NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Despite a budget crunch, New York City might have to increase funding for programs to help AIDS patients as its cost-cutting efforts have floundered and the state or federal governments could slice spending, a new report said on Tuesday.
New York City has one of the nation's largest populations of people living with AIDS -- 66,398 patients in 2009, the most recent data available.
The increase in this population has slowed from its 1990s spike to an average of about 1,669 new patients a year, according to the report by the Independent Budget Office. But the city has little control over the number of patients because doctors determine whether someone has AIDS.
Further, the city's cash crunch is far from unique.
New York state faces future deficits that run in the multibillions of dollars while the federal government is struggling to cut its own deficit.
The city will contribute about half of the total of $225 million earmarked for assisting AIDS patients with housing, health and homemaker services, and the like in the current budget, the report said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent, has failed repeatedly to curb the costs of caring for AIDS patients. Legal requirements Bloomberg could not overturn set the number of caseload managers, and the City Council, led by Democrats, repeatedly restored his cuts, the report said.
AIDS patients, who lived an average of just over 109 months in 2008, also get the benefit of other public assistance, such as Medicaid, the federal-state plan for the poor, elderly and disabled, and the federal food stamp program, for example.
In November, Bloomberg did not propose any new cuts for the HIV/AIDS programs, the report said.
"This may reflect that the city's efforts to find savings in the HIV/AIDS Services Administration are not likely to get any easier in the future," it added.
(Reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Gadget makers are forever pitching “better” or more convenient ways to brew tea, and pretty much every single one fails to improve on either a teapot or a regular mug. The plastic Magisso Teacup is no different, but it does at least manage to not be worse than these basic methods. Anyone with a brain [...]
Artificial-intelligence networks could help pinpoint new fossil sites across thousands of square miles of desert, scientists have found.
The new fossil-hunting computer program relies on the fact it can learn and incorporate a broad swath of information from its "experiences" to know what to look for when scanning for fossil sites. As such, the intelligent machine has a big advantage over traditional methods, in which fossil-hunters often could only make educated guesses as to where fossils might lie ? for instance, walking down dried-up riverbeds to look for bones that erosion might have uncovered on the slopes.
"So much when it comes to discovery of fossils is based on luck and serendipity," paleoanthropologist Glenn Conroy at Washington University in St. Louis told LiveScience. A team he led in 1991 discovered the fossils of the first-known ? and still the only known ? pre-human ape ever found south of the equator, in a limestone cave in Namibia.
"There's a lot of hard work and walking around in desolate places, too, but one has to be fortunate to find fossils," Conroy said. "Now we're trying to find a better way to do it, to increase the odds in our favor."
Computers are becoming increasingly handy in paleontology. For instance, scientists recently used Google Earth to help identify fossil sites in South Africa, where they unearthed an ancient relative of humanity, Australopithecus sediba .
Now, using artificial neural networks ? computer systems that imitate the workings of the human brain ? Conroy and his colleagues have developed a computer model that can pinpoint rich fossil sites in the Great Divide Basin, a stretch of rocky desert in Wyoming spanning an area of 4,000 square miles (10,360 square kilometers).
"We're pointing to a new use of technology from the geographical sciences that can be really valuable for paleontology," researcher Robert Anemone, a paleontologist at Western Michigan University, told LiveScience.
The basin has proven to be a treasure trove for fossil hunters in the past, yielding early mammal fossils 50 million to 70 million years old. Still, "working in an area this enormous is a logistical nightmare ? it's very expensive to wander out all over the place, so getting leads would be helpful," Conroy said.
The researchers had the network analyze maps and satellite imagery of the Great Divide Basin, which included data on elevation, slope, terrain and many other landscape features. They also fed it details on 75 fossil-rich areas in the basin so it could learn how fossil sites in general might look, relying on factors such as color.
"The beauty and power of neural networks lie in the fact that they are capable of learning," Conroy said. "You just need to give them a rule to deal with things they don't know."
In tests last summer, when the system was shown maps of the basin with 25 different fossil-rich sites it had not seen before, it accurately identified 20 of these sites, and the sites it tagged all contained fossils. Further tests of the system on nearby Bison Basin in Wyoming, a site it had not been trained on, found it correctly identified four fossil sites scientists had previously spotted.
"That gave us encouragement, that a blind test based on a neural network for a different basin still gave us pretty good predictive results," Conroy said.
