ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Another week of cold, wet weather has bogged down field work in parts of Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in its weekly crops and weather report for Minnesota that standing water and muddy fields hampered the remaining planting work last week, though crops planted earlier are emerging in better-drained fields.

Statewide, an average of 2.2 days were rated suitable for fieldwork last week, compared to 1.9 days a week earlier.

Corn planting was 87 percent complete, compared with a five-year average of 98 percent for this point. Corn emergence advanced to 65 percent, but remains well behind the average of 86 percent.

Soybeans were 55 percent planted, compared with an average of 88 percent. Soybeans were 18 percent emerged, which was 36 percentage points behind the average pace.

McQuaid, who has led the UCI for eight years, is seeking a third four-year term in September despite criticism of his leadership in the Lance Armstrong doping case.

Cookson has been a member of the UCI management committee since 2009. He said the ''first priority for the new UCI president must be to change the way that anti-doping is managed so that people can have confidence in the sport.''

He has led the British federation for 17 years and been promoted by British media as a suitable candidate to restore cycling's battered image.

Cookson had previously backed McQuaid's re-election bid.

The person was not authorized to speak for the conference or the bowl and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Yankees on Sunday in a release said owner Hal Steinbrenner and team president Randy Levine will attend the news conference, but did mention which conference representative would be attending.

The move is not unexpected. Athletic directors at the Big Ten meetings in Chicago two weeks ago said the league was working to add the Pinstripe Bowl to its new postseason lineup.

The Atlantic Coast Conference is the front-runner to land the spot opposite the Big Ten and replace the Big East. The Big East helped the Yankees get the Pinstripe Bowl off the ground, and between Syracuse and Rutgers the conference has won all three of the games.

But Big East football is in its last season. The conference will be renamed the American Athletic Conference next season and by 2014 both Syracuse and Rutgers, along with Pittsburgh and Louisville, will be gone. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Louisville are joining the ACC.

The American, which will still have Connecticut and Temple to give it a Northeast presence, is still hoping to maintain an affiliation with Pinstripe Bowl.

Monday's news conference will only be about the Big Ten.

The Big Ten's addition of Rutgers made the Pinstripe Bowl, which is sponsored by New Era, a perfect fit for a league trying to lay claim to largest media market in the country, the New York metropolitan area.

The Big Ten is also trying to increase its bowl presence in California and is expected to add the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and the Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco to its postseason roster.

ESPN.com has reported that the Big Ten and the ACC will also share a spot in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., and the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., with each conference sending a team to each game three times during a six-year agreement.

The politically volatile debate reflects a reality that's difficult for parents, including the president, to swallow: Quite a number of teenagers have sex. So how easily should they be able to get a pill that prevents pregnancy if taken soon enough after sex?

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration made it a little easier, saying anyone 15 or older could begin buying one brand, Plan B One-Step, without a prescription two years younger than the current age limit of 17 and that the pill no longer has to be locked behind pharmacy counters.

But it's far from clear whether that will happen. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of New York had given the FDA until Monday to lift all age limits on Plan B and a cheaper generic, mandating that emergency contraception be sold just like aspirin. Instead, by requiring that buyers prove their age at the cash register, the FDA decided to treat it like beer.

The Justice Department hasn't said whether it will appeal Korman's order and thus back FDA's new approach, and that leaves the whole issue in limbo.

"This is a truly bizarre and unprecedented situation," said American University law professor Lewis A. Grossman, a specialist in food and drug law.

On Wednesday, doctors' groups, led by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, urged the Obama administration not to let the FDA action be the last word.

Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it's not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages.

"We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high," Breuner said.

Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, "we know that it is safe for those under 15," she said.

Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone.

The White House sought Wednesday to put much as much distance as possible between President Barack Obama and this political hot potato.

"The president, the White House, did not weigh in on this decision," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the FDA's move.

