NEW YORK (Reuters) - A once prominent biotechnology investor was handed four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to stock manipulation, the second time he has run afoul of U.S. securities laws.

David Blech, 57, pleaded guilty in May 2012 to securities fraud charges stemming from improper trades in biopharmaceutical companies Pluristem Therapeutics Inc and Intellect Neurosciences Inc.

Blech pleaded guilty in 1998 to similar charges of illegal trading, getting five years of probation rather than jail time. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan expressed anger at his repeat offense and rejected his lawyer's request for leniency.

"No, not this time," McMahon said. "No mercy. This time, punishment."

Blech was once dubbed the "King of Biotech" as a founder of companies and a major investor in the biotechnology sector.

The latest case stemmed from his sale of 50 million shares of Pluristem over several months in 2007. Rather than just selling the stock, he used several accounts held in other people's names to buy another 100 million shares and sell 150 million shares, the government said in court papers.

The result was that Blech was able to sell the 50 million shares for $1.2 million while propping up the price of Pluristem, which is lightly traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board, prosecutors said.

Blech committed a similar fraud in 2008, prosecutors said, when he sold shares in Intellect Neurosciences, a company he co-founded.

He had faced a maximum 40 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought 41 to 51 months in prison.

McMahon also ordered Blech to forfeit almost $1.34 million and sentenced him to a maximum three years of supervision after his jail term.

"I am ashamed to again be before a court pleading for its mercy," Blech said.

Blech still faces a separate civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to the case.

The case is USA v David Blech, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-00372.

(The third paragraph of the story has been corrected to say Thursday instead of Wednesday)

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2013 - As many as 3,000 prison inmates in central California deemed to be at risk from a potentially lethal lung disease may need to be moved to other regions under an order from a court-appointed federal overseer.

The directive, issued on Monday, marks the latest effort to stem cases of valley fever, or coccidioidomycosis, at two prisons where the disease was found to have contributed to the deaths of nearly three dozen inmates from 2006 to 2011.

But it could complicate court-ordered efforts to reduce overcrowding across California's prison system, the nation's largest.

The pneumonia-like illness, contracted by inhaling fungal spores that grow in the dry soils of the American Southwest, is not contagious. But the spores become airborne when soil is disturbed by wind, construction, farming and other activities.

Problems with the disease at two prisons in San Joaquin Valley, the state's agricultural heartland, were documented on Wednesday in court papers filed by J. Clark Kelso, appointed as a federal receiver for medical issues at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Previous attempts to reduce both the number of infections and the severity of cases were ineffective, Kelso's spokeswoman, Joyce Hayhoe, told Reuters.

After a report last year found that problems continued at Pleasant Valley State Prison and Avenal State Prison, Kelso asked correctional officials to stop transferring some inmates there who were considered to be at high risk, Hayhoe said.

Among those deemed to be at higher risk of contracting or dying from the disease were African-Americans, inmates of Filipino heritage, those with compromised immune systems and those who older than 55.

On Monday, Kelso went a step further, directing the state to cease housing inmates who fell into those categories at the two prisons in question, though he stopped short of explicitly ordering those inmates to be transferred out.

On Wednesday, he added diabetics to the list of high-risk inmates, court papers showed. He called the state's response so far "anemic."

'ENORMOUS UNDERTAKING'

Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman for the Corrections Department, acknowledged that the state has not stopped sending at-risk prisoners to the two facilities, nor have any been moved out. Kelso's directive to stop housing vulnerable prisoners in the region came "out of the blue," he said.

Callison said that immediately complying with the receiver's directive "would be an enormous undertaking."

Dr. John Galgiani, a valley fever expert hired by lawyers representing inmates, agreed with the federal receiver and prison officials that no outbreak of the disease had been declared in the San Joaquin Valley.

But in his own court filing, Galgiani said the persistence of the illness in the two prisons amounted to a "medical emergency."

Noting a recent report by Kelso's office, Galgiani said in a court declaration that the infection rate at Pleasant Valley State Prison was "1,000 times the rate for Californians generally." Valley fever was a contributing cause of death in 34 cases between 2006 and 2011 in the two institutions, he wrote.

