U.S. Pressing Its Crackdown Against Leaks

Mr. Kim?s case is next in line in the Obama administration?s unprecedented crackdown on leaks, after the crumbling last week of the case against a former National Security Agency official, Thomas A. Drake. Accused of giving secrets to The Baltimore Sun, Mr. Drake pleaded guilty to a minor charge and will serve no prison time and pay no fine.

The Justice Department shows no sign of rethinking its campaign to punish unauthorized disclosures to the news media, with five criminal cases so far under President Obama, compared with three under all previous presidents combined. This week, a grand jury in Virginia heard testimony in a continuing investigation of WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group, a rare effort to prosecute those who publish secrets, rather than those who leak them.

The string of cases reflects a broad belief across two administrations and in both parties in Congress that leaks have gotten out of hand, endangering intelligence agents and exposing American spying methods.

But Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the fizzling of the Drake prosecution ?ought to be a signal to the government to rethink its approach to these cases.? He said the government had many options for punishing leaks: stripping an official?s security clearance, firing him or pursuing a misdemeanor charge. Instead, it ?has been leaping to the most extreme response, felony charges,? he said.

In particular, critics of the leak prosecutions question the appropriateness of using the Espionage Act, a World War I-era statute first applied to leaks in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971. They say it is misleading and unfair to lump the likes of Mr. Drake and Mr. Kim with traitors like Aldrich Ames or Robert P. Hanssen, who sold secrets to the Soviet Union.

Few have taken a tougher public line against leaks than Gabriel Schoenfeld, whose 2010 book ?Necessary Secrets? argues that the news media are far too cavalier about publishing classified information. But he, too, called the espionage label unfortunate.

?You?re accusing someone who?s doing something irresponsible and wrong,? said Mr. Schoenfeld, of the Hudson Institute in Washington. ?But he might be a well-intentioned civil servant and he?s not trying to betray his country.?

Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University, said the best option would be a new statute tailored to fit leaks to the media, perhaps allowing defendants to argue that information disclosed should never have been classified in the first place. But he said no such law could pass in the current climate.

The problems of perception that plagued the government?s pursuit of Mr. Drake, who claimed to be a whistle-blower exposing a costly National Security Agency boondoggle, may crop up again with Mr. Kim. His personal story as a brainy, up-by-the-bootstraps immigrant is compelling, even if the government is able to prove that he was far too candid in talking to a reporter about intelligence in 2009 and then lied to F.B.I. agents about the episode.

Arriving with his family from Seoul and settling in the Bronx at the age of 8, Mr. Kim excelled academically, earning degrees from Georgetown and Harvard and a doctorate from Yale. He worked for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Defense Department and the State Department, focusing on North Korea?s weapons programs and briefing then-Vice President Dick Cheney, among others.

?I had the highest regard for him,? said Paula A. DeSutter, Mr. Kim?s boss when she was an assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration. ?He had native Korean language and he?d been doing this work forever.?

Mr. Kim rarely spoke with reporters and sometimes expressed alarm about leaks, colleagues say. But in March 2009, a State Department press officer asked Mr. Kim to speak about North Korea to a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, and the two began to talk and exchange e-mails. Mr. Kim sent some e-mails under an online pseudonym, ?Leo Grace.?

On June 11, 2009, Mr. Rosen reported that ?the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea,? that Pyongyang was likely to respond to a United Nations resolution condemning its nuclear and missile tests with more tests and other measures. The news was no surprise, but C.I.A. officials were furious that a top-secret analysis had been leaked almost instantly, according to a former government official. (A Fox News spokesman said Mr. Rosen declined to comment.)

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Acer unveils UK-bound Predator G5910 gaming desktop

Acer has announced the upcoming launch of its Predator G5910 desktop. Designed for gamers and enthusiasts who are unwilling or unable to build their own rig from scratch, Predator desktops generally combine mainstream and performance components with an aggressive chassis.

Although the Predator branding probably invokes nightmares of the abstract façade hood seen on the early G7 series (which doesn't even seem to be available through the company's US site anymore), recent G3 and G5 models have adopted a tamer, streamlined appearance.

Acer says the G5910's aesthetics evoke "power and performance." Key design elements include top-running grooves that serve as both eye candy and a cable routing system, and a claw-like mechanism over the optical drives that enhances the system's "combat-machine effect."