Obama must balance his own instincts as the father of two school-age daughters with the wishes of numerous political constituencies, including women's groups whose influence runs deep within the Democratic Party. It was just last week that Obama became the first president to address Planned Parenthood in person, telling the abortion rights group that as long as women must fight to make their own health choices, "you've also got a president who's going to be right there with you fighting every step of the way."

Contraception advocates see a double standard. No one is carded when buying a condom, but under the FDA's decision they would have to prove their age when buying a pill to prevent pregnancy if that condom breaks.

"This isn't a compromise. This is wrong," said Cynthia Pearson of the National Women's Health Network.

Likewise, social conservatives were outraged by the FDA's move, saying it was important for parents and medical professionals to be involved in such decisions involving teens.

"This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters," said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council. She added that removing the prescription requirement meant "teens and women will avoid necessary medical screenings" that could detect serious problems.

The FDA had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in an unprecedented move, overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn't be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own.

Ruling earlier this month in a lawsuit challenging that decision, Korman blasted the Obama administration for letting election-year politics trump science. The judge called the morning-after pill "among the safest drugs sold over the counter," and gave the government 30 days to lift all age limits.

Obama aides bristled at the suggestion that the FDA decision was an attempt at political compromise, insisting the FDA merely responded to an application filed by Plan B's manufacturer which sought the 15 age limit and over-the-counter sales.

At the same time, Carney signaled that a policy allowing 15-year-olds to buy the pill off the shelf would be more palatable to Obama than the prospect of 11-year-olds having unfettered access. Pointing to Obama's comments in support of Sebelius back in 2011, Carney said, "he referred to younger girls, and I believe so did Secretary Sebelius."

If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn't begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists and Korman, in his ruling said has been discredited.

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NWS officialsthat the tornado's diameter was measured with a "mobile radar unit" stationed on a stretch of U.S. Route 81 just south of El Reno, near where the twister passed through the town of 16,729 residents. The radar unit was, presumably, luckier than the  that was upended by the very tornado it was designed to chase — and the storm chasers who, miraculously, made it out of the car alive. .

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From about April 2000 through May 2011, defendant Lam and his related corporations LM Import-Export Inc., Lam's Investment Corp., and LK Toys Corporation, conspired to sell and distribute in commerce banned children's products imported from China. These actions were in violation of the Consumer Product Safety Act and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. These products allegedly presented the risk of choking, aspiration, and ingestion, and some contained lead above the federal limits.

"The sentences handed down by the court against these repeat violators are a victory for consumers and the rule of law," said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum. "I commend the staff at CPSC, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security for their cooperation and success in bringing the defendants to justice. This result demonstrates how serious we are about protecting American consumers from dangerous products and defending our consumer product safety laws."

To learn more about this conviction and the related civil penalty and injunction imposed, see the press release issued by theand the consent decrees inand .

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer productssuch as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals--contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 30 years.

Media ContactPlease use the phone numbers below for all media requests.Phone: (301) 504-7908Spanish: (301) 504-7800Link Text:

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The highly classified anti-terrorism program, code-named PRISM, had not been disclosed publicly before. A U.S. government source who was not authorized to comment publicly on the program confirmed its existence to Reuters late on Thursday.

The program's participants, the Post said, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley: Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc, Google Inc, Facebook Inc, PalTalk, AOL Inc, Skype, YouTube and Apple Inc.

In statements released late on Thursday, Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook denied that the government had "direct access" to their central servers. Microsoft said it does not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complies "with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers.

When asked to respond, Washington Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti said: "We stand by our story. The NSA document says what we reported."

The report came on the same day that another newspaper, Britain's Guardian, revealed that the U.S. government is collecting telephone records of millions of Americans as part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

In Washington, the Guardian report fueled an ongoing debate over whether the U.S. government is violating citizens' privacy rights while trying to protect them from attacks. That debate is sure to escalate with the Post's report, which said the NSA and FBI are extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs to build a database involving trillions of communications by Americans.