Symptoms of valley fever include a cough, fever, chest pains and muscle aches that can last for many weeks or months. But fewer than half of infected individuals become sick, and only a small percentage become severely ill.

The disease can be fatal, but the mortality rate among infected patients is about 0.1 percent, said Galgiani, an infectious disease specialist who directs the University of Arizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence.

A recent study found that Valley fever was identified as an underlying or contributing cause to 3,089 U.S. deaths during an 18-year span, from 1990 to 2008.

Those most at risk for life-threatening complications from the illness include the elderly and people with compromised immune systems, Galgiani said.

An estimated 150,000 infections occur in the Southwest each year, the majority of them in Arizona. California accounts for nearly all the remaining cases.

(This story refiles to remove an extraneous word in the first paragraph)

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Philip Barbara)

HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Charteredfaced a protest from over 20 percent of shareholders over its board structure on Wednesday and warned it could miss this year's revenue target after higher bad debts and falling interest rates hit first-quarter earnings.

Shares in the Asia-focused bank, one of the most consistent performers during the financial crisis, fell over 4 percent.

More than 22 percent of the London-based bank's shareholders abstained or voted against the re-election of four directors at an annual meeting, including probably its largest investor, Singapore state investor Temasek. Almost 13 percent of shareholders also failed to back the bank's pay policy.

Temasek, which owns an 18 percent stake, last year abstained on the re-election of some directors, in part because it wants fewer executives on the board. The investor was considering abstaining again this year, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters before the shareholder meeting. It could not immediately be reached for comment after the vote.

Standard Chartered Chairman John Peace said he had discussed governance with Temasek, and said his bank - which has six executives on its board of 19 people - had a structure that reflected best UK corporate practice.

"They believe in a different model. They expressed a different philosophy to us and I respect that," Peace said.

Standard Chartered said that, despite a weak March, it was still on course to achieve an 11th consecutive year of record profits, driven by strong Asian markets, but it would ease back on hiring to rein in growing wage costs.

The profitability of banks in Asia has been squeezed by ultra-easy monetary policy in the West, which has created a flood of cheap money that has pressured margins for banks competing to lend to fast-growing emerging markets.

Operating profit at both Standard Chartered's consumer and investment banking arms fell by about 5 percent in the first three months of 2013.

Revenues in the first quarter were slightly higher than in the first quarter of 2012 and Finance Director Richard Meddings said profit margins had stabilized.

But he said the impact of Western monetary policy on Asia was "the key anxiety" that could affect revenues, which Standard Chartered aims to increase by 10 percent a year.

"At this point, we'd prefer to wait to see how May and June land before we give that guidance (of 10 percent revenue growth)," Meddings told reporters on a conference call. "Last year we produced revenue growth of 8 percent and it may be that we're more likely to be at that level."

The bank, which makes about four-fifths of its operating profit in Asia and the Middle East, said it was comfortable with analyst forecasts for pretax profit of $8.2 billion this year, up 18 percent from 2012.

It said its performance had weakened in South Korea and in Singapore. South Korea's government has overhauled personal debt restructuring processes as part of a wider social welfare program, which includes more forgiveness on troubled long-term loans, and Standard Chartered said its consumer bad debts there had increased by more than 10 percent, more than expected.

STAFF COSTS GROW

Its shares closed down 4.4 percent at 16.25 pounds, the biggest daily drop since they slumped in August after charges the bank violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. That ended in a $667 million settlement with U.S. authorities.

"The Q1 trading statement is the first one in a long time in which Standard Chartered is down in operating profit comparisons on a year-on-year basis, both in the wholesale bank and the consumer bank," said Bernstein analyst Chirantan Barua.

Costs rose on the year, including a "high single-digit" percentage rise in staff costs after the addition of 560 staff in the quarter and wage inflation, the bank said. It does not issue full quarterly numbers and releases earnings twice a year.

Standard Chartered has previously said it could hire about 2,000 staff this year.

"We will still be hiring, the business still has good growth, but we will be pacing the rate of that hiring more acutely until we are more certain of the income run rate," Meddings said.