The research has spotted a number of potential new fossil sites. "In the summer of 2012, we're going to go to the Great Divide Basin and look at sites we've never been to before that our model predicts have a high potential to be good fossil localities," Anemone said.
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The easiest and best place to start looking for other new fossil sites with the software might be in basins in the Rocky Mountain area, the researchers added. Conroy, Anemone and their colleagues also plan to use the system to search for early hominid fossil sites in South Africa.
The scientists detailed their findings at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Las Vegas Nov. 3 and online Oct. 27 in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology.
Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
Consider, too, that Christmas carols have no obvious counterparts among the other holidays. Large group odes are not sung in anticipation of Memorial Day. Any ditties written about Halloween tend, rightly, to collect in the storm drains and the lint filters of our culture. What few songs flourish elsewhere do so in private, forgoing carols? wide exposure in favor of smaller, more selective audiences. (?Dayeinu,? the Passover song, is thought to be more than 1,000 years old, yet shoppers are unlikely to find it piping over the sound system of Forever 21 anytime soon.) Why? Partly, this unobtrusiveness may be a gesture of self-defense: The Christmas-music empire has in the past been known to undertake bold conquest missions on its own behalf, laying claim to any tune that threatens its hegemony. ?Jingle Bells? was composed as a Thanksgiving song but fell, like Carthage to the Romans, when it started to gain traction. Handel?s ?Hallelujah? chorus, which is actually about Easter, came under Yuletide jurisdiction for the same reason. It is only right that other holiday ballads should steer clear of these rolling ballistae, just as it is right for members of the populace to question the carols? high-stepping motives. Maybe we listen to Christmas carols because we want to. Or, maybe, we are simply not allowed to quaff our nog to any other kind of song.
RABAT, Morocco?? The victory of an Islamist Party in Morocco's parliamentary elections appears to be one more sign that religious-based parties are benefiting the most from the new freedoms brought by the Arab Spring.
Across the Middle East, parties referencing Islam have made great strides, offering an alternative to corrupt, long serving dictators, who have often ruled with close Western support.
The Justice and Development Party dominated Morocco's elections through a combination of good organization, an outsider status and not being too much of a threat to Morocco's all-powerful king.
By taking 107 seats out of the 395 seats, almost twice as many as the second place finisher, the party ensured that King Mohammed VI must pick the next prime minister from its ranks and to form the next government out of the dozen parties in Morocco's parliament.
It is the first time the PJD ? as it is known by its French initials ? will be part of the government and its outsider status could be just what Morocco, wracked by pro-democracy protests, needs.
Although it didn't bring down the government, the North African kingdom of 32 million, just across the water from Spain, was still touched by the waves of unrest that swept the Arab world following the revolution in Tunisia, with tens of thousands marching in the streets calling for greater freedoms and less corruption.
The king responded by modifying the constitution to give the next parliament and prime minister more powers, and held early elections.
But there was still a vigorous movement to boycott the elections. There was only a 45 percent turnout in Friday's polls, and many of those who went to vote turned in blank ballots or crossed out every party listed to show their dissatisfaction with the system.
Election observers from the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute estimated that up to a fifth of the ballots they saw counted had been defaced in such a way.
In the face of such widespread distrust of politics, historian and political analyst Maati Monjib said a government led by a new political force could be the answer.
"If the PJD forms a coalition in a free and independent way and not with a party of the Makhzen," he said referring to the catch-all phrase for the entrenched establishment around the king, "this will be a big step forward for Morocco."
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In Tunisia, Morocco, and on Monday most likely also Egypt, newly enfranchised populations are choosing religious parties as a rebuke to the old systems, which often espoused liberal or left-wing ideologies.
"The people link Islam and political dignity," said Monjib, who describes himself as coming from the left end of the political spectrum. "There is a big problem of dignity in the Arab world and the people see the Islamists as a way of getting out of the sense of subjugation and inferiority towards the West."
Like the Ennahda Party in Tunisia, the PJD is also from the more moderate end of the Islamist spectrum. The party's leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, supports a strong role for the monarchy and the movement has always been careful to play the political game.
The party doesn't describe itself as "Islamist" but rather as having an Islamic "reference," meaning that its policies follow the moral dictates of the religion.
The PJD has also avoided focusing on issues like the sale of alcohol or women's headscarves that have obsessed Islamist parties elsewhere in the region, and instead has talked about the need to revamp Morocco's abysmal education system, root out rampant corruption and find jobs for the millions of unemployed.
