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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Presidential hopeful Herman Cain's quirky "smoking ad" may have mystified many Americans, but according to a new Reuters/Ipsos online poll, it has drawn a sharp line between Republicans who identify with the Tea Party and those who don't.
The ad, which shows Cain's chief of staff Mark Block puffing on a cigarette for no apparent reason, created enormous Internet buzz this week.
Six in 10 of those who strongly identify with the conservative Tea Party movement said they loved or liked the ad.
An almost equal percentage of people who self-identified as mainstream Republicans either disliked or hated it.
Block is shown on the video giving Cain, a surprise Republican nomination front-runner, a testimonial before taking a draw from a cigarette. The image shifts to the candidate who slowly breaks into a smile as his campaign song blares.
"He's a likable candidate, particularly for those strong Tea Partiers who identify around values of small government and an anti-Washington sentiment. Cain seems to be tapping into that very effectively," said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
Tea Party supporters form a central part of the Republican voting base and could help determine who the party's 2012 presidential nominee will be, with voting to start in early January.
"STUPID"
Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather's Pizza, has shot to the top of some Republican polls in recent weeks in the race to decide who will challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in next year's election.
About a third of people surveyed loved or liked Cain's video, a third hated or disliked it, and another third was neutral.
Some commentators have speculated that Cain's campaign put a smoker in the ad as an anti-political correctness message that would appeal to conservatives.
Even if that were the intention, most Tea Party Republicans did not take the bait.
"I do think the Tea Party support for this ad is not because of the smoking but because of their support for Cain," said Clark.
The smoking did stick in viewers' minds, and seemed to obscure the campaign message of Cain as a viable candidate.
The one word that came to people's minds most when asked about the smoking segment was "stupid."
Fifty percent of those polled felt what stood out for them most was the narrator smoking a cigarette, and more than a quarter thought the ad communicated to them that Cain endorses smoking.
"This really distracted from the message in a lot of ways," said Clark.
People who have never been smokers noticed the cigarette more than those who smoke or who have smoked. About one in five of current smokers felt that it communicated that 'Herman Cain endorses smoking,' but this figure rose to a third among people who have never smoked.
"If you've never smoked a cigarette you're more likely to think Cain endorses smoking," said Clark.
The poll surveyed 554 registered Republicans, of whom 374 answered questions about the video.
Because it was an online poll, typical margins of error do not apply. Despite that, various recognized methods were used to select as representative a sample as possible and weigh the results. If this were a traditional random survey, it would have a margin of error of between plus 4.4 percent and plus 5.1 percent. This figure varies because some participants dropped out of the video portion of the survey.
RIM's ailing PlayBook has seen its fair share of price cuts at your local big box retailers, but here's a deal just for all you businessfolk out there. From now until the end of the 2011, RIM is running a buy-two-get-one-free deal on their tablets through their network of authorized resellers.
Sometimes I think the euro zone debt crisis is like watching a remake of the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day, with the screenplay written by Financial Times correspondents. I wake up and read the news coming from Europe: worries mount about a Greek default, contagion spreads across the continent, the euro zone leaders are lost in befuddled bickering, and then a new pact to fix the problems emerges, hailed as historic. Then I get up the next day to find we're in exactly the same place we were before, with the cycle just repeating itself. Again and again. The only difference is that Groundhog Day made me laugh. The euro crisis version makes me want to cry.
So today, again, we find ourselves with yet another supposedly historic agreement, the one that will finally, really, once-and-for-all put an end the debt crisis, the most dangerous threat to global financial stability today. But is this the big one? Or will I wake up tomorrow listening to the same euro zone version of "I Got You Babe," sung by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel? (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)
This latest pact, reached after all-night, hard-fought negotiations Thursday morning, is still short on details and has a long way to go before it can be called actual policy. But looking at the general outlines, I see some good aspects, some bad, and some truly ugly.
First, the good. The euro zone is finally getting real. Its leaders had been in denial that far greater and more comprehensive measures were necessary to quell the crisis, but this agreement shows they're waking up to reality. Everyone knew Europe's banks needed to be repaired; now, finally, we have a plan to recapitalize them. Everyone knew Greece needed a more drastic debt restructuring; now we have a bigger bailout (130 billion euros, or $180 billion) with a bigger reduction of debt. Everyone knew the euro zone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF, was too small to fight contagion; now we have a deal to increase the fund's capabilities by using it to guarantee private bondholders against losses on sovereign debt purchases. These are all important ? in fact, crucial ? steps to tackling the debt crisis, and Europe's leaders should get kudos for taking them. (Read: "Euro Zone Strikes a Deal With Lots of Promise But Few Details")
But then there's the bad: As has been the custom, the plan is ultimately no more than a politically determined collection of half-measures. With voters at home turning more and more sour on euro bailouts, the zone's leadership has attempted to tackle the crisis with hardly any new money being put on the table. And, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The bank recapitalization plan calls for banks to raise 106 billion euros ($150 billion) in fresh capital. But that's about half what private estimates say is necessary, so it's unlikely to be a final cure for Europe's banking woes. Nor is it clear what role European governments will play in providing that capital. On the expansion of the EFSF, the deal is aimed at giving the fund more firepower without adding any more ammunition. The actual size of the fund will remain the same; after the Greek bailout, no one is sure how much may actually be left. And as to that second bailout, Greece's situation will improve due to the 50% haircut being imposed on private bondholders. (Yes, imposed. Let's not kid ourselves that this debt restructuring is "voluntary." No one "voluntarily" loses half their money.) But Greece will still be stuck with a dangerously high debt burden. The new deal will lower its government debt to GDP ratio to a still-lofty 120% ? by the end of the decade. And even that estimate is based on unrealistic assumptions ? that Greece can close its budget gap with its economy in free fall, or raise tens of billions in a privatization program that has yet to get off the ground. So my guess is that this deal resolves none of the major issues. The Greek debt crisis will continue; the banking crisis will continue; and Europe still hasn't put its money where its rhetoric is.
