Dominican first lady accepts vice presidential bid (AP)

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic ? First lady Margarita Cedeno of the Dominican Republic has been picked as the vice presidential candidate for the governing party ahead of 2012 elections.

The Dominican Liberation Party says the wife of President Leonel Fernandez will run with presidential candidate Danilo Medina. Medina is a 59-year-old economist who unsuccessfully sought to be the party's presidential candidate in 2000.

The 46-year-old Cedeno received a standing ovation from party officials at a Wednesday conference.

Earlier this year, the first lady declined calls by supporters to run for the presidency just weeks after the party cleared the way for her candidacy. Her husband is not running for a third term.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111103/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_dominican_election

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Cain struggles to contain allegations fallout (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain denied on Tuesday that he's changing his story as he struggles to contain the fallout from sexual harassment allegations that could threaten his recently surging campaign. He also suggested his race could be a factor in the storm.

The White House contender's contradictory explanations over two days have raised questions about details of the allegations from back in the 1990s and about his current ability to manage a crisis in the national spotlight. The accusations, relating to his time as head of the National Restaurant Association, have surfaced just as he's risen in national polls in the GOP nomination fight two months before the leadoff Iowa caucuses.

He said Tuesday night on Fox News that he believes there are some Democrats who want him defeated because he's an unconventional candidate "achieving some unexpected, unconventional results," and there could be some on the right "who do not want to see me because I am not the establishment candidate."

Cain, who is black, said he believes race is also involved "but we don't have any evidence to support it." He added, "Relative to the left, I believe that race is a bigger driving factor. I don't think it's a driving factor on the right."

A lawyer for one woman who complained about Cain's behavior told The Washington Post on Tuesday she wants to talk publicly about it. According to that report, Joel P. Bennett, a Washington lawyer who specializes in employment cases, said he asked the National Restaurant Association to waive his client's confidentiality so she can respond to Cain's claims that the complaints were "totally baseless and totally false." A spokeswoman for the restaurant association, Sue Hensley, said Tuesday night that the group had not been contacted by Bennett.

Bennett did not immediately return messages seeking comment from The Associated Press.

In Sunday night's original report by Politico, at least two women who had complained about Cain were said to have agreed to settlements that included stipulations that they not repeat their allegations in public.

Cain's evolving answers to questions in a host of media interviews this week led one rival campaign to suggest he's not being upfront about the accusations.

"If you are the front-runner and you plan to be the nominee ... be forthcoming so that you are vetted, and we don't get into a situation where you're our nominee and we find out things after the fact," John Brabender, a strategist for Rick Santorum's campaign, said at forum hosted by National Journal. "We're still waiting for clarification from the Cain campaign."

But Cain said that rather than the allegations hurting, his fundraising was actually surging ? "the highest it has been since I've been in this campaign," he told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.

The campaign took in as much as $400,000 in a single day, said Mark Block, Cain's chief of staff.

Will the controversy undermine Cain in Iowa and beyond? Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad was willing to hear the candidate out.

"Iowans are pretty fair-minded people and just because somebody makes an accusation ? anybody that is in a high-profile position is potential to have people make these kinds of accusations," Branstad said. "I think Iowans will, you know, carefully look at the real situation and not jump to any conclusions."

Over the past two days, Cain has admitted he knew of one agreement between the restaurant association and a woman who accused him of sexual harassment. He has said the woman initially asked for a large financial settlement but ultimately received two to three months' pay as part of a separation agreement. Cain also acknowledged remembering one of the woman's accusations against him, saying he stepped close to her to make a reference to her height, and told her she was the same height as his wife.

He has said he is not aware of agreements or settlements with any other women, though Politico ? which first disclosed the allegations ? reported that the trade group had given settlements to at least two female employees who accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior.

Beyond that, Cain has offered a series of sometimes-conflicting statements over what happened and didn't happen, and what he knew about financial payouts.

By Tuesday, Cain was chalking up the confusion to semantics, saying he was aware of an "agreement" but not a "settlement."

"It looked like I had changed my story," Cain told CNN Headline News. "I didn't change my story."

He acknowledged he'd made the problem worse for himself over the course of the previous day.