Hong Kong was once again Standard Chartered's standout market in the first quarter, with income growing more than 10 percent, mirroring a strong performance there reported by rival HSBCon Tuesday.

Income in Africa also rose more than 10 percent.

(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Mark Potter)

Seven people were arrested in the U.S., accused of operating the New York cell of what prosecutors said was a network that carried out thefts at ATMs in 27 countries from Canada to Russia. Law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen nations were involved in the investigation, U.S. prosecutors in New York said Thursday.

"Unfortunately these types of cybercrimes involving ATMs, where you've got a flash mob going out across the globe, are becoming more and more common," said Rose Romero, a former federal prosecutor and regional director for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

"I expect there will be many more" of these types of crimes, she said.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, who called the theft "a massive 21st-century bank heist," announced the case Thursday in New York.

Here's how it worked:

Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on pre-paid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data onto any plastic card with a magnetic stripe an old hotel key card or an expired credit card worked fine as long as it carried the account data and correct access codes.

A network of operatives then fanned out to rapidly withdraw money in multiple cities, authorities said. The cells would take a cut of the money, then launder it through expensive purchases or ship it wholesale to the global ringleaders. Lynch didn't say where they were located.

It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards, not individual or business accounts, Lynch said.

Ori Eisen, a cybercrime expert and founder of 41st Parameter, a fraud detection and prevention firm, said the $45 million heist was on the "high-end" of what can be done by cybercriminals who exploit banking systems connected to the Internet.

"Given the scale of the global credit card networks, it is almost impossible to detect every kind of attack," he said. "This attack is not the last one, and if the modus operandi proves to be successful crooks will exploit it time and again."

There were two separate attacks in this case, one in December that reaped $5 million worldwide and one in February that snared about $40 million in 10 hours with about 36,000 transactions. The scheme involved attacks on two banks, Rakbank in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman, prosecutors said.

Such ATM fraud schemes are not uncommon, but the $45 million stolen in this one was at least double the amount involved in previously known cases, said Avivah Litan, an analyst who covers security issues for Gartner Inc.

Middle Eastern banks and payment processors are "a bit behind" on security and screening technologies that are supposed to prevent this kind of fraud, but it happens around the world, she said.

"It's a really easy way to turn digits into cash," Litan said.

Some of the fault lies with the ubiquitous magnetic strips on the back of the cards. The rest of the world has largely abandoned cards with magnetic strips in favor of ones with built-in chips that are nearly impossible to copy. But because U.S. banks and merchants have stuck to cards with magnetic strips, they are still accepted around the world.

Lynch would not say who masterminded the attacks globally, who the hackers are or where they were located, citing an ongoing investigation.

The New York suspects were U.S. citizens originally from the Dominican Republic who lived in the New York City suburb of Yonkers. They were mostly in their 20s. Lynch said they all knew one another and were recruited together, as were cells in other countries. They were charged with conspiracy and money laundering. If convicted, they each face 10 years in prison.

The accused ringleader in the U.S. cell, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena, was reportedly killed in the Dominican Republic late last month, prosecutors said. More investigations continue and other arrests have been made in other countries, but prosecutors did not have details.

An indictment unsealed Thursday accused Lajud-Pena and the other seven New York suspects of withdrawing $2.8 million in cash from hacked accounts in less than a day.

Arrests began in March.

Lajud-Pena was found dead with a suitcase full of about $100,000 in cash, and the investigation into his death is continuing separately. Dominican officials said they arrested a man in the killing who said it was a botched robbery, and two other suspects were on the lam.

The first federal study of ATM fraud was 30 years ago, when the use of computers in the financial community was growing rapidly. At the time, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found nationwide ATM bank loss from fraud ranged from $70 and $100 million a year.

By 2008, that had risen to about $1 billion a year, said Ken Pickering, who works in security intelligence at CORE Security, a white-hat hacking firm that offers security to businesses.

He said he expects news of the latest ring to inspire other criminals.

"Once you see a large attack like this, that they made off with $45 million, that's going to wake up the cybercrime community," he said.