And now the ugly. The deal includes a proposal to tap China and other cash-rich emerging markets to participate in bolstering the EFSF, possibly through the IMF. French President Sarkozy is expected to phone Chinese President Hu Jintao to woo him into the scheme. This whole idea is truly pathetic. If I were Hu, I'd be insulted. The euro zone leaders are unwilling to spend more to solve their own debt crisis, so they think the Chinese are gullible enough to put in their savings? I don't think so. If Sarkozy called you up and asked for your paycheck to bailout Italy, would you give it to him? China is not a global ATM machine, or a charitable organization. In the end, China will invest its money as any other financier would ? in ways that increase its return and preserve its wealth. Perhaps the Chinese can be bribed into cooperating ? a notion has been floating about that Europe would promise Beijing more voting rights at the IMF. But even if China throws Europe a bone to boost its political influence in the region (or to gloat that the Europeans have come begging), the euro zone needs hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps even trillions. They're not getting that from China. (See why it's make-up or break-up time for the euro zone.)
So in the end, this historic agreement will likely get dumped in the dustbin of history like all of the other historic agreements. So the same cycle will repeat itself again. We'll probably be talking about a new grand agreement to halt the debt crisis by early next year. I guess it could be worse. I could be the groundhog.
Tourists carry their partners to avoid floodwaters at the entrance of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand on Friday Oct. 28, 2011. The Chao Phraya river coursing through the capital swelled to record highs Friday, briefly flooding riverside buildings and an ornate royal complex at high tide amid fears that flood defenses could break and swamp the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Tourists carry their partners to avoid floodwaters at the entrance of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand on Friday Oct. 28, 2011. The Chao Phraya river coursing through the capital swelled to record highs Friday, briefly flooding riverside buildings and an ornate royal complex at high tide amid fears that flood defenses could break and swamp the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Motorcyclists move past a flooded street near the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand on Friday Oct. 28, 2011. The main river coursing through Thailand's capital swelled to record highs Friday, briefly flooding riverside buildings and an ornate royal complex at high tide amid fears that flood defenses could break and swamp the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Reflection of Grand Palace is seen on floodwaters as Thai residents walk through a partially flooded street near Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
Reflection of Grand Palace is seen on floodwaters as Thai residents walk through a partially flooded street near Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
A Thai couple push a cart passing by the empty shelf inside a super market due to the food suppliers distributor center has affected by flooding in Bangkok , Thailand, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Defenses shielding the center of Thailand's capital from the worst floods in nearly 60 years mostly held at critical peak tides Saturday, but areas along the city's outskirts remained submerged along with much of the countryside (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
BANGKOK (AP) ? On one side of Bangkok, you'll find the victims of Thailand's worst flooding in half a century. They float down trash-strewn waterways, paddling washtubs with wicker brooms over submerged neighborhoods.
Just a few miles (kilometers) away, you'll find something else entirely: well-heeled shoppers perusing bustling malls decorated with newly hung Halloween decorations, couples sipping espresso in the air-conditioned comfort of ultrachic cafes.
Although catastrophic flooding has devastated a third of this Southeast Asian nation and submerged some of the capital's northernmost districts, the reality for the majority of this sprawling metropolis of 9 million people is that life goes on.
The desperate images of disaster contrast sharply with scenes of total normality ? from night-owls drinking cocktails in red light districts to tourists enjoying relaxing foot massages in faux-leather chairs downtown.
An exodus of thousands of Bangkok residents to nearby resorts and a government-ordered five-day holiday have left the notoriously congested city unusually easy to maneuver by taxi and three-wheeled tuk-tuk.
"It's better, in a way," Nicole Attwater of Sydney said Sunday, adding that she was happy to brave some flooding to see the Grand Palace, the gold-studded former seat of the Thai monarchy, with far lighter crowds than normal on a sunny morning.
"It's a good time to come, because it's quiet," she said.
Most of Bangkok is dry, with little to indicate that anything is wrong ? except for the ominous walls of sandbags stacked around hotels and homes, and the apocalyptic predictions of everyone from expatriate bloggers to some members of the Thai government.
Yet, the threat of floodwaters sweeping through the city is still very real. Nationwide, 381 people have died over the last three months, and 110,000 more have been displaced ? 10,000 of them in Bangkok, according to government figures. The catastrophe has put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and cost billions of dollars in damage ? a bill that grows larger by the day.
Among items struck from tourists' agendas: shopping for crafts at the popular Chatuchak weekend market and dinner cruises down the city's Chao Phraya river ? all canceled due to the high waters. The river swelled to a record high level early Sunday, spilling into some neighborhoods and sparking fears it would flood the inner city.
Fears over worse-case scenarios and travel warnings issued by foreign governments have slashed visitors by half at sites like the Grand Palace and the giant gold-plated Reclining Buddha inside Bangkok's Wat Pho temple complex.
But the biggest problem by far, said tour guide Keerati Atui, is the media, which he said has given the impression that most of Bangkok is under water.