Mohammed Tozy, a professor of politics and prominent expert on Islamic movements, said the party has always had support in society, but in this election it managed to broaden its appeal.
"What they lacked before was the confidence of the public and now they have been able to go beyond their traditional constituency and give assurances to the business and middle class that they weren't totally Islamist," he said.
Part of the new success of Islamist parties across the region is due to the Turkish model. An Islamist party has been in power in Turkey for almost a decade now and has shown that "modernity and Islam can be allied effectively," said Tozy.
In Morocco, the PJD is widely acknowledged as being the best organized in the country, relying on grass roots networks to promote candidates rather than just enlisting prominent local figures to attract votes.
It also benefited from the push for change in the country and the discrediting of the parties closely associated with the status quo. In particular, the Party of Authenticity and Modernity formed by a friend of the king, which was the largest in the outgoing parliament, lost seats in the new elections.
The PJD has had an ambivalent relationship with the activists of the pro-democracy movement. Several high-ranking party officials joined the street demonstrations and expressed their solidarity, while Benkirane himself warned against the protests ? possibly to stay in the palace's good graces.
It would not be the first time that Morocco's kings have looked to the opposition for help. In the final years of his reign, the current king's father, Hassan II, brought the leftist Union of Progressive Socialist Forces into the government for the first time, even letting its leader serve as prime minister.
Little changed and the party lost much of its cachet in society and has since plummeted in the polls.
Monjib said, however, that if Morocco is going to make it out of its current political crisis, this kind of manipulation must end.
"The palace can't keep playing the game of emptying the parties of their substance, marginalizing them with the citizens, giving them the semblance of power, but not real power so they lose credibility," he said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Architect and racecar designer Matthew Kim gets much respect for his messed-up PC builds and now he's had a go at the 9-inch-cubed small form factor. The DarwinMachine Type 339 is perhaps less wacky than the Hammerhead, but its chassis exploits the same premium combo of semi-translucent eco-resin and CNC aircraft aluminum and comes with Kim's usual life-time warranty. The internals are decent enough for home theatre or a spot of gaming: a Core i5-2400S alongside a Radeon HD 6570, 4GB, 40GB SSD and 1TB HDD, but ultimately that $1999.00 price tag is all about the (hopefully dimmable) aesthetics.
MUMBAI (Reuters) ? The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is under investigation for violating the country's foreign exchange laws, Sports Minister Ajay Maken said on Tuesday.
The government was looking into alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act amounting to some 10.77 billion rupees ($206.7 million), Maken told parliament.
He said the investigation covered the ownership of franchises and fund transfers without the permission of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and income tax department during the 2009 Indian Premier League held in South Africa.
The board moved the 2009 edition of the Twenty20 tournament out of India due to lack of security cover during general elections in the country.
Board chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty said the body had yet to receive any official communication about the investigation.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by Clare Fallon; to query or comment on this story, email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
Drug may slow spread of deadly eye cancerPublic release date: 28-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Caroline Arbanas arbanasc@wustl.edu 314-286-0109 Washington University School of Medicine
A drug commonly used to treat seizures appears to make eye tumors less likely to grow if they spread to other parts of the body, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Their findings are available online in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Uveal melanoma, the second most common form of melanoma, can be very aggressive and spread, or metastasize, from the eye to other organs, especially the liver.
"Melanoma in general, and uveal melanoma in particular, is notoriously difficult to treat once it has metastasized and grown in a distant organ," says principal investigator J. William Harbour, MD. "We previously identified an aggressive class 2 molecular type of uveal melanoma that, in most cases, already has metastasized by the time the eye cancer is diagnosed, even though imaging the body can't detect it yet. This microscopic amount of cancer can remain dormant in the liver and elsewhere for several years before it begins to grow and becomes lethal."
Once this happens, the prospects for survival are poor, according to Harbour, the Paul A. Cibis Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and professor of cell biology and of molecular oncology. He also directs the Center for Ocular Oncology at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
Harbour's new study shows that drugs known as histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors alter the conformation of the DNA of the aggressive form of uveal melanoma, which changes the way key genes are expressed, rendering the tumor cells less aggressive.
