

\”Let\’s seize reform. It\’s within our grasp,\” the president implored his audience at Arcadia University, the first outside-the-Beltway appearance since he vowed last week to do everything in his power to push his health care plan into law.

The president\’s pitch was part denunciation of insurance companies — \”they continue to ration care on the basis of who\’s sick and who\’s healthy,\” he said — and part criticism of his Republican critics. \”You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?\” he taunted members of a party that held the White House for eight years and control of Congress for a dozen.

The outcome could affect almost every American, changing the ways they receive and pay for health care — and extending coverage to tens of millions more people — if the legislation gains final approval.

\”I\’m kind of fired up,\” Obama said at the beginning of his remarks, a variation on his oft-stated 2008 refrain, \”Fired up. Ready to go.\” And he included an appeal to his audience — many of whom were students — to help in the same ways they might in a campaign. \”So I need you to knock on doors. Talk to your neighbors. Pick up the phone,\” he urged them.

Obama made his appeal as Democratic leaders in Congress worked on a rescue plan for legislation that once seemed on the cusp of passage, only to run into difficulty when Senate Republicans gained the seat they needed to block action on a final compromise.

The two-step approach now being pursued calls for the House to approve a Senate-passed bill from last year, despite House Democrats\’ opposition to several of its provisions. Both houses then would follow by approving a companion measure to make changes in that first bill.

In general, Obama wants legislation to expand health care to many millions who lack it, with subsidies to defray the costs for lower income families as well as small businesses. In addition, he has called on Congress to ban insurance industry practices such as denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Last month, prior to a daylong meeting with key lawmakers in both parties, Obama outlined several provisions he wants included in the second bill, at least some of which appear likely to be incorporated in some form. Several officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Senate-passed excise tax on high-cost insurance plans would be scaled back in deference to objections from labor unions. In another White House proposal, a Senate-passed provision to raise Medicare taxes on the wages of upper income earners would probably be extended — possibly at a higher rate — to investment income such as interest and dividends as well.

The fix-it bill would also increase funds the Senate approved to defray the cost of premiums and out-of-pocket health care expenses for those at lower incomes who currently cannot afford health insurance. And it would gradually close a gap in coverage under the existing Medicare prescription drug program, a provision the House approved late last year and the White House backs. The Senate bill reduced but did not close the gap, but leaders have pledged support for the change.

In a new change sought by House Democrats, the fix-it bill would require businesses to count part-time workers when calculating penalties for failing to provide health coverage for employees. Smaller businesses would be exempt. The Senate bill would count only full-time workers in applying the penalties, but under the change, described by a Democratic aide, two part-time workers would count as one full-time worker. Businesses say that\’s unduly burdensome, but Democrats contend it would prevent businesses from avoiding penalties by hiring more workers part-time.

Separately, some House Democrats have been lobbying to add to the health care bill unrelated legislation overhauling the nation\’s student loan programs. The administration has called for all federal student loans to be originated in the Education Department instead of through banks and other lenders. The government\’s savings is estimated at about $87 billion over a decade, money that would be put into larger Pell Grants and other forms of student assistance. A stand-alone measure has cleared the House but is stalled in the Senate.

The White House has called for action on the broad health care legislation by March 18, but it seems virtually impossible for Congress to complete both bills by then. Officials said they did not expect the follow-up bill to be disclosed publicly until the end of the week at the earliest, and possibly not until next week.

Under the Democratic blueprint, the fix-it bill would come to the Senate under rules denying Republicans the ability to demand a 60-vote majority to clear the way for passage.

Obama\’s speech on Monday drew fresh criticism from Republicans in Congress, as well as a retort from the insurance industry.

\”Americans don\’t want this bill. They\’re telling us to start over. The only people who don\’t seem to be getting the message are Democrat leaders in Washington,\” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America\’s Health Insurance Plans, said insurance industry workers \”do not deserve to be vilified for political purposes. … For every dollar spent on health care in America, less than one penny goes toward health plan profits. The focus needs to be on the other 99 cents.\” AHIP plans to spend more than $1 million to run television ads on cable stations nationwide beginning in the next few days to push back on the attacks on insurers.

Obama has long identified the insurance industry as an obstacle to changes along the lines he seeks, but the administration\’s actions and rhetoric seem to have escalated in recent days.