Internally, the G5910 will be offered with second-generation Intel Core processors, including the K-branded chips with enhanced overclocking functionality. Naturally, discrete graphics cards are on the menu, but we've only seen the Radeon HD 6800 and GeForce GTX 400 lines mentioned instead of a specific model. For whatever it's worth, the US Predator G5900 series comes with the last-gen Radeon HD 5850, so we'd hope to see something of equal power in the G5910.

You'll be able to select up to 16GB of RAM, while storage is tackled by up to four 2TB hard drives along with two front-accessible hot-swap bays -- a feature typically reserved for pricey enthusiast cases. There's also an optional Blu-ray drive, a multi-card reader, USB ports (no specific mention of USB 3.0), and tons of pre-installed multimedia software courtesy of the "Acer Arcade Deluxe" suite. The Predator G5910 will launch this July in the UK for a starting price of £599 (~$965).

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44311-acer-unveils-uk-bound-predator-g5910-gaming-desktop.html

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U.S. Pressing Its Crackdown Against Leaks

Mr. Kim?s case is next in line in the Obama administration?s unprecedented crackdown on leaks, after the crumbling last week of the case against a former National Security Agency official, Thomas A. Drake. Accused of giving secrets to The Baltimore Sun, Mr. Drake pleaded guilty to a minor charge and will serve no prison time and pay no fine.

The Justice Department shows no sign of rethinking its campaign to punish unauthorized disclosures to the news media, with five criminal cases so far under President Obama, compared with three under all previous presidents combined. This week, a grand jury in Virginia heard testimony in a continuing investigation of WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy group, a rare effort to prosecute those who publish secrets, rather than those who leak them.

The string of cases reflects a broad belief across two administrations and in both parties in Congress that leaks have gotten out of hand, endangering intelligence agents and exposing American spying methods.

But Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the fizzling of the Drake prosecution ?ought to be a signal to the government to rethink its approach to these cases.? He said the government had many options for punishing leaks: stripping an official?s security clearance, firing him or pursuing a misdemeanor charge. Instead, it ?has been leaping to the most extreme response, felony charges,? he said.

In particular, critics of the leak prosecutions question the appropriateness of using the Espionage Act, a World War I-era statute first applied to leaks in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971. They say it is misleading and unfair to lump the likes of Mr. Drake and Mr. Kim with traitors like Aldrich Ames or Robert P. Hanssen, who sold secrets to the Soviet Union.

Few have taken a tougher public line against leaks than Gabriel Schoenfeld, whose 2010 book ?Necessary Secrets? argues that the news media are far too cavalier about publishing classified information. But he, too, called the espionage label unfortunate.

?You?re accusing someone who?s doing something irresponsible and wrong,? said Mr. Schoenfeld, of the Hudson Institute in Washington. ?But he might be a well-intentioned civil servant and he?s not trying to betray his country.?

Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University, said the best option would be a new statute tailored to fit leaks to the media, perhaps allowing defendants to argue that information disclosed should never have been classified in the first place. But he said no such law could pass in the current climate.

The problems of perception that plagued the government?s pursuit of Mr. Drake, who claimed to be a whistle-blower exposing a costly National Security Agency boondoggle, may crop up again with Mr. Kim. His personal story as a brainy, up-by-the-bootstraps immigrant is compelling, even if the government is able to prove that he was far too candid in talking to a reporter about intelligence in 2009 and then lied to F.B.I. agents about the episode.

Arriving with his family from Seoul and settling in the Bronx at the age of 8, Mr. Kim excelled academically, earning degrees from Georgetown and Harvard and a doctorate from Yale. He worked for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Defense Department and the State Department, focusing on North Korea?s weapons programs and briefing then-Vice President Dick Cheney, among others.

?I had the highest regard for him,? said Paula A. DeSutter, Mr. Kim?s boss when she was an assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration. ?He had native Korean language and he?d been doing this work forever.?

Mr. Kim rarely spoke with reporters and sometimes expressed alarm about leaks, colleagues say. But in March 2009, a State Department press officer asked Mr. Kim to speak about North Korea to a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, and the two began to talk and exchange e-mails. Mr. Kim sent some e-mails under an online pseudonym, ?Leo Grace.?