"We looked at uveal melanoma cells in the laboratory and in an animal model, and we found that HDAC inhibitors can block the growth and proliferation of tumor cells," he says. "HDAC inhibitors appear to reverse the aggressive molecular signature that we had identified several years ago as a marker for metastatic death. When we look at aggressive melanoma cells under the microscope after treatment with HDAC inhibitors, they look more like normal cells and less like tumor cells."
Because HDAC inhibitors already are on the market, Harbour says he thinks it may be possible to quickly begin testing the drugs in patients with aggressive forms of uveal melanoma.
The drugs have relatively mild side effects that are not as severe as those seen in patients undergoing chemotherapy. One HDAC inhibitor, for example, is the anti-seizure drug valproic acid. Its most common side effect is drowsiness, which is typical of all HDAC inhibitors.
Clinical trials of HDAC inhibitors could begin in the next six to 12 months, Harbour says. Already, other researchers have applied for funding to begin testing an HDAC inhibitor called SAHA (suberoylanilide hydroxic acid) in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma.
"I think this is a reasonable place to start in the challenging effort to improve survival in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma," Harbour says. "I suspect that the best role for HDAC inhibitors will be to slow or prevent the growth of tumor cells that have spread out of the eye but cannot yet be detected. This might lengthen the time between the original eye treatment and the appearance of detectable cancer in the liver and elsewhere."
Like the chicken pox virus that lives for years in nerve cells without affecting health, Harbour says treatment with HDAC inhibitors may allow patients with aggressive melanomas to live for many years without any detectable spread of their disease.
Harbour and his colleagues previously developed a screening test to predict whether the cancer would be likely to spread to the liver and other parts of the body. The test is helpful because although less than 4 percent of patients with uveal melanoma have detectable metastatic disease, up to half will eventually die of metastasis even after successful treatment of the tumor with radiation, surgery, or, in the worst cases, removal of the eye.
Tumors that tend to remain contained within the eye are called class 1 uveal melanomas. With a needle biopsy, doctors can quickly determine whether a tumor is likely to be a class 1 cancer or whether it carries a molecular signature that identifies it as a high-risk, class 2 melanoma. Harbour's team developed a test to identify the class 2 molecular signature, and that test is now being used around the world to detect the aggressive form of uveal melanoma.
In addition, Harbour's team published a paper last year in the journal Science identifying a mutation in a gene called BAP-1 that helped further explain why some eye tumors develop the class 2 signature and acquire the ability to spread. Harbour explains that HDAC inhibitors appear to reverse some of the effects of BAP-1 mutations on the melanoma cell.
###
Landreville S, Agapova OA, Matatall KA, Kneass ZT, Onken MD, Lee RS, Bowcock AM, Harbour JW. Histone dacetylase inhibitors induce growth arrest and differentiation in uveal melanoma. Clinical Cancer Research, available online at: doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-11-0946
Funding for this research comes from a Fonds de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec Postdoctoral Training Award, the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, and the National Cancer Institute, the National Eye Institute the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and by the Horncrest Foundation and Research to Prevent Blindness.
J. William Harbour and Washington University may receive income based on a license of related technology by the university to Castle Biosciences Inc. This study was not supported by Castle Biosciences Inc.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | 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.
Drug may slow spread of deadly eye cancerPublic release date: 28-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Caroline Arbanas arbanasc@wustl.edu 314-286-0109 Washington University School of Medicine
A drug commonly used to treat seizures appears to make eye tumors less likely to grow if they spread to other parts of the body, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Their findings are available online in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Uveal melanoma, the second most common form of melanoma, can be very aggressive and spread, or metastasize, from the eye to other organs, especially the liver.
"Melanoma in general, and uveal melanoma in particular, is notoriously difficult to treat once it has metastasized and grown in a distant organ," says principal investigator J. William Harbour, MD. "We previously identified an aggressive class 2 molecular type of uveal melanoma that, in most cases, already has metastasized by the time the eye cancer is diagnosed, even though imaging the body can't detect it yet. This microscopic amount of cancer can remain dormant in the liver and elsewhere for several years before it begins to grow and becomes lethal."
Once this happens, the prospects for survival are poor, according to Harbour, the Paul A. Cibis Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and professor of cell biology and of molecular oncology. He also directs the Center for Ocular Oncology at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.
Harbour's new study shows that drugs known as histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors alter the conformation of the DNA of the aggressive form of uveal melanoma, which changes the way key genes are expressed, rendering the tumor cells less aggressive.