"Ripping off cash, you don't get that back," he said. "There are suitcases full of cash floating around now, and that's just gone."

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Associated Press technology writer Peter Svensson in New York, national writer Martha Mendoza in San Jose, Calif., and writer Ezequiel Abi Lpez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With their black leather, studded jackets, ripped jeans, bondage trousers and messages of rebellion and anarchy, punks from the 1970s probably never envisioned that a major museum would be celebrating their influence on fashion 40 years later.

But the Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is doing just that with a new exhibition, "Punk: Chaos to Couture," that opens on May 9 and runs through August 14.

It includes 100 punk styles and ranges from the mid-70s at Vivienne Westwood's and Malcolm McLaren's London boutique and images of The Sex Pistols to examples of punk's impact on haute couture and designers such as Alexander McQueen, Helmut Lang, Miuccia Prada and John Galliano.

Films and music from the era and a re-creation of the graffiti-covered toilet at New York's CBGB punk rock club, where Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads played, add to the gritty authenticity of the exhibit.

"Punk was all about celebrating the individual, celebrating creativity and not being afraid - to be brave in your self-presentation and to be brave in your fashion statement," Andrew Bolton, the curator of the exhibit, said in an interview.

"Punk was all about challenging the status quo," he added. "I think all those elements very much impacted fashion."

ORIGINALITY AND INDIVIDUALITY

Thomas P. Campbell, the director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, described punk as "a tale of two cities, New York and London."

The exhibit, arranged over seven themed galleries, focuses on punk's concept of do-it-yourself and its impact on high fashion and ready-to-wear.

No other cultural movement has had a similar impact on fashion, according to Bolton, who added that designers engage with punk on different level.

Shirts emblazoned with "God Save the Queen," "Anarchy in the UK" and "Anarchist Punk Gang - The 1% ers" from Westwood's 1970s Seditionaries boutique are testament to punk's political message and desire to shock and provoke.

Torn clothing and garments incorporating chicken bones, tin studs, metal chains, bottle tops, horsehair, safety pins and other types of hardware show punk's do-it-yourself ethos and its themes of deconstruction and destruction.

"I think it is rather stunning. There are a lot of collector's items," British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, who was nicknamed the "princess of punk," said about the show.

"The most amazing thing that you spot from this exhibition is, in fact, that you have the street-edge stuff. You have it edited into couture ... But then you have the amazing Japanese seeing it with another eye ... turning it into a totally new art form," she added.

Punk's influence on Italian designer Gianni Versace is shown in his gowns with silver and gold safety pins and a black knit and leather dress embroidered with gold metal studs.

Other examples include Alexander McQueen's coatdress made of black synthetic material, imitating trash bags, and a coat of bubble wrap, Helmut Lang's jacket of silver and blue patent leather with aluminum foil and metal bottle caps and Rei Kawakubo's blouse and skirt of black polyester and silk satin and taffeta.

"Although punk's democracy stands in opposition to fashion's autocracy, designers continue to appropriate punk's aesthetic vocabulary to capture its youthful rebelliousness and aggressive forcefulness," Bolton said.

(Editing by Jim Loney)

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In 2010: Guatemala's Supreme Court creates "high-risk courts" to try genocide, crimes against humanity, organized crime, other high profile crimes.

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In 2011: Attorney General's office asks Supreme Court to transfer complaint against army officers to newly created "high-risk courts." Guatemala's top court agrees.

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September 2011: Judge Carol Patricia Flores charges retired generals Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez and Luis Enrique Mendoza with genocide. Rios Montt, their former superior, is also accused but cannot be charged because he has immunity from prosecution as congressman.

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November 2011: Lopez Fuentes' defense asks that Judge Flores recuse herself from case, claiming she is biased against him. Judge ignores petition and continues case. Defense files an appeal with another court.

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January 2012: Rios Montt loses immunity after his term as congressman ends. That same month, he is called by Judge Flores to testify is charged with genocide. He posts $80,000 bail to continue process outside prison.

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February 2012: An appeals court rules for Lopez Fuentes' defense and asks Judge Flores to recuse herself from case, which is transferred to Judge Miguel Angel Galvez Aguilar.