Tuesday night he said, "I absolutely agree we could have been better prepared. Mea culpa on being better prepared."

On Monday, Cain first said he had no knowledge of settlements with any women who had complained about inappropriate sexual behavior. He later admitted he knew of one agreement.

He spent Tuesday much as he did Monday, going from interview to interview to defend himself.

The damage control amounted to a real-time crisis management test for a candidate who is just introducing himself to the country and who has based his campaign on his decades-long background in business management that includes stints at Godfather's Pizza, Pillsbury, Coca-Cola and the Department of the Navy.

At a time of 9.1 percent unemployment, Cain is pitching himself as a businessman who can solve problems.

He already was taking heat over the management of his campaign, insisting that his lack of staff in early voting states simply amounted to an unconventional approach, even as former employees griped about a candidate with no plan. Now, his approach to solving his own political predicament has raised questions about how he perform as president handling the nation's crisis.

"Where he has run into some trouble is, `does the story change?' Because when the story changes, people equate that with guilt," said Eric Dezenhall, who runs a top crisis communications firm. "The very act of a change in and of itself can suggest that there's a problem."

"Contrasts are big news, and one way to touch up someone claiming business competence is to dredge up something that says it's not true, that the competence is a phantom," Dezenhall said.

Cain has promised to surround himself with professional staff if elected president.

"Part of being a leader is surrounding yourself with good people and that is what I do," he said during a recent campaign appearance in Alabama, explaining that he doesn't believe a candidate needs to be an expert in every policy area to be a good president.

But, since the harassment allegations became public, Cain's staff has contributed to the conflicting accounts ? even offering flat denials that there was any factual basis to the story.

Separately, chief of staff Mark Block has a lawyer investigating whether a charity he founded, Prosperity USA, improperly gave goods and services to Cain's presidential campaign earlier this year.

On the harassment allegations, Cain initially told the AP that he couldn't remember any details of any accusations. Hours later, he acknowledged remembering the one woman's complaint.

By Tuesday, he attributed the lapses in memory to being under so much pressure during a day of media appearances.

"After 12 hours over the day, many events, many interviews, I was able to gradually recall more and more details about what happened 12 years ago," he said. "I wasn't given the opportunity to think about it for a day before I was forced to start answering questions."

Politico said it had started asking Cain's campaign about the allegations on Oct. 20 ? 10 days before the story was published late Sunday.

Cain said Monday that Politico had also provided his campaign with the name of a second woman who, Politico reported, also received a settlement after complaining of sexually inappropriate encounters with Cain.

___

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas in Washington, Shannon McCaffrey in Georgia, and Thomas Beaumont and Philip Elliott in Iowa contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_el_pr/us_cain

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Link between fungus and bat epidemic confirmed

Monday, October 31, 2011

Bats in North America are under attack. Since 2006, more than a million have been killed. Little has been done to save them, because there has not been enough evidence to implicate the suspect?until now.

A study has discovered that the fungus Geomyces destructans is the causal agent of White-nose Syndrome (WNS), the fungal disease decimating the bat population.

The study is coauthored by Justin Boyles, a post-doctoral research associate in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a team led by David Blehert at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Wildlife Health Center together with Jeffrey Lorch, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. WNS is dubbed so because affected bats develop halos of white fungus around their muzzles. The symptoms of WNS include loss of body fat, unusual winter behavior, lesions to the wing membranes, and death.

The findings are published in the latest edition of Nature.

G. destructans has been thought to be the likely culprit, because the skin lesions characteristic of the disease are associated with colonization of the fungus. Still, the role of G. destructans in WNS has remained controversial, because evidence proving the fungus as the primary cause of the disease was lacking.

"Many assumed that fungal infections in mammals only occur if some other pathogen has already weakened the immune system," said Boyles. "Additionally, the recent discovery that G. destructans commonly colonizes the skin of bats in Europe with no major die-offs generated speculation that other unidentified factors are the primary cause of WNS."

To put the speculation to rest, the researchers set up an experiment to see if G. destructans causes WNS. They housed healthy little brown bats in a laboratory under hibernation conditions and treated them with G. destructans. Exposure to the fungus caused WNS in the healthy bats. They also found that WNS can be transmitted from infected bats to healthy bats through direct contact.