The Post said it obtained copies of briefing slides describing the Silicon Valley operation that were intended for senior analysts in the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate.

The slides described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President's Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 articles last year.

The program was established under Republican President George W. Bush in 2007 and has grown exponentially since then during President Barack Obama's administration, the Post article said.

The technology companies participate knowingly in PRISM operations, according to the Post, and are listed on one NSA slide in the order in which they became part of the program, starting with Microsoft in September 2007 and ending with Apple in October 2012.

The Post said it obtained the PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials from a career intelligence officer who wanted to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. "They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type," the officer said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer, Fred Barbash, Gerry Shih and Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Jim Loney)

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A U.S. magistrate judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $60,000 fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million of income between 2005 and 2007 and faced up to three years in prison.

Hill has attributed her failure to pay taxes to years of pressure she experienced as a recording star while raising six children, forcing her to go underground and stay out of the public eye.

On the eve of her scheduled sentencing, Hill paid $504,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $420,000 to the state of New Jersey, her attorney told the court. She still owes another $285,000 in interest and penalties.

"When the government is asking for 36 months and the judge gives three months, I think the judge gave a fair and reasonable sentence," Hill's attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 30 months to the maximum of 36 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo cited Hill's lack of a criminal record, her six children and her repayment of the back taxes as mitigating factors in the sentence.

Hill must report on or before July 8. Her attorney asked the court to assign the native of South Orange, New Jersey, to a facility close to home. The three months of home confinement following the prison stay is part of one year of supervised probation.

Hill told the court she pulled away from society because her life was in crisis, received veiled threats and was blacklisted because she did not conform to the norms of the music industry.

"I was being perceived as a cash cow, not a person," Hill said.

A new single by Hill, her first in several years, called "Neurotic Society," was posted on iTunes on Friday.

"Here is a link to a piece that I was 'required' to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline," her Tumblr social media page said on Saturday.

Her lawyers confirmed that she signed a new contract with Sony Worldwide Entertainment and was working on her first album of new material in more than a decade.

Hill's seminal 1998 solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" won the singer, a former member of the Fugees rap trio, five Grammy awards.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta, Andrew Hay and Philip Barbara)

(Reuters) - New York's top financial regulator has asked some of the largest U.S. insurance companies to disclose details on their preparedness for cyber attacks, following a similar request to major banks earlier this year.

The New York State Department of Financial Services said it sent letters on Tuesday asking insurers whether they have faced any cyber attacks in the last three years, what safeguards they have put in place and how much money they have set aside for dealing with cyber issues.

"Insurance companies, in some cases sometimes more than banks, hold incredibly sensitive information of regular people," said Ben Lawsky, New York's superintendent of financial services, in an interview. "We're trying to get ahead of a problem and focus here on an area that I think has been underappreciated and maybe not focused on enough by regulators."

In recent months, most of the attention around cybersecurity and the financial sector has focused on retail banks. A series of attacks rendered bank websites inaccessible for long stretches of time, and experts have said those incidents were more serious than people realize.

But in many ways, the $1.1 trillion U.S. insurance industry is just as vulnerable, given the reams of data that insurers have on their individual and corporate customers. Ironically, protection against such attacks is also one of the fastest-growing segments of the insurance industry.

One expert in cyber law said the rigor of the insurance underwriting process meant that insurers know details about lots of companies across a variety of industries - a candy store of sorts for hackers looking for ways to attack Corporate America.

"If I'm going to become your insurer, I want to make sure you are going to be a good risk. I need to strip apart your business," said Richard Bortnick, a Philadelphia-based attorney.

Nearly three dozen insurers received the letters, which they are legally obliged to answer. Among the largest are health insurer Aetna; Warren Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway; life insurer MetLife; and property insurer Travelers.

Lawsky said there was no question insurers were already focusing on cyber attacks, but the department wanted to know how they prioritized that risk.