"Look around," he said, gesturing to lines of tourists streaming into the white-walled palace. "It's dry. Everything here is normal."
River water has lapped at the palace gates and even crept inside, but much of it has welled up through drains in the riverside neighborhood. One picture posted this week on Twitter showed a cameraman filming a television news anchor on a street beside the palace in ankle-high water. On both sides of the pair, the street was bone dry.
Heavy monsoon rains have pummeled a large swath of Asia since July. As floodwaters crept across Thailand, they first drowned neighboring provinces, then districts on the northern outskirts of Bangkok. Last week, advancing water forced the city's Don Muang airport, which is used mainly for domestic flights, to shut down. However, the international Suwarnabhumi airport remains open, and the city's skytrain and subway lines were functioning normally.
Nobody knows how far the water will go, but so far Bangkok's defenses have mostly held.
Statements from government leaders have alternated from assurances the capital would be spared to dire warnings that nowhere is safe.
Panicked Bangkokians have stripped supermarkets and convenience stores of bottled water and dried noodle supplies in recent weeks as a result, but there is still plenty to drink. Both those items can be still found in street-side shops along the city's temple-dotted riverside, where the mineral water is ice cold and the noodle soup is spicy and sprinkled with fish balls.
"A lot of people are overreacting, they've been hoarding too much stuff," said Kwanpimol Pleegluay, a 48-year-old housewife. "They watch the news and see people in other flooded provinces and think that's going to happen to them here."
Kwanpimol was taking a casual stroll along the Chao Phraya with her husband over the weekend ? to see how high the river swelled. After peering into the water, she took his photo and chose one word to describe the scene: "Beautiful," she said.
On the other side of the Chao Phraya, where the 200-year-old pagoda of the city's famed Temple of the Dawn rises from the banks, 42-year-old monk Phramaha Abhin said he was not worried.
"The Lord Buddha taught us not to be negligent, we must always prepare," said Phramaha, referring to newly laid protective layer of sandbags outside the temple, where he lives. "But he also taught us not to foolishly fear that which hasn't happened yet."
Many people in Bangkok and neighboring provinces see the flooding as something that should be accepted, not something to be angry about.
In Bangkok's heavily flooded Thonburi district, a navy team evacuated a stranded pregnant woman whose water broke Sunday. Aorasa Wisetkoop looked anxious, but remained calm and held tightly onto her belly, while a rescue team lifted her into a boat.
"We had to get her to hospital," rescuer Nitipat Mongolpradit said.
But along with every tragic and urgent incident in the inundation, there were images of Thais splashing in the floodwaters for fun.
When the river began flowing like a waterfall over a wall into Chantana Srisuwan's wooden-shack kitchen, the 58-year-old pulled out a stack of aluminum pans, soaped them up and began washing them. "Why bother being troubled?" she asked.
"If we think we shouldn't get wet, we'll never have peace of mind," she said, as a neighbor complained he could not sleep because his bed was submerged beneath encroaching waves. "If there's no water, great. But if there is, we have to learn to live with it."
___
Associated Press writers Vee Intarakratug, Margie Mason and Ian Mader in Bangkok contributed to this report.
The Wall Street Journal expects the next generation of YouTube to begin next week with Channels, a handful of hubs focused around a particular theme that feature hours of original, studio-produced programming. More »
TUNIS (Reuters) ? Rachid Ghannouchi, the moderate Islamist leader whose party will dominate Tunisia's new coalition government, said on Friday he would pursue a liberal economic policy which included making the dinar currency convertible.
Convertibility, a reform which should encourage foreign investment, was a commitment of the previous Tunisian administration, forced out in a revolution earlier this year that gave birth to the "Arab Spring" uprisings.
Ghannouchi's moderate Ennahda party is the first Islamist group to win power since the Hamas faction won a 2006 election in the Palestinian Territories. Ennahda has moved to calm nerves by conveying a message of business-friendly continuity.
"We are in favor of the convertibility of the Tunisian dinar," Ghannouchi told Reuters in an interview. Asked about a timetable for this, he said: "Our experts are going to give clarifications on that."
"We have a liberal economic program which encourages investment and initial public offerings (IPOs). We are committed to providing a climate which is far from corruption and which allows the interests of investors to be protected," he said.
The administration of ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was praised by institutions like the International Monetary Fund for its liberal economic policy.
Its plans for an IPO of state telephone operator Tunisie Telecom were dropped by the caretaker government which took over after the revolution, under pressure from trade unions.
Ennahda on Thursday was declared winner of an election for a new assembly which will sit for one year. Its task is to rewrite the constitution, form an interim government and set new elections, probably for early 2013.
TRUSTED MINISTERS
Ghannouchi's party fell just short of a majority in the assembly, so it will broker a coalition with two secularist parties in the assembly.
The Ennahda leader spoke to Reuters in a Tunis wedding banquet venue called "Top Happiness", where shortly before he had given his first news conference after the official election results were announced.
Wearing his trademark suit and open-necked shirt, the soft-spoken Islamic scholar -- who spent 22 years in exile in Britain -- was relaxed and smiling.
Asked about the formation of a new government, he said: "The change will not be total. The direction will be toward making certain changes. These decisions will be taken after discussions with our partners."
"But what we think is that we have trust in several ministers who are honest and who have carried out their duties well in the strategic sectors."
"We do not see any point in moving them but all this depends on our discussions with our partners," Ghannouchi said.
The majority coalition in the assembly will appoint a new president, a largely ceremonial post which is held at the moment by Fouad Mebazaa, the only holdover from the Ben Ali administration still in a senior post.