The president\’s proposal would give the government the right to limit excessive premium increases — a provision included after one firm announced a 39 percent increase in the price of individual policies sold in California. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, convened a White House meeting with insurance executives last week, and followed up with a letter released in advance of Obama\’s speech.

It asks companies to \”post on your Web sites the justification for any individual or small group rate increases you have implemented or proposed in 2010.\”

___

Espo reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

The Nation — Facts are scarce, and spin is everywhere, in the aftermath of Iraq\’s election on Sunday.

I\’ll be updating this entry later today and tomorrow as preliminary results from the election are announced.

Some initial thoughts: voter turnout was 62 percent, according to initial reports from Iraq. That\’s down from about 75 percent in the 2005 election. In Baghdad, the key province with 70 seats in parliament at stake, turnout was the lowest in Iraq, at 53 percent. It isn\’t clear, yet, if that total includes any or all of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who fled Baghdad during the sectarian purge of 2005-2007, mostly Sunni voters who either fled to Syria and Jordan or to safer provinces in western Iraq. According to initial reports, again, election officials at polling places were ill-equipped to handle displaced voters, meaning that many internally displaced persons didn\’t get to vote. If the election is close, and perhaps even if it isn\’t, the disputes over the votes of refugees and displaced persons will be bitter and explosive.

It\’s far too early to say anything about the results, though there is speculation that Prime Minister Maliki\’s State of Law party and the secular, cross-sectarian bloc led by former Prime Minister Allawi each did well. There are 325 seats to be allocated, and it\’s possible that both Maliki and Allawi got something in the range of 90 to 100 seats each. If so, then the best possible outcome of the election — given the fragmentation of the vote — would be a coalition between Maliki and Allawi. That\’s unlikely, however, since both Maliki and Allawi would insist on the top job. More likely is a repeat of the current ruling alliance, with Maliki and the rather weakened Shiite religious bloc, the Iraqi National Alliance, joining with the Kurds. But that grand alliance probably won\’t have much more than a bare majority, say, 170 to 180 seats, meaning that it will be a shaky government at best.

Of course, it will be many weeks, perhaps months, before the results are finally certified and the various blocs negotiate a deal to form a government. (Early results are expected this week, but official, certified results may not be in until April 1.)

It\’s also too early to evaluate the impact of the pre-election purge by Iran\’s friends in Iraq, including Ahmed Chalabi, who prevented hundreds of secular, nationalist, and anti-Iranian candidates from running for office. The clear intent of that effort was to force Maliki to adopt a fierce, anti-Baathist (and sectarian, anti-Sunni) stance, which partly succeeded, and to scare Shiite voters into stampeding into the arms of the Shiite religious bloc. Apparently, their effort failed, and if anything it spurred Sunni and pro-secular voters to go to the polls in greater numbers. But it remains to be seen if the pro-Iranian bloc, the INA, was routed, and if the secular parties, such as Allawi\’s and the party led by Interior Minister Bolani, another secular Shiite leader, did well in Iraq\’s Shiite heartland. In the provincial elections, in 2009, there were some major surprises, including a stunning victory by a secular, moderate ex-Baathist in Karbala, the very heart of Iraq\’s Shiite religious electorate.

The bottom line, of course, is that despite the hopeful straws in the wind, big chunks of Iraq are still unwilling to accept the results if it doesn\’t go their way. The battle line dividing Arabs and Kurds is still red hot, from the far northwest to Diyala province. The armed militias, including the Kurds\’ pesh merga, the Shiite-led Badr Brigade, Muqtada al-Sadr\’s ragtag force, and Iranian-backed Special Groups such as the League of the Righteous, are still capable of flexing their muscle. And among the Sunnis, the remnants of the Sons of Iraq, the ex-Awakening movement, are sullen and bitter, and it\’s not at all impossible that a new insurgency could develop (supported, no doubt, by Iraq\’s Arab neighbors), if enough Sunnis decide to resist the election results. While Iraqi politicians wheel and deal, expect them to rally forces on the street, too.

One good sign: the United States insists that its withdrawal, to 50,000 (from 96,000) by August, to be followed by a complete pullout by the end of 2011, is still on track.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE I: Iraq\’s High Electoral Commission says that it won\’t announce even preliminary results until Wednesday or Thursday. They\’d planned originally to make that announcement today, after counting 30 percent of the ballots. They didn\’t explain the delay.