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January 2013:After case is delayed by hundreds of defense appeals, Judge Galvez orders Rios Montt to stand trial and sends case to a three-member tribunal comprised of Judge Yassmin Barrios as president, and Judges Pablo Xitumul and Patricia Bustamante.

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February 2013: Rios Montt's defense wins an appeal to add evidence to case. Appeals court never informs Judge Galvez of resolution.

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March 13, 2013: An appeals court rules Judge Flores should take over case but she's never informed of resolution.

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March 19, 2013: Trial against Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez begins.

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April 3, 2013: Constitutional Court orders Judge Galvez to add new evidence in case, saying Rios Montt's defense won an appeal. Galvez says he's no longer in charge of case because an appeals court ordered Judge Flores to take it.

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April 9, 2013: Constitutional Court, ruling on appeal by Rios Montt's defense, orders Judge Barrios to send case to Judge Flores so she can incorporate new evidence.

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April 18, 2012: Judge Flores announces case should go back to where it was in November 2011, before Rios Montt was charged with genocide.

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April 19, 2013: Tribunal in charge of Rios Montt's trial suspends trial and asks Constitutional Court to decide whether it should continue.

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April 22, 2013: Constitutional Court again orders Judge Flores to add new evidence in case.

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April 26, 2013: Judge Flores incorporates new evidence and sends case back to tribunal.

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April 30, 2013: Genocide trial against Rios Montt resumes after 12-day suspension amid appeals.

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May 7, 2013: Closing arguments begin.

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May 9, 2013: Rios Montt testifies for first time during closing arguments, avoiding being questioned by prosecutors and declaring himself innocent.

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May 10, 2013: Three-judge panel finds Rios-Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Rene Gonzalez also told The Associated Press he would welcome an exchange of prisoners that would send a jailed U.S. government subcontractor home in return for freedom for four other Cuban agents serving sentences in America.

Speaking soon after renouncing his U.S. citizenship, Gonzalez called on President Barack Obama to show "courage" in changing U.S. policy toward the Communist-run island.

"I would like to think that the North American government will meet the hopes of the whole world, which is telling it to change its policy toward Cuba," Gonzalez said. "Courage is what President Obama needs now."

The interview, conducted in the presence of his lawyer and a Cuban government representative, was Gonzalez's first since U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard ruled Friday that he could remain on the Communist-run island in return for renouncing his U.S. citizenship.

Gonzalez had asked for permission to do so several times, but the U.S. government initially refused.

Lenard had earlier granted the 56-year-old leave to travel to Cuba to attend a memorial for his father, the second trip home he had been allowed to make since his release in 2011.

Earlier Monday, Gonzalez arrived at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Havana accompanied by his wife and children to renounce his citizenship. He waved as onlookers shouted his name from surrounding buildings, then spent about 30 minutes inside completing the necessary paperwork.

Under U.S. law, Americans who choose to renounce their citizenship must do so at an overseas consular office. They are warned that the move is irrevocable, and must pay a $450 fee. Gonzalez's request must still be sent to Washington for approval, at which point he would receive a certificate of loss of nationality.

Gonzalez, who was born in Chicago before moving to Cuba as an infant, is one of the so-called "Cuban Five." The men were convicted in 2001 of spying on U.S. military installations in South Florida as well as exile groups and politicians.

Gonzalez was released about a year and a half ago but ordered to stay in the U.S. while he served a three-year probation. The other four agents remain in jail.

The Five are celebrated as heroes in Cuba, with their faces staring down from highway billboards and restaurant shrines.Their case has received renewed attention since the 2009 arrest of Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor who is serving a 15-year sentence after he was caught bringing communications equipment onto the island illegally while on a USAID-funded democracy building program.

Cuba has suggested it would be willing to free the 64-year-old Maryland native in exchange for the five agents, something Washington has rejected, at least publically.

In the interview, Gonzalez said such an exchange would be "a good gesture on both sides in order to improve relations between Cuba and the United States."

He said he hoped his release would give hope to the other four agents and their families.