"We looked at uveal melanoma cells in the laboratory and in an animal model, and we found that HDAC inhibitors can block the growth and proliferation of tumor cells," he says. "HDAC inhibitors appear to reverse the aggressive molecular signature that we had identified several years ago as a marker for metastatic death. When we look at aggressive melanoma cells under the microscope after treatment with HDAC inhibitors, they look more like normal cells and less like tumor cells."
Because HDAC inhibitors already are on the market, Harbour says he thinks it may be possible to quickly begin testing the drugs in patients with aggressive forms of uveal melanoma.
The drugs have relatively mild side effects that are not as severe as those seen in patients undergoing chemotherapy. One HDAC inhibitor, for example, is the anti-seizure drug valproic acid. Its most common side effect is drowsiness, which is typical of all HDAC inhibitors.
Clinical trials of HDAC inhibitors could begin in the next six to 12 months, Harbour says. Already, other researchers have applied for funding to begin testing an HDAC inhibitor called SAHA (suberoylanilide hydroxic acid) in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma.
"I think this is a reasonable place to start in the challenging effort to improve survival in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma," Harbour says. "I suspect that the best role for HDAC inhibitors will be to slow or prevent the growth of tumor cells that have spread out of the eye but cannot yet be detected. This might lengthen the time between the original eye treatment and the appearance of detectable cancer in the liver and elsewhere."
Like the chicken pox virus that lives for years in nerve cells without affecting health, Harbour says treatment with HDAC inhibitors may allow patients with aggressive melanomas to live for many years without any detectable spread of their disease.
Harbour and his colleagues previously developed a screening test to predict whether the cancer would be likely to spread to the liver and other parts of the body. The test is helpful because although less than 4 percent of patients with uveal melanoma have detectable metastatic disease, up to half will eventually die of metastasis even after successful treatment of the tumor with radiation, surgery, or, in the worst cases, removal of the eye.
Tumors that tend to remain contained within the eye are called class 1 uveal melanomas. With a needle biopsy, doctors can quickly determine whether a tumor is likely to be a class 1 cancer or whether it carries a molecular signature that identifies it as a high-risk, class 2 melanoma. Harbour's team developed a test to identify the class 2 molecular signature, and that test is now being used around the world to detect the aggressive form of uveal melanoma.
In addition, Harbour's team published a paper last year in the journal Science identifying a mutation in a gene called BAP-1 that helped further explain why some eye tumors develop the class 2 signature and acquire the ability to spread. Harbour explains that HDAC inhibitors appear to reverse some of the effects of BAP-1 mutations on the melanoma cell.
###
Landreville S, Agapova OA, Matatall KA, Kneass ZT, Onken MD, Lee RS, Bowcock AM, Harbour JW. Histone dacetylase inhibitors induce growth arrest and differentiation in uveal melanoma. Clinical Cancer Research, available online at: doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-11-0946
Funding for this research comes from a Fonds de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec Postdoctoral Training Award, the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, and the National Cancer Institute, the National Eye Institute the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and by the Horncrest Foundation and Research to Prevent Blindness.
J. William Harbour and Washington University may receive income based on a license of related technology by the university to Castle Biosciences Inc. This study was not supported by Castle Biosciences Inc.
Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
[ | 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.
At the stroke of midnight, a growing number of Americans are lining up at Walmart not to cash in on a holiday sale, but because they?re hungry.
The increasing number of Americans relying on food stamps to survive the sluggish economic recovery has changed the way the largest retailer in the United States does business.
Carol Johnston, Walmart?s senior vice president of store development, said that store managers have seen an ?enormous spike? in the number of consumers shopping at midnight on the first of the month.? That?s typically when those receiving federal food assistance have their accounts refilled each month.
?We?ll bring in more staff to stock.? We?ll also make sure all of our registers?are open?Some people may think at 12:01, Walmart?s very quiet, but in a lot of our areas of the country, 12:01 is a big day or a big night for us, actually,? Johnston said.
Becca Reeder and her husband, T.J. Fowler, are one of the families shopping before the sun rises.
When NBC News visited their home six days before the first of the month, they had no milk in their refrigerator.? Among the few things left were water, bacon grease for the dog?s food, a little bit of apple juice, cheese and tortillas.
The couple and their 2-year-old son, Miles, live in Nampa, Idaho, about a 30-minute drive from Boise. Reeder and Fowler married in September. She recently had to pawn her wedding ring to help support the family.