On June 11, 2009, Mr. Rosen reported that ?the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea,? that Pyongyang was likely to respond to a United Nations resolution condemning its nuclear and missile tests with more tests and other measures. The news was no surprise, but C.I.A. officials were furious that a top-secret analysis had been leaked almost instantly, according to a former government official. (A Fox News spokesman said Mr. Rosen declined to comment.)

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Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels

The biofuels industry is being blamed for record food prices and high price volatility. Earlier this month a report from the World Trade Organization and other international agencies recommended that governments cut support for biofuels to ease that volatility. On the heels of that report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its corn forecast; it suggested that corn supplies will be very tight this year because bad weather has limited planting and because the share of corn going to ethanol is increasing. After the report, corn prices shot to record highs, reaching $8 a bushel. Then on Friday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report predicting that food prices will remain high for the next decade.

Many experts say the unprecedented prices are at least partially driven by government subsidies and mandates that have led to fourfold increases in production of ethanol biofuel and tenfold increases in production of biodiesel between 2000 and 2009 worldwide. In the United States, multiple bills and amendments have been introduced to scale back subsidies as a way of trimming the federal budget, and on Thursday the Senate voted to end tax credits for ethanol that amounted to nearly $6 billion. (The program won't be killed unless the House passes its own law ending it.)

The WTO report cited many reasons for the high prices and volatility, including changes in demand for food, bad weather, low stock, and the recent high cost of oil. Oil prices directly affect the production costs of food by raising the price of tractor fuel and fertilizers. If oil is expensive enough, it can also increase demand for biofuels, which drives up the price of crops such as corn and sugarcane.

The WTO report also cited government biofuel mandates as a significant problem. Not only do these requirements drive up demand for crops such as corn, increasing prices, but they limit the ability of markets to respond to price changes, increasing volatility. "We've lost a lot of our ability for our agricultural system to be buffered from price shocks from weather and other things that affect production," says Jason Hill, a professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering at the University of Minnesota.

Worldwide, 8 percent of corn produced is used for biofuels. In the United States, according to the new USDA report, 35 percent of corn in the growing season ending in 2010 went to the production of biofuels; this growing season it is predicted to be 37 percent; it is expected to be 38 percent in 2012.

Representatives for the ethanol industry say that the share of corn used for ethanol is typically overstated. After processing in an ethanol plant, one-third of the corn used, by weight, can still be used as feed, decreasing the amount of feed that ethanol displaces, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organization. The Renewable Fuels Association argues that other factors, such as the price of oil, have a far greater impact than ethanol production on the price of food.

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The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

The Old Republic: All I Want is the Cutscenes

Posted on 13th Jun 2011 at 07:29 by Clive Webster with 22 comments

The latest trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been released and it?s freaking awesome. This follows previous cut-scene and video releases that have been similarly impressive, engaging and enjoyable. However, with the game looking a bit duff, I?m wondering if Electronic Arts, Bioware and LucasArts could be persuaded into releasing a cut-scene-only version? I?d happily pay to watch a short film made from them.



If you?re not sure what I?m on about, have a look at the Star Wars: The Old Republic intro cinematic (watch it in fullscreen mode) above, then the other trailers (not the gameplay videos) and come back.

See what I mean? They?re much more reminiscent of the original trilogy than the rubbish prequel films. There?s a focus on people that you readily recognise and empathise with overcoming obstacles; the classic setup for injecting drama and interest into a scene or story. Furthermore, there?s absolutely no mention of trade disputes, midi-sodding-chlorians or annoying lizard-rabbits.

In fact, some of the intros' cinematic characters are really close to those of Episodes IV to VI. There?s a dependable droid that happily receives rushed instructions, and it?s on a ship with dingy, circular corridors and laser-cannon pods. Then there?s the pilot of this ship ? he?s instantly introduced as a likeable yet roguish smuggler, and his attire hardly suggests otherwise. He even seems to steal Han?s dialogue: his is the fastest ship in the fleet, even though it might not look like much. All we need is a co-pilot with a shaving phobia and we?re done.

But who cares if Bioware is borrowing heavily from the source material to produce something this fun? Arguably, the mistake that George Lucas made with his prequels was refusing to follow his own conventions. We wanted a bit more of the same please, not some confused reinterpretation of the Universe we?d spent the last however many years discussing in detail.