Of his four co-defendants, 49-year-old Fernando Gonzalez, also known as Ruben Campa, is scheduled for release from an Arizona prison Feb. 27, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Antonio Guerrero, 54, is set to walk out of a north Florida prison Sept. 18, 2017. The other two are serving much longer sentences.

Gonzalez flew to Florida in 1990 on a crop duster that he had supposedly hijacked in order to defect. In reality, he was a Cuban agent from the start.

Finally reunited permanently with his wife and two daughters, Gonzalez insisted on Monday that he had never second-guessed his actions.

"Nobody made me do it. They told me the risks, and I said 'Yes,'" he said. "I did it as a Cuban patriot and I don't have any regrets ... I've never doubted myself for a second."

Gonzalez insists his activities never aimed to harm the United States or its people, but only to protect Cuba from a wave of bombings perpetrated by militant exile groups that aimed to sabotage the island's tourism industry. An Italian man was killed.

He said he took no pleasure in renouncing his citizenship, though he has always felt more Cuban than American.

"I have family in the United States and I left many friends there," he said. "It is a country with a history that is admirable ... One realizes that there is more that we have in common than what separates us."

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Associated Press writer Paul Haven contributed to this report.

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Andrea Rodriguez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Matt Kenseth and Joe Gibbs Racing were no exception, getting hit with one of the largest penalties in NASCAR history Wednesday after the engine from Kenseth's race-winning car at Kansas failed a post-race inspection. The team had nothing to do with the error, and manufacturer Toyota immediately accepted responsibility for one of eight connecting rods failing to meet the minimum weight requirement by 3 grams less than an empty envelope.

"We take full responsibility for this issue with the engine. JGR is not involved in the process of selecting parts or assembling the Cup Series engines," Toyota Racing Development President Lee White said.

It's been a busy season for NASCAR discipline. In February, Nationwide Series driver Jeremy Clements was suspended after an apparently insensitive remark to an MTV blogger and Denny Hamlin was fined $25,000 for criticizing the new Gen-6 race car.

But in the past week, NASCAR has levied more than $450,000 in fines, suspended nearly a dozen crew members for upcoming points races as it punishes teams for rules violations involving the cars themselves.

Kenseth was stripped of everything but the trophy from Sunday's win at Kansas.

"Anything to do with the engine, the fuel or the tires is going to be bad," said rival driver Kevin Harvick, who appeared with Clint Bowyer and Elliott Sadler on Wednesday in a softball game between Dover International Speedway and Pocono Raceway.

"It's always been that way. It's kind of one of those pet peeves of NASCAR."

Kenseth was docked 50 driver points in the standings he earned only 48 points for the victory and NASCAR also erased the three bonus points he earned for the win that would have been applied in seeding for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. In addition, the victory will not be credited toward his eligibility for a wild card berth in the Chase.

So, although Kenseth has two wins on the year, the Kansas win does not count in any form toward Chase eligibility.He lost his pole award, too, which could hurt eligibility for next year's Sprint Unlimited exhibition race.

The penalty to Kenseth, who held off Kasey Kahne of Hendrick Motorsports to earn his second win of the season, dropped him from eighth to 14th in the standings.

NASCAR also suspended crew chief Jason Ratcliff for six races and fined him $200,000. And in a rare move, car owner Joe Gibbs had his owner's license suspended for the next six races and he won't earn car owner points during that time. He also was docked 50 car owner points while Toyota, which supplies the JGR engines through Costa Mesa, Calif.-based TRD, lost five points in the manufacturer standings.

JGR said it would appeal.

"It is our understanding that one of the eight connecting rods on the engine was ruled too light," the statement said. "We are working with our partners at TRD on this issue."

White said Kenseth gained no advantage from the light rod.

"It was a simple oversight on TRD's part and there was no intent to deceive, or to gain any type of competitive advantage," White said. "Toyota is a company that was built on integrity, and that remains one of the guiding principles of the company. The goal of TRD has always been and will continue to be to build high-performance engines that are reliable, durable and powerful, and within the guidelines established by NASCAR."