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WASHINGTON – One bride wore a black suit, the other had on a white one with rhinestones. They walked down the aisle to Billy Joel\’s \”Just the Way You Are\” and kissed after the pastor pronounced them \”legally married.\”

The Rev. Darlene Garner, 61, and the Rev. Candy Holmes, 53, were among the first same-sex couples to marry in Washington on Tuesday, when the district became the sixth place in the country to conduct the unions.

\”You have been in love, and you have recognized it all along. But today, the love that you have recognized in your heart is recognized by the District of Columbia,\” the Rev. Dwayne Johnson told the couple.

\”Equality and justice for all now includes us,\” Garner said after the ceremony.

Both she and Holmes are leaders in the Metropolitan Community Churches, a group of Christian churches that primarily serve the gay and lesbian community.

The district joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont as places that issue same-sex couples marriage licenses.

Garner and Holmes were one of three couples married at the office of the Human Rights Campaign, which does advocacy work on gay, lesbian and transgender issues. In the other ceremonies, Reggie Stanley and Rocky Galloway married and then carried their 16-month-old twin daughters down the aisle, and Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend hugged and smiled after being declared \”partners in life this day and for always.\”

\”All of us have responsibilities to ensure the success of this joint endeavor,\” said the Rev. David North, who married Townsend and Young. He asked guests to \”respect the life path that they choose together\” and \”commit to loving them.\”

\”I accept this charge,\” the guests responded.

About 100 guests stayed for the three ceremonies. A cellist played, arrangements of yellow chrysanthemums, roses and carnations flanked the stage, and cream and gray programs announced the couples\’ names along with: \”Congratulations to the couples on this historic day.\”

About 150 couples were eligible to pick up marriage licenses after applying last week. Many of them stood in line March 3 at the marriage bureau of the district\’s Moultrie Courthouse for four or more hours. Like all couples, they had to wait three business days for their licenses to be processed.

By the time the marriage bureau closed Tuesday, 42 couples had returned to pick up their licenses. At least a dozen couples married and returned the licenses the same day. Couples do have 10 days to return their licenses after they have been married, so more couples may have actually tied the knot.

Couples plans for ceremonies varied. District residents Eva Townsend and Shana McDavis-Conway, planned to marry immediately at a ceremony by their plot in a community garden, where they\’ve grown carrots and potatoes. Others said they would be joined over the next several weeks and months. A large number — many of whom had held previous ceremonies — planned to marry at the city\’s courthouse. Normally, the courthouse hosts four to six weddings a day, but over the next several weeks, officials are expecting 10 to 12 per day because of the demand for same-sex ceremonies.

Rebecca and Delia Taylor picked up their license Tuesday morning and a minister friend immediately married them outside the courthouse. The couple said they long ago exchanged rings and considered themselves married. Still, they were grinning after picking up their certificate inside the courthouse.

\”We\’ve referred to each other as wives,\” Rebecca Taylor said. \”It\’s just a legal document, so if anything happens to one of us, we have rights.\”

___

Associated Press writer Sarah Karush contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama, weighing in on the Senate\’s efforts to pass a climate change bill, gathered Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday to try to jumpstart an overhaul of U.S. energy policy.

Obama called the meeting at the White House with influential senators and members of his cabinet to reinvigorate one of his top domestic and foreign policy priorities, which advisers admit has suffered from the president\’s focus on healthcare reform.

The House of Representatives passed a bill that would require the United States to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels, roughly the same goal Washington has backed at international talks to combat global warming.

But the Senate has not passed a similar measure and a bipartisan group of senators including Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and independent Joe Lieberman are expected to produce a bill soon.

The trio did not present the outlines of their unfinished bill — they aim to have one by the end of the month — and no concrete breakthroughs happened during the Obama meeting.

\”We\’re moving very rapidly,\” Kerry told reporters, adding there will be a series of meetings on the issue next week.

In his overhaul of U.S. energy policy, Obama wants to reduce dependence on foreign oil, fight global warming and increase the use of renewable sources such as wind and solar, while also building new nuclear power plants.

Some Republicans have said they would support less sweeping measures but Graham said there would not be enough Senate votes for a bill that did not include steps to fight climate change.

\”There\’s not 60 votes for energy only,\” he said of a bill that would focus solely on mandates for renewable power. \”Only when you marry up climate change, cleaning up the air, with energy independence will you get the transformational aspects … that I\’m hoping for.\”

A U.S. law is seen as a key ingredient for an eventual U.N. agreement to follow up on the emissions-capping Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. The Senate\’s failure to pass a bill hampered the U.S. position at talks in Copenhagen in December.