So when the ?trader? ship blasts through the Imperial turbo laser, rushes through its guts, and then hits its hyperdrive, we?re cheering on the crew. When the Jedi master Force-pulls the second lightsaber to him, we?re given a moment to consider the great duel that?s about to ensue.

Even the cutting and pacing between the personal fight between Jedi and Sith and the action on the not-Millenium Falcon is so reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back that it can?t fail to make Star Wars fans happy. The trailer even conveys emotion brilliantly ? Malcus exudes rage as he stalks towards the Jedi master and bats away his defence, while you can read the thoughts of his Padawan perfectly well after his death.

So please, can we just have the cinematics to watch, and leave the MMO to WoW deserters? Please?

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Just in time for the election, President Obama to begin Tweeting personally.

The Obama campaign is about to get a lot more aggressive in its use of Facebook and Twitter to help bolster the incumbent candidate?s efforts for reelection. One of the most interesting changes to the way that the staff handles the social media updates is that President Barack Obama will begin tweeting (on occasion) from the @BarackObama account personally.

The announcement was made in a blog post on the Barack Obama 2012 campaign site.

Obama for America staff will now be managing both accounts, posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and everywhere in between. You?ll be hearing from President Obama regularly, too; on Twitter, tweets from the President will be signed ?-BO.?

In addition to the more frequent Twitter updates, the staff will also be more frequently updating the President?s Facebook page. The staff say that they are going to be using the social networks not only to report on what the President is doing, but also to ask constituents for their feedback and ideas. The staff says that they may even be retweeting your messages to the Presidential twitter account as well.

President Obama has widely been credited as a technologically savvy candidate who was elected in part because of his aggressive stance towards using the internet and technology to reach voters.

Twitter and Facebook are two of the largest ways that people share opinions online and it would be foolish for any future candidate to ignore these platforms.

Do you think that every candidate from this point on will have to make an effort to communicate via social networks, or is it still just for the tech savvy? What about President Obama, do you think that using Twitter and Facebook to communicate directly with voters is a valuable use of his time?

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2011/06/18/president-obama-to-start-tweeting-personally-not-just-his-pr-people-the-man-himself/

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Acer unveils UK-bound Predator G5910 gaming desktop

Acer has announced the upcoming launch of its Predator G5910 desktop. Designed for gamers and enthusiasts who are unwilling or unable to build their own rig from scratch, Predator desktops generally combine mainstream and performance components with an aggressive chassis.

Although the Predator branding probably invokes nightmares of the abstract façade hood seen on the early G7 series (which doesn't even seem to be available through the company's US site anymore), recent G3 and G5 models have adopted a tamer, streamlined appearance.

Acer says the G5910's aesthetics evoke "power and performance." Key design elements include top-running grooves that serve as both eye candy and a cable routing system, and a claw-like mechanism over the optical drives that enhances the system's "combat-machine effect."

Internally, the G5910 will be offered with second-generation Intel Core processors, including the K-branded chips with enhanced overclocking functionality. Naturally, discrete graphics cards are on the menu, but we've only seen the Radeon HD 6800 and GeForce GTX 400 lines mentioned instead of a specific model. For whatever it's worth, the US Predator G5900 series comes with the last-gen Radeon HD 5850, so we'd hope to see something of equal power in the G5910.

You'll be able to select up to 16GB of RAM, while storage is tackled by up to four 2TB hard drives along with two front-accessible hot-swap bays -- a feature typically reserved for pricey enthusiast cases. There's also an optional Blu-ray drive, a multi-card reader, USB ports (no specific mention of USB 3.0), and tons of pre-installed multimedia software courtesy of the "Acer Arcade Deluxe" suite. The Predator G5910 will launch this July in the UK for a starting price of £599 (~$965).

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44311-acer-unveils-uk-bound-predator-g5910-gaming-desktop.html

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Crypto-currency Security under Scrutiny

Reports that $500,000 worth of Bitcoin currency was stolen from one user's computer this week has highlighted the poor security of the digital cash and the systems available for managing it. For the currency to gain large-scale popularity, it may need to create or work with financial institutions?making Bitcoin less distinct from the conventional currencies some users hope to supplant.