Ghannouchi said: "We have no candidate for the presidency of the republic. We support one of our partners like Mustafa Ben Jaafar or Moncef Marzouki and it could also be an independent personality."
Marzouki is leader of the second-placed Congress for the Republic, while Ben Jaafar heads the Ettakatol party, which came third in the election. Both parties are likely to join Ennahda in a coalition.
A senior Ennahda official this week said it was possible that Beji Caid Sebsi, the secularist technocrat who is now interim prime minister, might be nominated as president.
The Islamists' election victory was overshadowed by violence in Sidi Bouzid, the provincial town where vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself 11 months ago in an act of protest that launched Tunisia's revolution.
Supporters of the Popular List party, which has a strong following in Sidi Bouzid, burned down buildings after the independent election commission disqualified the party's candidates in several regions.
Ghannouchi said he suspected the hand of people linked to Ben Ali's now-banned ruling party, the RCD.
"It was this group which is behind everything that happened in Sidi Bouzid," he told Reuters.
"It's possible too that there were some parties of extreme ideologies which are behind what happened ... Or maybe, those who did not succeed in the election," he said.
(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Roche)
OAKLAND, Calif (Reuters) ? Over 1,000 activists protesting economic inequality and corporate greed massed on Wednesday night in a downtown Oakland plaza from which they had been evicted a day earlier in clashes with police that left 85 people arrested and one critically hurt.
The severe injury of Scott Olsen, 24, a former U.S. Marine who friends said served two tours of duty in Iraq, became a rallying cry among Occupy Wall Street supporters in Oakland and elsewhere as organizers took to Twitter and other social media urging protesters back into the streets.
In Portland, Oregon, a crowd estimated to number at least 1,000 joined in a march organized by the AFL-CIO labor federation in support of the anti-Wall Street movement. And Twitter buzz suggested the turnout may have gotten a boost from outrage generated by news of the injured Oakland veteran.
Supporters in New York voted on Wednesday to send $20,000 and 100 tents to their peers in Oakland, according to a Twitter message from a protester identified as J.A. Myerson and re-tweeted by the Occupy Wall Street group.
The liberal activist group MoveOn.org said it was creating a "rapid response ad" from video footage of the "brutal crackdown" Tuesday night in which Olsen was hurt.
Rally organizers said Olsen was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired by police at protesters trying to move back into a downtown plaza where a makeshift encampment had been forcibly removed earlier.
A spokesman for Highland General Hospital in Oakland confirmed Olsen was in critical condition from injuries sustained in the protest but could not say how he was hurt.
INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED
Acting Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan told a news conference his department was investigating the injury to Olsen as a "level one" incident, the highest priority for an internal police inquiry.
He declined to confirm whether Olsen was struck with a projectile fired by law enforcement but said Oakland police did launch tear gas and so-called "bean bag" munitions on Tuesday when demonstrators defied orders to disperse.
Jordan, acknowledging his department has received complaints of excessive force during the protests, said his officers were under orders to accommodate peaceful rallies and marches. But he added that "no camping will be allowed overnight" on public property.
The altercations erupted on Tuesday when about 1,000 activists sought to retake an outdoor plaza adjacent to City Hall that police had cleared earlier that day. Police arrested 85 people.
On Wednesday night, a crowd of at least 1,000 demonstrators were allowed back into the square. Some immediately ripped down a fence erected to close off a grassy area after authorities had removed tents and sprayed disinfectant chemicals.
But the crowd was otherwise peaceful and activists met to discuss strategy, including a proposal to call for a general citywide "strike" next week. Except for a helicopter hovering overhead, police remained absent from view.
BADLY HURT AFTER TWO TOURS IN IRAQ
Keith Shannon, who said he served with Olsen in Iraq, told Reuters his friend suffered a 2-inch skull fracture and brain swelling and had been sedated in the hospital's emergency room trauma center while neurosurgeons decided whether to operate.
The hospital declined to comment on those medical details.
"The irony is not lost on anyone here that this is someone who survived two tours in Iraq and is now seriously injured by the Oakland police force," said his friend, Adele Carpenter, who spoke to Reuters by phone from the hospital waiting room.
The "Occupy Wall Street" protests, which began in New York City on September 17, take issue with a financial system they say benefits corporations and the wealthy. They are critical of U.S. government bailouts of big banks, high unemployment and economic inequality.
Loosely organized protest groups have since sprung up across the United States and in countries around the world. Tensions were building in several cities where authorities have been treading a fine line between allowing peaceful protest and addressing concerns about trespassing, noise and safety.
In an early morning raid in Atlanta, police evicted dozens of protesters from a downtown park and arrested 53 who refused to leave. They were allowed to camp in the park for three weeks but Mayor Kasim Reed said he decided to evict the protesters because of fire code violations and crowd control issues.
In Orlando, demonstrators had been complying with orders to vacate a park overnight and left their belongings, only to have police confiscate the property. And in Baltimore, the city ordered protesters to drastically reduce the number of people who camped overnight from roughly 200 to two people in a single tent. Protesters were given a Wednesday deadline to comply.
In the birthplace of the demonstrations, New York City, authorities have largely averted confrontation. Over 700 protesters loudly but peacefully marched through lower Manhattan on Wednesday to denounce for-profit healthcare.
The New York demonstrators are camped in a privately owned park in the city's financial district, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said there was little the city could do until the park owners, Brookfield Office Properties, file a complaint.