MOVING FORWARD

Obama\’s meeting on Tuesday — his first with lawmakers on a broad scale to discuss the Senate legislation — came just as China and India joined almost all other big greenhouse gas emitters in formally signing up to the non-binding climate accord that was reached during the Copenhagen summit.

Senator Susan Collins said Obama, a Democrat, told the group he wanted a bill completed this year.

\”The president expressed his strong support for a bipartisan effort to establish clean energy incentives that will create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil,\” a White House aide said.

\”(The senators) agreed to continue the dialogue about a path forward for comprehensive energy legislation.\”

Lawmakers must move fast if the bill is to get an airing before summer, an unofficial deadline looming before intense campaigning starts for congressional elections in November that could change the balance of power in both houses.

Lieberman said the meeting showed Obama would make the bill one of his major goals this year and he left open the possibility of a controversial cap-and-trade system for the utility sector — under a new name.

\”We don\’t use that term any more,\” Lieberman told reporters before the meeting, referring to cap-and-trade. \”We will have pollution reduction targets.\”

The issue of a cap-and-trade system, which would let companies buy and trade permits to emit greenhouse gases, is one of several open questions about how the eventual law will look. Senate leaders are trying to accommodate requests from a myriad of colleagues to garner enough support for passage.

Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, who fears his state\’s factories could shed jobs under a climate bill, is pushing hard for an import provision that would tax goods from countries such as China and India if they do not have strong climate controls.

\”I think we\’re very close on that,\” Brown told reporters about the provision.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who has frustrated the Obama administration by backing measures to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, is pushing for a bill that would focus on mandates for renewable energy rather than a cap-and-trade market on power plants and industry.

Obama has resisted calls to split the energy and climate aspects of a \”comprehensive\” bill, just as he has opposed splitting his healthcare reform measures into smaller steps.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Russell Blinch and John O\’Callaghan)

EL CAJON, Calif. – The government sent investigators Tuesday to examine a Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway, and Toyota said it wanted to interview the driver as the besieged automaker dealt with a high-profile new headache that raised questions about the safety of its beloved hybrid.

A day after state troopers helped the car slow to a stop and its driver to emerge unharmed, Toyota could shed no new light on what might have gone wrong. The Prius is not part of Toyota\’s vast recall of gas pedals that can become stuck, but it is covered by an earlier recall of floor mats that can catch the accelerator.

The freeway incident happened at the worst possible time for Toyota — just hours after it invited reporters Monday to hear experts insist that electronic flaws could not cause cars to speed out of control under real driving conditions.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent two investigators to examine the car, a government spokeswoman said. Toyota Motor Corp. spokesman Brian Lyons said the automaker is sending three of its own technicians to investigate.

Another Toyota spokesman, John Hanson, said the company wanted to talk to the driver, James Sikes.

His car, a 2008 model, was covered by the floor mat recall, but the driver in Monday\’s incident said the pedal jammed and was not trapped under the mat.

Sikes told authorities he was driving on Interstate 8 outside San Diego when the accelerator became stuck. He said the car reached 94 mph before a trooper, calling out instructions from a megaphone, helped him slow down and turn off the engine.

A pair of 911 calls spanning 23 minutes recounted the harrowing experience. In the audio released Tuesday, Sikes sounds panicked at times as he tells a dispatcher about a stuck accelerator. The dispatcher, Leighann Parks, repeatedly tells Sikes to throw the car into neutral and turn off the ignition. Sikes often didn\’t respond to her instructions.

\”My car can\’t slow down,\” Sikes tells her. At one point, Parks asks if he had put the car into neutral, and Sikes responds, \”I\’m trying to control the car!\”

Sikes, 61, was identified in a 2006 newspaper story as a real estate executive and longtime lottery player who won $55,000 and was selected to appear on a California Lottery TV game show.

He appeared at a news conference quickly after the freeway incident Monday and also spoke to reporters Tuesday at his Toyota dealership, where his car was towed.

Sikes said he called 911 about 1:30 p.m. Monday after accelerating to pass another car.

\”I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny. … It jumped and it just stuck there,\” he said.

Sikes said he tried to pull on the gas pedal but it didn\’t \”move at all.\” He said he nearly hit the back of a big-rig and was traveling so fast he couldn\’t read the numbers on freeway call boxes.

