Afghanistan: President Obama Announces Plan to Drought-Stricken California --- Amid one of the driest years in the state's recorded history, President Barack Obama visited California's agricultural heartland Friday to meet with community leaders, farmers and others and announce initiatives to help the drought-stricken Central Valley. -- Obama told reporters in the rural town of Firebaugh, where he met with community leaders, that he wasn't about to wade into California water politics. Yet the president gently warned California's leaders to find common ground rather than thinking of water as a "zero-sum game." -- "We're going to have to figure out how to play a different game," Obama said. "If the politics are structured in such a way where everybody is fighting each other and trying to get as much as they can, my suspicion is that we're not going to make much progress." -- Obama met with farmers, a group that has accused the federal government of putting protections for rivers and fish above their crops and livelihoods, and who criticized the Commander in Chief saying financial assistance does not get to the heart of the state's long-term water problems. -- The president proposed the following after arriving Friday afternoon: - •$100 million in livestock-disaster assistance for California ranchers. -- •$60 million for food banks to help families hurt financially by the drought. -- •$5 million for conservation assistance in the hardest-hit drought areas. -- •$5 million for watershed protection. -- •$3 million in emergency grants for rural communities with water shortages.