To use Bitcoin, a person downloads the official software client, which connects over the Internet to a global network of other copies of the program. Together, these implement the mathematical scheme that ensures that bitcoins can be transferred, created, and verified without any need for a central authority such as a bank (read TR's explainer on how Bitcoin works).

That official client stores the security needed to use a stash of bitcoins with minimal security, in an unprotected file known as wallet.dat. In a forum post this week, a bitcoin user whose screen name was "allinvain" claimed that a remote attacker gained access to his or her wallet file and stole over 25,000 bitcoins. The value of a single bitcoin at the time of writing (just over $19) makes the alleged heist worth nearly $500,000, although in practice converting such a large number of bitcoins at once would be tricky. It is impossible for the alleged victim to know who stole the money because the cryptographic architecture of Bitcoin is designed to preserve the anonymity of people transferring the currency. Today the security company Symantec reported it had caught a piece of malicious software that infects computers over the Internet and attempts to steal wallet files.

The vulnerability highlighted by the controversy is very real, says Jeff Garzik, one of the lead developers of the official Bitcoin client and one of a few individuals who are the closest thing the currency has to official spokespeople. Today, anyone able to access the machines of Bitcoin users, either directly or remotely?via malicious software?can grab their wallet files, he acknowledges.

An upgraded version of the client, which will encrypt a person's wallet and ask for a password each time it is accessed, will be released in "just a week or two," says Garzik.

Yet users will still essentially be maintaining their own bank vaults on their computers. "[Wallet encryption] does nothing against many modern malware techniques, such as keystroke logging," says Garzik. He advises Bitcoin users to keep encrypted backups of their wallet files away from the Internet, for example on a USB stick, since the file is needed only when sending money to others.

This may be an option for technically minded early adopters. But if the currency is to be used more widely, a new generation of simple and secure tools for using bitcoins is needed, says Amir Taaki, who leads a U.K.-based consultancy of software developers working on a range of technologies for use with Bitcoin, which operates the exchange site Britcoin.

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Madison, Alabama: Little Consensus on the Candidates

?It?s absolutely the most important election we?ve ever faced, from top to bottom,? said Janet Donoghue, 74, a nurse and health educator who identifies herself as a conservative Republican.

Every third Wednesday, Mrs. Donoghue joins a few dozen other women for the group?s monthly meeting. Newly minted Tea Party members sit next to veterans of regional and national political conventions. And they agree on the issues one might imagine. The state?s teachers? union must be stopped. So should same-sex marriage. Government needs to be more transparent.

They cheer the fact that for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans last fall took control of the Alabama Legislature. Every major office, save one seat in Congress, is now Republican.

But when it comes to who should next run the country, there was no consensus among the women in the Holiday Inn banquet room.

For Denise Book, 53, a self-identified right-wing conservative, Herman Cain is the best man for the job.

?He?s upfront, he?s honest and he?s clean,? she said. By which, Mrs. Book explained, he has no skeletons in his closet ? as opposed to, say, Newt Gingrich.

?I?m sorry,? she said, ?but a lot of women aren?t going to vote for him because he?s cheated on spouse after spouse after spouse.?

Mitt Romney had some support, but it was not overwhelming. He?s a good businessman, sure. And he has experience. But some did not like his position that people might have something to do with climate change. Others were not happy with what they said was a failed health care plan in Massachusetts.

And everyone seemed to think he had a certain preprogrammed stiffness to him and the whiff of ordination from top Republican leaders.

?John McCain was the consensus, kind of like Bob Dole,? said Liz Cureo, 58. ?And look where that got us.?

Ms. Cureo is known as something of a supervolunteer around Madison. She likes Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress from Minnesota with deep Tea Party support.

?She?s got more experience than Obama has,? she said. ?Has Obama had 23 foster children??

Others imagined a Romney-Bachmann ticket, and wanted to know more about Tim Pawlenty. Is he conservative enough? Does he have enough international experience?

They ticked through other names. Former Senator Rick Santorum? Like him, but perhaps not broad enough in his appeal. Ron Paul? Shouldn?t even be running. On the other hand, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, absolutely should.

And what of Sarah Palin? Few seemed to think she would really run, but someone suggested she would be the perfect secretary of the interior.

The Republican Women of Madison did agree, however, on the core issues: the economy and the deficit.