(Additional reporting by Mary Slosson in Los Angeles, Barbara Liston in Orlando, David Beasley in Atlanta, Dan Cook in Portland, Jason Tomassini in Baltimore and Chris Francescani in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Greg McCune and Jackie Frank)
OAKLAND, Calif. ? The Iraq War veteran injured in clashes between police and anti-Wall Street protesters felt so strongly about economic inequality that he wanted to do something to change it.
Roommate Keith Shannon says that Scott Olsen, 24, joined the protests as he worked his day job as a network engineer. He left his apartment at night to sleep alongside protesters in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.
Olsen, 24, apparently suffered a fractured skull Tuesday during the clashes.
It's not known exactly what type of object struck Olsen or who might have thrown it. The group Iraq Veterans Against the War said officers were responsible for his injury. Police are investigating.
Olsen's has become a rallying cry, with one movement website declaring: "We are all Scott Olsen."
With salmonella-tainted ground turkey sickening more than 100 people and listeria-contaminated cantaloupes killing 15 this year, the ability to detect outbreaks of food-borne illness and determine their sources has become a top public health priority.
A new approach, reported online Oct. 14 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiologyby a collaborative team led by Cornell University scientists, will enable government agencies and food companies to pinpoint the exact nature and origin of food-borne bacteria with unprecedented accuracy, says food science professor Martin Wiedmann.
The standard method of tracing food-borne illness involves breaking up the DNA of bacteria samples into smaller pieces and analyzing their banding patterns.
But scientists often find that different strains of bacteria have common DNA fingerprints that are too genetically similar to be able to differentiate between them, making it difficult to establish whether the salmonella that made one person sick was the same salmonella that infected another person. This was the case in a salmonella outbreak linked to salami made with contaminated black and red pepper that included 272 cases in 44 states between July 2009 and April 2010.
To surmount this challenge, Wiedmann adopted a genomic approach.
By sequencing the genome of 47 samples of the bacteria -- 20 that had been collected from human sources during the outbreak, and 27 control samples collected from human, food, animal and environmental sources before the outbreak -- Wiedmann and his team were able to rapidly discriminate between outbreak-related cases and non-outbreak related cases, isolating four samples believed to be connected to the pepper contamination.
In the process of doing so, he also found other links: A Salmonella strain that led to a nationwide recall of pistachio nuts in 2009 turned up in samples from four people -- only one of whom had reported eating pistachios.
Other connected cases suggested smaller outbreaks of which officials had been previously unaware.
"The use of genome sequencing methods to investigate outbreaks of food-borne bacterial diseases is relatively new, and holds great promise as it can help to identify the temporal, geographical and evolutionary origin of an outbreak," Wiedmann said. "In particular, full genome sequence data may help to identify small outbreaks that may not be easily detected with lower resolution subtyping approaches."
Wiedmann, research associate Henk den Bakker and other lab members developed the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) test that is specific to the 2009 pepper-associated outbreak with the help of researchers at Life Technologies Corp. They also collaborated with researchers at Washington State University and departments of health in New York City and New York state.
A similar approach has previously been used in hospital settings to trace pathogenic bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, but this is its first application for food-borne illness. Wiedmann said he is continuing to perfect the method and use it to test other types of bacteria. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other agencies are also starting to use similar approaches.
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SAN FRANCISCO ? A New Jersey man who walked out of a San Francisco gallery with a pencil sketch by Pablo Picasso worth $275,000 pleaded guilty to grand theft Thursday.
Workers at the Weinstein Gallery said Mark Lugo brazenly snatched the drawing, called "Tete de Femme" (Head of a Woman), from a wall of their gallery on July 5. Lugo then walked down the street and got into a cab with the sketch under his arm.
But quick police work, video surveillance cameras and an alert taxi driver led to his arrest within 24 hours.
When investigators searched Lugo's apartment in Hoboken, N.J., they uncovered a treasure trove of stolen art worth some $430,000.
Lugo, 30, pleaded guilty to grand theft in the San Francisco case. Under terms of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges, including burglary. The deal calls allows for Lugo to be released on his sentencing date, Nov. 21, after getting credit for the time he has already served.
His attorney, Douglas Horngrad, said Lugo would then be extradited to New York to face similar charges in art heists there.
Horngrad said the case had been wildly overblown.
"Now that all the hoopla has died down, he'll serve the time that reflects the conduct," he said. "Nobody was killed, nobody was assaulted; this was not the crime of the century."
Lugo's initial bail of $5 million was "preposterous," Horngrad added.
He also hinted that his client suffered from a mental illness.
"All these things that Mark is alleged to have taken were all taken within a 30-day period, with no behavior like that before, and that suggests that there was some psychiatric episode," the lawyer said.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said the other pieces of stolen works found in Lugo's apartment included another Picasso painting worth $30,000, a Fernand Leger sketch valued at $350,000 and three bottles of Chateau Petrus Pomerol wine worth $6,000.
"This is a person who definitely had a taste for the finer things, and he didn't like to pay for them," Gascon said.
Investigators said Lugo worked at upscale Manhattan restaurants and as a wine steward.
Rowland Weinstein, owner of the San Francisco gallery, talked to reporters Thursday as he stood next to the Picasso and the FedEx box in which they found the sketch ready for shipping.
"I got to see firsthand really extraordinary police work," said Weinstein. "This piece is a love affair of mine."
ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) ? Just as a corset improves the appearance of its wearer by keeping everything tightly together, rigidly constraining insulating materials in electrical components can increase their energy density and decrease their rates of failure.