A patrol car driven by CHP Officer Todd Neibert pulled alongside the Prius, and the officer told Sikes over a loudspeaker to push the brake pedal to the floor and apply the emergency brake.

The braking, coupled with a steep incline on the freeway, slowed the car to about 50 mph. Sikes said he then shut off the engine and the car coasted to a stop. Neibert then moved his car in front of the Prius to block it.

\”It started to slow down, it was still revving up, but it was slowing down,\” Sikes said Tuesday. \”I hit the button to turn the car off at about 55 mph. It did shut down.\”

Neibert said he considered deploying a spike strip as a last resort and was glad Sikes was able to stop the car before a steep downhill that was approaching.

\”He was visibly shaken, he seemed in shock,\” Neibert said. \”The brakes were definitely down to hardly any material.\”

The CHP held the car overnight, and it was towed to the dealership Tuesday, CHP Officer Brian Pennings said.

\”There\’s no collision, so our investigation\’s done,\” Pennings said. \”There\’s no crime. … We\’re just glad it ended safely.\”

Toyota has watched its reputation for quality crumble because of recalls tied to risks that cars can accelerate uncontrollably or can\’t brake properly. The company is defending itself against suggestions that bad electronics are to blame for the problem — not simpler mechanical flaws, as Toyota maintains.

The runaway Prius only makes Toyota\’s image problem worse, said Larry L. Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky. — even if video only showed the aftermath, with the Prius resting behind the patrol car.

\”People are going to see this video and assume they\’ve seen the car out of control,\” he said. \”They really haven\’t seen the car out of control. It doesn\’t matter if they think they did. It\’s planted in their heads. That part of the damage is done.\”

The Sikes family received a recall notice and took the Prius to Toyota of El Cajon about two weeks ago, but the dealership refused to examine the car, saying it was not on the recall list, said Sikes\’ wife, Patty.

The dealership declined to comment and referred requests for comment to Toyota\’s corporate representatives.

Hanson said Toyota first sends a preliminary notice to owners saying their vehicles are subject to a recall. A second notice comes later detailing how and where the vehicle can be fixed.

\”I believe what could have happened is Mr. Sikes could have received his preliminary notification which says, \’Hello, your car is going to be recalled, and we will notify you when to bring it in.\’\”

A deadly crash last year about 12 miles from where Sikes\’ Prius started speeding first sparked scrutiny into Toyota cars and trucks.

CHP Officer Mark Saylor, his wife, her brother and the couple\’s daughter died after the accelerator in their Lexus became trapped by a wrong-size floor mat on a freeway in La Mesa. The loaner car hit a sport utility vehicle and burst into flames.

Since then, Toyota has recalled some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide — more than 6 million in the United States — because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius. Regulators have linked 52 deaths to crashes allegedly caused by accelerator problems. Still, there have been more than 60 reports of sudden acceleration in cars that have been fixed under the recall.

John Heywood, director of the Sloan Automotive Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it was difficult glean any larger insight into Toyota\’s problems based on a single incident.

\”They\’re not happening all the time they\’re happening rarely, so sorting out what the cause is a very challenging task,\” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Washington, D.C., and Greg Risling in Los Angeles, and AP Auto Writer Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) –
Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned Israeli plans to build 1,600 more homes on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood, announced in the middle of his visit to help revive peace negotiations.

Israel\’s refusal to stop settlement building despite U.S. urging has been a major obstacle to a resumption of the talks, and the announcement put Biden in an uncomfortable position ahead of a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

\”I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units,\” Biden said in a statement issued after he arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel, \”undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I\’ve had here in Israel.\”

The Palestinians had dropped a demand that Israel freeze settlement building and agreed to up to four months of indirect negotiations after receiving Arab League endorsement last week.

\”Israel is not interested in negotiations, nor in peace,\” Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters, adding that the Ramat Shlomo project \”will lead to negotiations being obstructed.\”

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who heads a religious party in Netanyahu\’s governing coalition and is responsible for the plan\’s announcement, described its timing as happenstance.

\”There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone, and certainly not to come along and hurt the vice president of the United States,\” Yishai told Israel\’s Channel One television.