"I think some of the companies do a good job and some need to focus on it more," he said.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by David Gregorio and Bob Burgdorfer)

The Austrian parachutist known as "Fearless Felix" reached 843.6 mph, according to official numbers released Monday. That's equivalent to Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound.

His top speed initially was estimated at 10 mph slower at 834 mph, or Mach 1.24.

Either way, he became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurized suit and hopped from a capsule hoisted by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

Baumgartner was supersonic for a half-minute "quite remarkable," according to Brian Utley, the record-keeping official who was present for the Oct. 14 feat.

The 43-year-old's heart rate remained below 185 beats a minute, and his breathing was fairly steady.

The leap was from an altitude of 127,852 feet. That's 248 feet lower than original estimates, but still stratospheric.

"He jumped from a little bit lower, but he actually went a little bit faster, which was pretty exciting," said Art Thompson, technical project director for the Red Bull-sponsored project.

"It's fun for us to see reaching Mach speeds and proving out a lot of the safety systems," Thompson said in a phone interview from his aerospace company in Lancaster, Calif.

Thompson said everything pretty much unfolded as anticipated, with no big surprises in the final report. The updated records were provided by Utley, official observer for the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Utley was in Roswell, N.M., for Baumgartner's grand finale following two test jumps.

Based on all the data collected from sensors on Baumgartner's suit, Utley determined that Baumgartner was 34 seconds into his jump when he reached Mach 1. The speed for breaking the sound barrier depends on the temperature at a given altitude; for Baumgartner, that came together just shy of 110,000 feet.

He reached peak speed by the time he was at 91,300 feet, 50 seconds into the jump, and was back to subsonic by 75,300 feet, give or take, 64 seconds into his free fall.

His entire free fall lasted four minutes, 20 seconds. He used a parachute to cover the final 5,000 feet, landing on his feet in the desert outside Roswell.

Not everything went well.

Baumgartner went into a dreaded flat spin while still supersonic. He spun for 13 seconds at approximately 60 revolutions per minute, making 14 to 16 spins before using his body to regain control, Thompson said. The skydiver was well within safety limits the entire time, he noted. Baumgartner's brain remained under 2G, or two times the force of gravity, during the spin.

If the flat spin had lasted longer and been more severe exceeding six continuous seconds at 3.5 G Baumgartner's drogue, or stabilizing, parachute would have deployed automatically. Doctors worried about him blacking out and suffering a stroke or, in the case of a suit tear, his blood boiling at such an extreme altitude. The outside temperature registered as low as minus 96 Fahrenheit.

In the foreword of the 71-page report, Baumgartner said he never imagined how many people would share in his dream to make a supersonic free fall from so high.

Some 52 million people watched YouTube's live stream of the exploit.

The scientific and engineering experts who helped bring him back alive "broke boundaries in their own fields just as surely as I broke the sound barrier," Baumgartner wrote.

Baumgartner shattered the previous record set by Joe Kittinger, an Air Force officer, in 1960. Kittinger did not quite reach supersonic speed during his jump from 19.5 miles up.

Kittinger noted in the Red Bull Stratos report (Stratos for stratosphere) that future work is needed to test a stabilizing parachute for use at extreme altitudes.

The private project was aimed, from the start, at helping future space crews whether NASA or commercial survive high-altitude accidents.

If a highly trained jumper like Baumgartner with 2,500 jumps couldn't prevent a flat spin, "an astronaut, pilot or space tourist could not overcome this spinning probability," Kittinger wrote.

Thompson agreed, noting that given the right safety gear and the right conditions, there's "a remote possibility" a space crew could survive even under such harsh circumstances as were faced by the space shuttle Columbia astronauts.

All seven astronauts perished as Columbia returned to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003. One of the crew, Laurel Clark, was married to the former NASA flight surgeon who led Baumgartner's medical team, Dr. Jonathan Clark.

"You never know what the possibilities are ... that's the direction we need to look at," Thompson said.

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Online:

http://www.redbullstratos.com/