Many electrical components, like wiring, are typically surrounded by a material that keeps the electricity from passing to its surroundings. These insulating materials are known as dielectrics, and can take many forms, with the most common being "soft" materials known as polymers. However, since these dielectrics are constantly being submitted to electrical voltage, they tend to break down.
Duke University engineers have demonstrated that rigidly constraining dielectric materials can greatly improve their performance and potentially lengthen their lifespans. This insight follows their discovery earlier this year of the exact mechanism that causes soft dielectric materials to break down in the presence of electricity.
"We found that increasing voltage can cause polymers to physically crease and even crater at the microscopic level, eventually causing them to break down," said Xuanhe Zhao, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. "So we thought if we wrapped the polymer tightly, that would prevent this creasing from occurring. Experiments proved this hypothesis to be true."
The results of the Duke study were published online in the journal Applied Physical Letters.
In their experiments, the Duke researchers constrained three different soft polymer dielectrics with epoxy. Epoxy is a type of polymer created by the reaction of a resin with a hardening agent. When mixed, a hard and inflexible coating is formed.
"The rigid epoxy acts as a mechanical constraint," Zhao said. "Since it adheres tightly to the dielectric, it prevents the deformation that would normally occur. We found that this constraint can greatly enhance the ability of the component to carry greater voltage, increasing its energy density by more than ten times."
Zhao said that scientists have been working for years to develop new dielectrics based on new types of soft materials or polymers to increase energy density and solve the problem of breakdown.
"We believe that there can be a drastically different approach to achieving these higher energy-dense soft dielectrics," Zhao said. "Our experiments show that the energy density of these soft materials can be significantly enhanced by proper mechanical constraints of the dielectrics, and not necessarily a new type of dielectric material."
The team is currently testing newer methods for achieving even tighter constraints to increase the energy density of polymer dielectrics.
The research was supported by startup funds from Pratt and the Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University.
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Journal Reference:
Lin Zhang, Qiming Wang, Xuanhe Zhao. Mechanical constraints enhance electrical energy densities of soft dielectrics. Applied Physics Letters, 2011; 99 (17): 171906 DOI: 10.1063/1.3655910
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
It seems Akshay Kumar who essays the role of Jerry Patel in Rohit Dhawan’s ?Desi Boyz? has fallen in love with his character. The reports have it that the Khiladi Kumar has asked everyone on the sets of his film to call him Jerry and not Akshay. Director Rohit, however, went a step ahead and [...]
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan ? U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday lashed out at North Korea for "reckless and provocative" acts and criticized China for a secretive expansion of its military power.
Panetta, who arrived at this U.S. air base on the second leg of a weeklong Asia tour, spoke out about North Korea and China in an opinion piece published Monday by Japan's Yomiuri newspaper before his arrival.
He wrote that Washington and Tokyo share common challenges in the Asia-Pacific. "These include North Korea, which continues to engage in reckless and provocative behavior and is developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which pose a threat not just to Japan but to the entire region," he wrote.
If any changes are made to U.S. forces in the Pacific, he said, it would be to "strengthen" their presence.
"We are not anticipating any cutbacks in this region," he told several dozen U.S. and Japanese troops standing in front of huge side-by-side American and Japanese flags. "If anything, we're going to strengthen our presence in the Pacific ? and we will."
He offered no examples of such moves. The U.S. now has about 47,000 troops in Japan and about 28,000 in South Korea ? remnants of World War II and the Korean War. Panetta's strong language comes as U.S. and North Korean officials gather in Geneva for talks that Washington says are aimed at determining whether Pyongyang is serious about returning to nuclear disarmament talks.
Japan also worries about North Korea and is one of five countries that have jointly tried to persuade the North Koreans to cap and reverse their nuclear arms program. The other four are the U.S., China, Russia and South Korea.
Panetta also criticized China.
"China is rapidly modernizing its military," he wrote in Monday's opinion piece, "but with a troubling lack of transparency, coupled with increasingly assertive activity in the East and South China Seas."
He wrote that Japan and the U.S. would work together to "encourage China to play a responsible role in the international community."
A day earlier, in Bali, Indonesia, Panetta offered more positive remarks about China. He told reporters that Beijing deserved praise for a relatively mild response to a $5.8 billion US arms sale to Taiwan announced in September.
Panetta is not visiting China on this trip, his first to Asia since becoming Pentagon chief in July.
My college does not allow torrents, but it doesn't care about normal downloads. What would be the easiest way to set up a private VPN so I could torrent legal titles from home computer and than transfer the resulting files to my desktop at college.
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Preschoolers' language skills improve more when they're placed with more-skilled peersPublic release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Laura Justice ljustice@ehe.osu.edu Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Preschool children with relatively poor language skills improve more if they are placed in classrooms with high-achieving students, a new study found.
Researchers found that children with relatively poor language skills either didn't improve over the course of one academic year, or actually lost ground in development of language skills, when they were placed with other low-achieving students.
The results have important implications because many preschool programs in the United States are targeted to children in poverty, who may exhibit lags in their development of language skills, said Laura Justice, lead author of the study and professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University.
"The way preschool works in the United States, we tend to cluster kids who have relatively low language skills in the same classrooms, and that is not good for their language development," Justice said.
"We need to pay more attention to the composition of preschool classrooms."
Justice conducted the study with Yaacov Petscher and Christopher Schatschneider of Florida State University and Andrew Mashburn of the University of Virginia. Their findings appear in the new issue of the journal Child Development.