Elliott Sadler, in his first season driving for JGR's Nationwide Series team, felt for teammate Kenseth.

"It's tough if you're Matt because you don't have anything to do with the motor. That's a TRD deal. It's not a Gibbs deal," Sadler said. "At Gibbs, we don't even touch the motor. TRD brings the motor in and puts it in. We don't even get to touch it. That's a rule. A Gibbs employee doesn't even touch that."

It's the second severe penalty against a Sprint Cup team levied by NASCAR in as many weeks.

It was Penske Racing and defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski who were punished last week after NASCAR said it found unapproved parts in the rear suspension of Keselowski and Joey Logano's cars at Texas. NASCAR docked 25 points each the drivers, fined the crew chiefs $100,000 each and suspended seven Penske employees for six races. Penske Racing's appeal is scheduled for May 1.

Those penalties were for alterations to the body of the car, particularly in an area NASCAR has been working the last year to police after teams found a way to manipulate the skew of the cars last season. Team owner Roger Penske has maintained the team was not cheating, but "working in a gray area" of the rule book.

It's not clear if that argument will fly before the three-member appeal board, and the 2013 rule book was specifically tightened this season to add language specific to the rear suspension systems.

In the case of JGR and the engine, illegal is illegal and there is no gray area.

NASCAR has proven that through penalties before. The last violator, Carl Long, was severely punished when he was found to have an illegal engine at the 2009 All-Star Race. Long was docked 200 points which would be about 50 points under the current points system fined $200,000 and suspended for 12 races.

His suspension was reduced to eight races on appeal, but Long has said he is unable to pay the fine and can't work in Sprint Cup until he settles the debt.

"We've always known the engine and tires are sacred ground. You don't mess with the engine or the tires," said former crew chief and current Fox analyst Larry McReynolds, who added that all eight connecting rods would have been light if TRD was trying to cheat.

"This was pure human error," McReynolds said. "But in NASCAR's defense, they can't completely determine intent or non-intent. They absolutely should appeal. I'd primarily appeal Ratcliff's suspension. He was an innocent bystander in this. The engine is a different deal than the rest of the car. If I was Joe Gibbs, I'd be pretty ticked off about losing my crew chief under these circumstances. This was an error but an enormously costly one."

JGR has the means to pay the fine and the personnel to recover from this setback. The appeal would likely be to reduce the penalties on the argument it was TRD that erred and the team had no control or access to assembly of the engine.

Clint Bowyer, a Toyota driver for Michael Waltrip Racing, said it's unfortunate so many employees are punished by NASCAR for one infraction.

"For the governing body, that's a difficult situation knowing that a lot of guys that you're penalizing don't necessarily have anything to do with what's inside those frame rails," Bowyer said. "It's tough. It's unfortunate for Matt. Obviously it was a shock to all of us."

Kenseth is unlikely to get back his bonus points. NASCAR stripped Carl Edwards of his 10 bonus points under an older scoring system for not having a cover on his oil tank after a 2008 win at Las Vegas. The victory stood, but Edwards was not able to carry the 10 bonus points into the Chase. His crew chief was also suspended six races.

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AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.

Yet the most likely first-time homeowners, especially young professionals and couples starting families, won't buy these days. Or they can't. Or they already did, during the housing boom. And their absence helps explain why the housing industry is still depressed.

The obstacles range from higher down payments to heavy debt from credit cards and student loans. But even many of those who could afford to buy no longer see it as a wise investment. Prices have sunk 15 percent in three years.

"I've looked for a home, but the places we can afford with the money we have are not that great," says Seth Herter, 23, a store manager in suburban St. Louis. "It also doesn't seem smart anymore to buy with prices falling. Buying a home just doesn't make sense to us."

The proportion of U.S. households that own homes is at 65.1 percent, its lowest point since 1996, the Census Bureau says. That marks a shift after nearly two decades in which homeownership grew before peaking at 70 percent during the housing boom.

The housing bubble lured so many young buyers that it reduced the pool of potential first-timers to below-normal levels. That's contributed to the decline in new buyers in recent years.