Madison County, home to about 330,000 people near the Tennessee border, has three women Republican clubs. (There was a turf war. They don?t like to talk much about it.)

It?s a place where cotton farms share a road with the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, home of the most advanced genomics-based research in the world.

So the analysis here was smart and blunt. The next president needs to offer the nation some tough love about government spending before it is too late. That, in turn, will create a robust economy.

?You can?t say it is just the wars or just the economy or just the debt,? said Alicia Liburdi, 53, who offers ?give me Liburdi or give me death? as a pronunciation guide. ?You have to start with what the federal government is supposed to do and cut out everything else.?

But it was way too early, the women agreed, to know which candidate might be the one to do that.

?It?s like taking a turkey out of the oven too soon,? Mrs. Liburdi said. ?Who wants to eat raw turkey? KIM SEVERSON

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Weiner Resigns in Chaotic Final Scene

Mr. Weiner made the decision after long and emotional discussions with his political advisers and his wife, Huma Abedin, whom friends described as devastated by the behavior of her husband of 11 months, and worried about the couple?s financial future.

In a chaotic four-minute news conference at a senior center in his district, Mr. Weiner, 46, strained to be heard as a small group of hecklers hollered vulgar questions at him and called him a ?pervert? while puzzled elderly constituents looked on.

?I am here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused,? Mr. Weiner said.

A seven-term Democrat, Mr. Weiner had hoped his declaration last weekend that he would seek mental health treatment and take a temporary leave from Congress would ease the pressure from Democratic leaders for him to step down. But their demands only grew louder as revelations about his conduct continued.

?I am announcing my resignation from Congress, so my colleagues can get back to work, my neighbors can choose a new representative and most important so that my wife and I can continue to heal from the damage I have caused,? Mr. Weiner said at the news conference.

Ms. Abedin was with Mr. Weiner at his Queens apartment as he prepared to make his statement, but did not appear at his side at the event.

The announcement brought swift relief to his Democratic colleagues, who had become increasingly uneasy as details emerged about Mr. Weiner?s online contacts with women ? including his sending of explicit photos of himself to them over Facebook and Twitter. Democratic leaders had prepared to hold a meeting on Thursday to determine whether they should strip Mr. Weiner of his committee assignments, which would have severely impaired his effectiveness.

Mr. Weiner reached his decision late Wednesday, and seemed at peace with it, after days of appearing frazzled and torn, a person who spoke to him said. He began telling his most trusted advisers on Wednesday night, then held a conference call with his entire staff, informing them that it no longer seemed fair to his constituents and his colleagues for him to remain in office.

At about 8:45 p.m., he called Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who was attending a White House picnic on the South Lawn, alongside hundreds of lawmakers enjoying hamburgers and patriotic music from the United States Navy Band.

Mr. Israel, after hearing the news from Mr. Weiner, sought out Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, in the crowd and handed his cellphone to her so Mr. Weiner could tell her his plans himself.

Ms. Pelosi had taken an aggressive posture with regard to Mr. Weiner, including the rare step on Saturday of calling for him to leave the House. On Thursday morning, she released a statement saying he had ?made the right judgment in resigning.?

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo must now call a special election to fill the vacancy created by Mr. Weiner?s departure. But the Ninth Congressional District, which covers Queens neighborhoods like Forest Hills and Howard Beach as well as Brooklyn sections like Midwood and Mill Basin, is a likely target for elimination as state lawmakers redraw district lines for 2012.

The scandal that upended Mr. Weiner?s career erupted late last month after a photograph of the congressman wearing tight-fitting underpants was sent to a college student in Washington State. Mr. Weiner initially denied having anything to do with it, saying his Twitter account had been hacked. But during an emotional news conference on June 6, he admitted that he had lied, and that he had in fact sent the image and had had inappropriate online exchanges with at least six other women.

As the story engulfed him, Mr. Weiner spoke regularly with advisers and Ms. Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was traveling on a 10-day trip to North Africa and the Middle East.

The decision to step down was ultimately Mr. Weiner?s, but Ms. Abedin supported it, convinced that the embarrassing disclosures would not stop until he left office, according to friends who have spoken to her.

Michael Barbaro, Matt Flegenheimer and Ashley Parker contributed reporting.

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