More than 80 percent of American children participate in preschool, Justice said. About half of these children attend preschool programs that are subsidized through state and/or federal dollars, the majority of which only enroll children in poverty.
Because children in poverty face increased risk for poor language skills, that means kids with low skills are often clustered together, she said.
The study involved 338 children enrolled in 49 preschool classrooms. The children completed a variety of standardized measures of their language skills in the fall of the academic year. The measures were repeated in the spring, giving the researchers a test of their improvement over the year.
These measures examined the children's grammar skills and vocabulary and ability to discuss what was happening in a wordless picture book.
The researchers also assessed the instructional quality of the children's classrooms to ensure that differences in children's reading skills weren't the result simply of the quality of teaching.
Results showed that children with low initial language skills who were placed in the lowest-ability classes tended to lose ground over the course of the academic year. However, low-skilled students in average-ability classes improved their language skills between fall and spring.
High-ability students don't suffer by being placed in classrooms with lower-ability students, Justice said. High-ability students improved their scores whether they were in low-ability or average-ability classrooms.
"Children with high language abilities don't seem to be effected by the other kids in their class," she said.
The researchers also found that the reference status of the students mattered in other words, their standing relative to the other students in their classroom.
For example, the findings showed that the very lowest-ability students in the low-ability classrooms did improve their language skills over the course of the year presumably because the other students in the class, while low ability, still had greater language skills than they did.
These results can't explain how peers affect the language skills of preschoolers, Justice said. It may be through direction interaction among the children, or it may involve how teacher expectations and efficacy differs depending on the composition of their classrooms.
But the results do suggest that "tracking" students into high and low achievement classrooms may be short-changing the students who most need help.
"If we really want to help lift kids out of poverty, and use preschool as a way to make that happen, we need to reconsider how we provide that education," Justice said.
"Classrooms that blend students from different backgrounds are the best way to provide the boost that poor students need."
###
The study was funded by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education.
Contact: Laura Justice, ljustice@ehe.osu.edu. (It is best to reach Dr. Justice first by e-mail.)
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Preschoolers' language skills improve more when they're placed with more-skilled peersPublic release date: 26-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Laura Justice ljustice@ehe.osu.edu Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Preschool children with relatively poor language skills improve more if they are placed in classrooms with high-achieving students, a new study found.
Researchers found that children with relatively poor language skills either didn't improve over the course of one academic year, or actually lost ground in development of language skills, when they were placed with other low-achieving students.
The results have important implications because many preschool programs in the United States are targeted to children in poverty, who may exhibit lags in their development of language skills, said Laura Justice, lead author of the study and professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University.
"The way preschool works in the United States, we tend to cluster kids who have relatively low language skills in the same classrooms, and that is not good for their language development," Justice said.
"We need to pay more attention to the composition of preschool classrooms."
Justice conducted the study with Yaacov Petscher and Christopher Schatschneider of Florida State University and Andrew Mashburn of the University of Virginia. Their findings appear in the new issue of the journal Child Development.
More than 80 percent of American children participate in preschool, Justice said. About half of these children attend preschool programs that are subsidized through state and/or federal dollars, the majority of which only enroll children in poverty.
Because children in poverty face increased risk for poor language skills, that means kids with low skills are often clustered together, she said.
The study involved 338 children enrolled in 49 preschool classrooms. The children completed a variety of standardized measures of their language skills in the fall of the academic year. The measures were repeated in the spring, giving the researchers a test of their improvement over the year.
These measures examined the children's grammar skills and vocabulary and ability to discuss what was happening in a wordless picture book.
The researchers also assessed the instructional quality of the children's classrooms to ensure that differences in children's reading skills weren't the result simply of the quality of teaching.
Results showed that children with low initial language skills who were placed in the lowest-ability classes tended to lose ground over the course of the academic year. However, low-skilled students in average-ability classes improved their language skills between fall and spring.
High-ability students don't suffer by being placed in classrooms with lower-ability students, Justice said. High-ability students improved their scores whether they were in low-ability or average-ability classrooms.
"Children with high language abilities don't seem to be effected by the other kids in their class," she said.
The researchers also found that the reference status of the students mattered in other words, their standing relative to the other students in their classroom.
For example, the findings showed that the very lowest-ability students in the low-ability classrooms did improve their language skills over the course of the year presumably because the other students in the class, while low ability, still had greater language skills than they did.
These results can't explain how peers affect the language skills of preschoolers, Justice said. It may be through direction interaction among the children, or it may involve how teacher expectations and efficacy differs depending on the composition of their classrooms.
But the results do suggest that "tracking" students into high and low achievement classrooms may be short-changing the students who most need help.
"If we really want to help lift kids out of poverty, and use preschool as a way to make that happen, we need to reconsider how we provide that education," Justice said.
"Classrooms that blend students from different backgrounds are the best way to provide the boost that poor students need."
###
The study was funded by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education.
Contact: Laura Justice, ljustice@ehe.osu.edu. (It is best to reach Dr. Justice first by e-mail.)
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
AMMAN, Jordan?? The United States has pulled its ambassador out of Syria because of what it said were credible threats to his safety after his public support for protesters led to attacks on the U.S. Embassy and his diplomatic convoy by supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria immediately followed suit by recalling its envoy to Washington for consultations, signaling a further deterioration of relations between Syria's rulers and Washington, which has called for Assad to step down and deepened sanctions on Damascus to include the country's small but key oil sector.