In 2005, at the height of the boom, about 2.8 million first-timers bought homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. By contrast, for each of the four years preceding the boom, the number of first-timers averaged fewer than 2 million.

Still, the bigger factors are the struggling economy, shaky job security, tougher credit rules and lack of cash to put down, said Dan McCue, research manager at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The unemployment rate among typical first-timers, those ages 25 to 34, is 9.8 percent, compared with 9 percent for all adults.

"The obstacles facing first-time buyers are big, and it's changing the way they look at home ownership," McCue says. "It's no longer the American Dream for the younger generation."

First-timers usually account for up to half of all sales. Over the past year, they've accounted for only about a third.

A big reason is tougher lending standards.

Lenders are demanding more money up front. In 2002, the median down payment for a single-family home in nine major U.S. cities was 4 percent, according to real estate website Zillow.com. Today, it's 22 percent.

And one-third of households have credit scores too low to qualify for a mortgage. The median required credit score from FICO Inc., the industry leader in credit ratings, has risen from 720 in 2007, when the market went bust, to 760 today.

Homes in many places are the most affordable in a generation. In the past year, the national median sale price has sunk 3.5 percent. Half the homes listed in the Tampa Bay area are priced below $100,000.

The average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan is 4 percent, barely above an all-time low. Five years ago, it was near 6.5 percent. In 2000, it exceeded 8 percent.

When the economy eventually strengthens, the housing market will, too. More people will be hired. Confidence will rise. Down payments won't be so hard to produce.

The question is whether first-time buyers will then start flowing into the housing market. That will depend mainly on whether they think prices will rise, said Mark Vitner, senior U.S. economist at Wells Fargo.

"It's a guessing game as to when things will turn around," Vitner said. "But until they do, you won't see young people buying homes."

The two parked cars exploded simultaneously in a street in Husseinya, killing five civilians and as well as a policeman at a nearby checkpoint, two police officers said. It was not clear what they were targeting. Twenty-one other people including 17 civilians were wounded, they added.

Hussainya is located some 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside central Baghdad.

Inside Baghdad, a bomb went off outside a restaurant at lunchtime in the southern Dora neighborhood, two other police officers said. Four customers at the restaurant were killed and 11 people wounded, they added.

Two doctors in nearby hospitals confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.

The attacks came a day after nine people were killed in series of explosions in and around Baghdad, one targeting an Internet cafe. Businesses and public spaces are favorite targets for militants seeking large numbers of civilian casualties.

Violence has spiked in Iraq following a deadly security crackdown on a camp in northern Iraq run by Sunnis, protesting what they consider to be their second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government. Government investigators say the April 23 incident left 40 people dead, while a spate of follow-up attacks and battles has killed well over 200 more.

Also Monday, Iraqi Shiites held a funeral for a member of a militant group whom they said was killed in Syria while defending a revered Shiite shrine.

Some Iraqi Shiite parties have been sending fighters to Syria, where a Sunni-dominated rebel movement is fighting to topple President Bashar Assad, a member of a Shiite offshoot sect.

The fighters are sometimes described as having been killed while defending Shiite holy places. Syria has several sites revered by Shiites, and the war has kindled fears that Sunni extremists, many of whom consider such shrines heretical, could attack them. The 2006 bombing of a shrine in Iraq came close to plunging the country into civil war.

Ali Falih Madhi of the Iraqi Hezbollah group said fellow member Dhiaa Mutashar Katie al-Issawi in his 20s, was killed by mortar rounds on Sunday while protecting the shrine of the Prophet Muhammad's granddaughter Zainab in Damascus.

He said that al-Issawi joined the group's Lord of the Martyrs Brigades early this year and left for Syria a month ago.

His body was collected by his family at an Iraqi border crossing with Iran in his hometown southern city of Basra. Madhi said the body was flown from Syria to Iran because the land road that links Syria to Iraq was under the control of the rebels.

The funeral procession was protected by police, who blocked all the roads leading to al-Issawi's house.

The Iraqi Hezbollah is independent of the better-known Lebanese Shiite militant group of the same name. Both receive backing from Iran.

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AP writer Nabil al-Jurani contributed this report from Basra.