?As long as I got my family, I?m good,? she said.
The newlyweds are both certified nursing assistants but have been unable to find work in their field.? Fowler is commuting an hour and a half round trip to a part-time job flipping burgers at a fast-food restaurant and Reeder is not working.
They never imagined they would need food stamps to get by.
?It?s kind of a pride thing,? said Reeder.? ?We are going [to] get out of this.? One day we will and we aren?t going to need food stamps forever.?
Reeder is one of the nearly 46 million Americans who depend on federal assistance for food, according to Department of Agriculture. Nearly 15 percent of the U.S. population is part of the food stamp program, now called SNAP.
Reeder knows that her family?s government assistance is deposited at exactly 4:12 a.m. on the first of the month. Using the debit card that holds their government assistance feels embarrassing at times, she said.
?I actually have my little technique I use.? I take my palm of my hand and I kind of cover the card with the palm of my hand so that you can?t see the top of it when I?m swiping it, so the person behind me in line doesn?t, they don?t see food stamps,? Reeder said.
?The family?s home state, Idaho, has seen a rapid rise in food stamp use over the last two years.
?Two years ago, we were at just over 2 percent unemployment,? said Kathy Gardner, director of Idaho Hunger Relief Task Force.? ?Our food stamp participation rate was one of the lowest in the nation?because only 55 percent, a little over half of the Idahoans that were eligible and needed food stamps were participating.?
Now, Idaho?s unemployment rate is 9.1 percent and its food stamp participation has increased by 15 percent. Gardner said that it?s not the chronically poor turning increasingly to food stamps, but professionals down on their luck.
?We know that Idahoans are in a desperate situation.? They are watering down baby formula.? Parents are cutting back on what they?re eating so that their children can have food,? Gardner said.? ?We know that families are getting up in the middle of the night to get to the store.?
Jessica Postma and fianc? James Dougherty often go without food or just eat rice toward the end of the month, so that the five children in their blended family of seven can have more balanced meals.
When NBC News first met the couple, Postma was working as a supervisor at a call center making $13.50 an hour. She recently lost that job.? She has found a new job where she will?make less money.? Dougherty has a background in banking and sales training. He?d been out of work for two months when he recently found a job taking customer service calls from home for a tech company. That job pays him $8.50 an hour.
?We?re not the habitual abusers of the system.? We don?t, you know, we don?t use this as a crutch by any stretch of the imagination.? This is to stabilize our family and to help give us a platform to launch ourselves into being able to do it ourselves,? Dougherty said.
The couple turned to government food assistance when they realized they might lose their home.?
NBC News went shopping with them at the local Walmart when $691 was deposited in their account at midnight on the first of the month. The couple said they choose to shop in the middle of the night because it gets even busier during the day on the first of the month.
?It?s like, put your battle gear on and go grocery shopping and it?s just too crazy,? Postma said.?
In an event akin to Black Friday, shoppers filled the store stocking up on basics like pasta, rice and meats.??
?It?s like the Super Bowl of grocery stores,? Dougherty said.? ?And you show up and there?s just troves and troves and troves of people and it?s chaotic. I mean, it really is.? If you?re claustrophobic, don?t go into an Idaho grocery store on the first.?
The couple budget closely and try and save for important milestones like their kids? birthdays, but surprise requests can be heartbreaking.
?We had gone to parent/teacher conferences at the middle school for my oldest and he mentioned that the book fair was going on and there was a book he wanted,? Postma said.? ?It was between paydays, you know? Right smack dab in the middle between paydays and there was no way.? We were already struggling to make it through the week and I had to tell him no.?
The book cost $10.?
?I told him, ?You know, when we?re back on our feet, we?ll definitely get you that book,?? Postma said.
Tune into Kate Snow?s full report tonight on Rock Center at 10 p.m./ 9 c.
French police charged a man with murder this week after he allegedly put his 3-year-old son into a washing machine and turned it on, according to reports.
Neighbors said the man was punishing the boy, named Bastien, for misbehaving at nursery school, Le Parisien (link in French) newspaper reported.
Christophe Champenois, 33, was charged with "murder of a minor" and the mother charged with failing to prevent a crime and assist someone in danger, the AFP reported. Both were denied bail.
The incident occurred in the city of Meaux, which is around 25 miles northeast of Paris.
Bastien reportedly died from a blow to the head, a source close to the case told The Telegraph newspaper. A neighbor said the boy's mother came to her for help after the incident on Friday.