Story: Syrians rally for Assad, Libya recognizes opposition
U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford left as a crackdown on protests and a nascent armed insurgency intensified despite Western condemnation and more businesses closed in southern Syria in the most sustained strike of the seven-month uprising.
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"Ambassador Robert Ford was brought back to Washington as a result of credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday.
"At this point, we can't say when he will return to Syria. It will depend on our assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground."
'Smear campaign'
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Ford was expected to return to Syria and demanded the Syrian government provide for his protection and end what she called a "smear campaign of malicious and deceitful propaganda" against him."
"The concern here is that the kinds of falsehoods that are being spread about Ambassador Ford could lead to violence against him, whether it's by citizens, whether it's by ... thugs of one kind or another," she said.
In the central city of Homs, 140 km (85 miles) north of Damascus, two people were killed when troops and loyalist militiamen fired at majority Sunni Muslim districts that have been a bastion for protests and, lately, a refuge for army defectors leading armed resistance emerging there, residents said. Syria is dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect.
Story: Syrian regime accused of targeting doctors
The killings bring to at least 10 the number of civilians killed in tank-backed assaults on districts in Homs in the last two days, activists said.
The official Syrian news agency said "terrorist groups" fired at a shared taxi carrying university students in Homs on Sunday night, killing a young woman. Security forces arrested several members of other groups and seized automatic weapons and automatic rifles and Molotov cocktails.
A Youtube video shot by activists purportedly showed a young protester dying from a gunshot that hit him while he was dragging a body off a street in al-Khalidiya district. Their comrades are heard shouting "God is greater" as the two bodies lay next to each other on the asphalt.
Reuters could not confirm the authenticity of the footage. Most foreign media have been banned from Syria, making it difficult to verify events on the ground.
Syrian authorities say they are fighting "armed terrorist groups" in Homs who have killed civilians, security forces and prominent figures.
They blame the unrest across the country on such groups, which they say have killed 1,100 army and police. The United Nations says the crackdown has killed 3,000 people, including 187 children.
A spokeswoman for the Syrian embassy in Washington, Roua Sharbaji, said Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha had been recalled to Damascus for consultations on Monday.
Ford left Syria over the weekend, a Western diplomat told Reuters, following a series of incidents that resulted in physical damage but no casualties.
'Inciting' articles "Articles, more inciting against Ford than usual, have appeared in state media recently. He left Saturday," said one of the diplomats, who like others asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
At the end of September Assad loyalists threw concrete blocks at his convoy and hit the cars with iron bars as Ford was visiting centrist politician Hassan Abdulazim, according to an account published by the ambassador the next day.
"One person jumped on the hood of the car, tried to kick in the windshield and then jumped on the roof," Ford wrote on the U.S. Embassy's Facebook page on Sept 30. "Another person held the roof railing and tried to break the car's side window.
"...Syria's problems come not from foreign interference but from intolerance -- the same kind of intolerance we saw in front of Abdulazim's office. Unfortunately, those problems now are growing worse and more violent."
In July several Assad loyalists broke into the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, tore down signs and tried to break security glass. They also attempted to break into Ford's nearby residence but failed to gain entry.
The mounting security clampdown has triggered a strike by private businesses in towns across the Hauran Plain, which was the first region where masses publicly turned against Assad.
Anger has grown over the killings of several protesters last week in the towns of Dael and in Ibtaa. The region has seen nightly protests in solidarity with Homs.
"Troops have entered into several towns to end the strike but protesters want to expand it into wider civil disobedience," said one activist who said army reinforcements had been sent to several towns in the Deraa countryside.
In Deraa city, capital of the agricultural province, businesses across the city were closed for the fourth day. In the town of al-Hirak to the east, the strike picked up steam in the last two days, activists said.
'More defiant than ever'
"This strike is intensifying every day as more businesses shut and people become more defiant than ever angered by the increasing brutality and daily roundups and arrests," said one Deraa resident who gave his name as Abu Abdullah.
With troops concentrating on urban centres, protests have expanded in rural regions, including some areas which were once bedrocks of Sunni support for Assad and are seeing defections from the military and armed resistance.
The 46-year-old president is from the Alawite community, which dominates the state, the army and security apparatus in the majority Sunni Muslim country.
In an interview with Reuters last month, Ford said Assad was losing support among key constituents and risked plunging Syria into sectarian strife between Sunnis and Alawites by intensifying the military crackdown.
Ford also infuriated Syria's rulers with his high profile gestures of support for the seven-month-old grassroots protest movement demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family rule.
He was cheered by protesters when he went in July to the anti-Assad hotbed city of Hama, which was later stormed by tanks. He also visited a town that had witnessed regular protests in Deraa, ignoring a ban on Western diplomats traveling outside the Damascus area.
Along with a group of mostly Western ambassadors, Ford later paid condolences to the family of Ghayath Matar, a 25-year-old protest leader who had distributed flowers to give to soldiers but was arrested and died of apparent torture, activists say.
Washington, seeking to convince Assad to scale back an alliance with U.S. arch-foe Iran and backing for militant groups, acted to improve relations with Damascus after President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Obama sent Ford to Damascus in January to fill a diplomatic vacuum prevailing since Washington withdrew its envoy in 2005.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved Ford's nomination, with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., praising Ford for continuing to visit cities under siege and "speak truth to power."
Kerry said Ford has been steadfast "despite even being physically attacked and assaulted by the regime's goons."
But relations deteriorated anew after the uprising broke out and Assad ignored international calls to respond to protester demands that he dismantle the Syrian police state and allow political pluralism.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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