\”Final approval (for the project) will take another few months, if it is approved, and I agree that the timing (of the announcement) should have been in another two or three weeks.\”

President Barack Obama\’s envoy George Mitchell is due back in the region next week to try to set the structure and scope of the \”proximity talks,\” in which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet separately with an American mediator.

In private meetings with U.S. officials, Israel has objected to dealing with core issues such as borders and the future of Jerusalem in the indirect talks, a key Palestinian demand. Israel has suggested the talks be held in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah rather than in a venue such as Washington.

BOLD COMMITMENTS

At an earlier press event alongside Biden, Netanyahu said:

\”I know that this has been difficult and has required a great deal of patience, but I\’m pleased that these efforts are beginning to bear fruit and we have to be persistent and purposeful in making sure that we get to those direct negotiations that will enable us to resolve this conflict.\”

Netanyahu repeated an Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They have rejected that.

At the same event, Biden hailed a \”moment of real opportunity\” and said both sides would have to make \”historically bold commitments\” for peace.

The Obama administration welcomed Netanyahu\’s institution in November of a partial 10-month building settlement freeze.

But it has voiced misgivings about continued building within Israel\’s eastern Jerusalem municipality boundaries, which are not recognized internationally. These areas, including Ramat Shlomo, were exempted from Netanyahu\’s moratorium.

Biden told U.S. cable channel MSNBC that Obama has aggressively supported Israel. \”We in fact are committed to Israel\’s security. Nothing has changed,\” Biden said.

Biden plans to see Abbas in the West Bank Wednesday.

Another focus of the Biden visit has been Iran, whose nuclear program the United States wants reined in through diplomacy. World powers are mindful, however, of Israel\’s threats to attack its arch-foe pre-emptively as a last resort.

\”We\’re determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and we\’re working with many countries around the world to convince Tehran to meet its international obligations and cease and desist,\” Biden said at his appearance with Netanyahu.

\”There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel\’s security.\”

Netanyahu voiced appreciation for U.S. efforts to secure backing for tougher sanctions against Iran. Neither he nor Biden commented on widespread expectation that the U.S. vice president would ask Israel not to try to tackle Iran unilaterally.

\”The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to choose between advancing its nuclear program and advancing the future of its own permanence,\” Netanyahu said.

Israel, believed to be the Middle East\’s only nuclear power, has called for sanctions to cripple Iran\’s trade in oil and gas. Iran says its nuclear ambitions are for energy only.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Cynthia Osterman)

WESTMORELAND, N.H. – Two of the oldest people in the world have died on the same day.

Mary Josephine Ray, who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died Sunday at age 114 years, 294 days. She died at a nursing home in Westmoreland but was active until about two weeks before her death, her granddaughter Katherine Ray said.

\”She just enjoyed life. She never thought of dying at all,\” Katherine Ray said. \”She was planning for her birthday party.\”

Ray died just hours before Daisey Bailey, who was 113 years, 342 days, said L. Stephen Coles, a director of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks and studies old people and certifies those 110 or older, called supercentenarians.

\”It\’s very rare that two of our supercentenarians die on the same day,\” Coles said.

Bailey, who was born March 30, 1896, died in Detroit, he said. She had suffered from dementia, said her family, which claimed she was born in 1895.

Ray, even with her recent decline, managed an interview with a reporter last week, her granddaughter said.

Ray was the oldest person in the United States and the second-oldest in the world, the Gerontology Research Group said. She also was recorded as the oldest person ever to live in New Hampshire.

The oldest living American is now Neva Morris, of Ames, Iowa, at age 114 years, 216 days. The oldest person in the world is Japan\’s Kama Chinen at age 114 years, 301 days.

Ray was born May 17, 1895, in Bloomfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada. She moved to the United States at age 3.

She lived for 60 years in Anson, Maine. She lived in Florida, Massachusetts and elsewhere in New Hampshire before she moved to Westmoreland in 2002 to be near her children.

Ray\’s husband, Walter Ray, died in 1967. Survivors include two sons, eight grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Morris, the Iowa woman now believed to be the oldest U.S. resident, lives at a care center. Only one of her four children, a son in Sioux City, is still alive.

\”She has some hearing deficiencies and a visual deficiency, but mentally she is quite alert and will respond when she feels like it and isn\’t too tired,\” said her 90-year-old son-in-law, Tom Wickersham, who lives in the same care center.

Wickersham said he visits his mother-in-law — who plays bingo and enjoys singing \”You Are My Sunshine\” — nearly every day.