"This information can be very useful to managers in their efforts to contain the spread of the disease," said Boyles. "These results provide the first direct evidence that G. destructans is the causal agent of WNS and that the recent emergence of WNS in North America suggests the fungus is new to the continent and the bats here have not developed immunity to the disease."

The researchers are hopeful the findings will allow land managers and reseachers to focus efforts on solutions that may slow the spread of the fungus to new bat populations.

"By illustrating that the fungus causes WNS, we are taking an instrumental step in clarifying how this disease develops and how to control it," said Boyles. "We hope our findings are useful in guiding management actions to preserve bat populations against this novel and devastating threat."

###

University of Tennessee at Knoxville: http://www.tennessee.edu

Thanks to University of Tennessee at Knoxville for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114769/Link_between_fungus_and_bat_epidemic_confirmed

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CSN: 49ers doing it with D, just like 1981

November 1, 2011, 8:41 am

These numbers are for comparison only, and not as proof that the 49ers are going to do in 2011 what they did 30 years earlier ? from 6-10 to a parade.

In 1980, the 49ers ranked 13th in total offense; in 1981, they rose to seventh. A modest but decent climb.

In 1980, the 49ers ranked 26th in total defense, out of 28 teams; in 1981, they were second.

Sound familiar?

This, then, is the quick fix ? the defense. And whatever your position on Jim Harbaugh might be, he does understand history.

The 1981 49ers managed to take 165 points off their defensive total, more than a touchdown and field goal PER GAME.? Also, they dropped 1,206 yards of unsightly fat, 75 yards PER GAME. That was with Bill Walsh, offensive genius.

Also, Bill Walsh, football historian. He knew that building a defense was easier and faster than an offense, and he did such a thing. He didn't expect the kind of return he got, but he knew it was the sounder path.

This 49ers? transformation isn?t that stark ? from 16th last year to 1st so far this season, and greater mathematicians than I can figure out the more arcane metrics and strength of schedule caveats with our blessings.

And while the offense has gone from 24th to 8th in points scored, which would seem to undercut the message here, they are 31st in plays run from scrimmage, 20th in yards per play, 24th in total yards, and 25th in first downs.

This suggests that the offense has benefited from a plus-10 turnover ratio, and a goodly number of short fields, which means that the offense is running well under optimal conditions. Nothing wrong with that, but it helps to understand that this leap from no to go is largely a defensive creation. And that there is a template for how high such improvement can take a team.

I mean, in case you were sending a coldcut platter to team headquarters or something like that. After all, you know what they say about the best of times ? when you have to say it, say it with cured meats.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for CSNBayArea.com

Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/niners-talk/post/Improved-49ers-doing-it-with-D-ala-1981?blockID=586116&feedID=2539

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Iowa Pitch (TIME)

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Mexico: Video threatens to disclose Zetas allies

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) ? An Internet video is threatening Mexico's Zetas drug cartel with exposure of its allies in the local police and news media this week unless the gang frees a kidnapped member of the international hacker movement known as "Anonymous."

The YouTube message, which claims to be from Anonymous "Veracruz, Mexico and the world," says it is "tired of the criminal group the Zetas, which is dedicated to kidnapping, stealing and extortion," and threatens to fight back with information instead of weapons.

It said it knows of police officers, journalists, taxi drivers and others working with the Zetas.

The video refers to an unidentified person kidnapped in the coastal city of Veracruz, and says: "You have made a great mistake by taking one of us. Free him."

The hacker group, which has claimed responsibility for attacks on corporate and government websites worldwide, supposedly will act Friday if the kidnapped activist is not freed or is harmed, according to the message.

"We cannot defend ourselves with weapons, but we can with their cars, houses, bars," the message adds, apparently alluding to properties owned by cartel supporters. "It's not difficult. We know who they are and where they are are."

"Information is free," it says. "We do not forgive. We do not forget."

An official with the Veracruz state attorney general's office, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said the office could not confirm video's authenticity or the case of the kidnapping.

Veracruz, an oil state on the Gulf of Mexico with a major port of the same name, has seen a spike in drug violence in recent months in what authorities say is a battle between the Zetas drug cartel, which has controlled the territory for at least a year, and its rivals. Dozens of bodies have been showing up in recent weeks, including the dumping of 35 last month on a main highway in rush-hour traffic in the city of Boca del Rio.

Two other Internet postings since July have announced the arrival of group that calls itself the "Mata Zetas," or Zeta Killers, who authorities say are likely aligned with the powerful Sinaloa Cartel. Others have raised questions about whether the group's members are vigilantes or other rogue bands taking justice into their own hands against the Zetas.

The new message, presented by someone wearing a theater mask that is a trademark of Anonymous, was reportedly uploaded to websites early this month, but was first reported Friday on the website of the global intelligence think tank Stratfor.

Stratfor, in its analysis of the video, said anyone exposed by Anonymous as a Zetas collaborator ? accurately or not ? would be targeted by rival gangs, and the Zetas could respond by attacking Internet activists even if they are not affiliated with Anonymous.

Three people have been killed recently in the northern states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas by suspected Zetas who apparently believed the victims used the Internet to spread information about the gang.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-30-LT-Mexico-Hackers-Threat/id-6486dd4358f84447bd0302a83fd2e542

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Report fingers China for satellite hack

At least two US environment--monitoring satellites were interfered with four or more times in 2007 and 2008 through a ground station in Norway, and China?s military is the prime suspect, a draft report to the US Congress said.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which reported the interference, said the events had not actually been traced to China. It said it was citing them ?because the techniques appear consistent with authoritative Chinese military writings? that have advocated disabling satellite control facilities in any conflict.

Pinpointing responsibility for a cyberattack can be extremely difficult. Hackers typically mask their tracks by routing intrusions through computers on multiple continents and can make an attack appear to come from a third country.

The commission said its account was based largely on a May 12 US Air Force briefing for the 12--member commission, which was set up by Congress in 2000 to report on the national security implications of US-China trade. Its final report is scheduled to be sent to lawmakers on Nov. 16.

The satellites cited in the report are used for climate and terrain monitoring by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the US Geological Survey (USGS). A Landsat-7 Earth observation satellite, built by NASA for the USGS, experienced 12 or more minutes of interference in October 2007 and July 2008, the report said.

A NASA-managed Terra AM-1 Earth observation satellite was similarly interfered with for two minutes or more on June 20, 2008, and at least nine minutes on Oct. 22, 2008, it said.

NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto confirmed that NASA had spotted two ?suspicious events? with its Terra spacecraft in the summer and fall of 2008, but said no commands were successfully sent to the satellite and no data was captured.

NASA notified the US Department of Defense, which is responsible for investigating any attempted interference with satellite operations, Perrotto added.

The defense department would not comment on the alleged hacking, but said it was monitoring China?s development of ?counter-space? capabilities.

The department is increasing the resilience of US assets in space and improving ?the ability to operate in a degraded environment,? among other precautions, Pentagon spokesman Army Lieutenant Colonel James Gregory said.

Hackers appear to have worked through Svalbard Satellite Station, or SvalSat, in Spitsbergen, Norway, which routinely connects to the Internet to transfer data, the commission?s draft added.

Located about 1,200km from the North Pole, SvalSat is well-placed to communicate with satellites in polar orbit, the report said.

However, the company that owns the ground station said it saw no sign of the penetration reported by the commission.

?Our systems indicated nothing,? Kongsberg Satellite Services president Rolf Skatteboe said in Oslo. ?We do not understand where this is coming from.?

Commissioner Larry Wortzel, who is a retired US Army colonel and former military attache to China, said Beijing conducted numerous tests on space warfare systems in 2007 and 2008.

?I don?t think it is a wild analytical leap to suggest that these hacks could have been part of that matrix of testing,? he said in an e-mail.

The report did not spell out the nature of the interference, but said hackers ?achieved all steps required to command? the Terra AM-1 satellite without ever actually exercising that control.

Source: http://libertytimes.feedsportal.com/c/33098/f/535600/s/19a9a47b/l/0L0Staipeitimes0N0CNews0Cworld0Carchives0C20A110C10A0C30A0C20A0A35170A65/story01.htm

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