"I took the little boy in my arms, he was frozen, completely naked," the neighbor, who only gave her first name Alice, told the Telegraph.
"He was all white, limp, practically like a toy," she said.
Le Parisien quoted the boy's grandmother as saying Bastien was an "unwanted child" and that Champenois had gone drinking with his friends the day he was born.
Bastien had been locked in the washing machine on other occasions, Le Parisien reported.
A protester walks under a revolutionary Syrian flag during a rally against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. More than 3,500 people have died in months of anti-government protests in Syria, according to the UN. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
A protester walks under a revolutionary Syrian flag during a rally against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. More than 3,500 people have died in months of anti-government protests in Syria, according to the UN. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
A Syrian immigrant shows a V-sign decorated as the revolutionary Syrian flag during a rally against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian embassy in Sofia, on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. More than 3,500 people have died in months of anti-government protests in Syria, according to the UN. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
In this photo taken during a government-organized tour for the media, Syrian army officers carry the coffin of one of the 17 army members, including six elite pilots and four technical officers who the military said were killed in an ambush on Thursday during their funeral procession, in Homs province, Syria, on Saturday Nov. 26, 2011. The military blamed terrorists for the ambush and has vowed to "cut every evil hand" that targets the country's security. Syria is facing mounting international pressure to end a bloody crackdown on an uprising against the rule of President Bashar Assad that the U.N. says has killed more than 3,500 people. The Arab League was meeting Saturday to consider the possibility of sweeping economic sanctions. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)
BEIRUT (AP) ? In an unprecedented move against an Arab nation, the Arab League on Sunday approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
But even as world leaders abandon Assad, the regime has refused to ease a military assault on dissent that already has killed more than 3,500 people. On Sunday, Damascus slammed the sanctions as a betrayal of Arab solidarity and insisted a foreign conspiracy was behind the revolt, all but assuring more bloodshed will follow.
The sanctions are among the clearest signs yet of the isolation Syria is suffering because of the crackdown. Damascus has long boasted of being a powerhouse of Arab nationalism, but Assad has been abandoned by some of his closest allies and now his Arab neighbors. The growing movement against his regime could transform some of the most enduring alliances in the Middle East and beyond.
At a news conference in Cairo, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim said 19 of the League's 22 member nations approved a series of tough punishments that include cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank, halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria and freezing government assets. Those sanctions are to take effect immediately.
Other steps, including halting flights and imposing travel bans on some, as-yet unnamed Syrian officials, will come later after a committee reviews them.
"The Syrian people are being killed but we don't want this. Every Syrian official should not accept killing even one person," bin Jassim said. "Power is worth nothing while you stand as an enemy to your people."
He added that the League aims to "to avoid any suffering for the Syrian people."
Iraq and Lebanon ? important trading partners for Syria ? abstained from the vote, which came after Damascus missed an Arab League deadline to agree to allow hundreds of observers into the country as part of a peace deal Syria agreed to early this month to end the crisis.
Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said the bloc will reconsider the sanctions if Syria carries out the Arab-brokered plan, which includes pulling tanks from the streets and ending violence against civilians.
The regime, however, has shown no signs of easing its crackdown, and activist groups said more than 30 people were killed Sunday. The death toll was impossible to confirm. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting inside the country.
The Local Coordinating Committees, a coalition of Syrian activist groups, praised the sanctions but called for a mechanism to ensure compliance.
"The sanctions leave open the opportunity for the regime to commit fraud and strip the sanctions of any substance, thereby prolonging the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of an oppressive and brutal regime," the group said.
The Arab League move is the latest in a growing wave of international pressure pushing Damascus to end its crackdown. The European Union and the United States already have imposed sanctions, the League has suspended Syria's membership and world leaders increasingly are calling on Assad to go. But as the crisis drags on, the violence appears to be spiraling out of control as attacks by army defectors increase and some protesters take up arms to protect themselves.
Syria has seen the bloodiest crackdown against the Arab Spring's eruption of protests, and has descended into a deadly grind. Though internationally isolated, Assad appears to have a firm grip on power with the loyalty of most of the armed forces, which in the past months have moved from city to city to put down uprisings. In each place, however, protests have resumed.
The escalating bloodshed has raised fears of civil war ? a worst-case scenario in a country that is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East.
Syria borders five countries with whom it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce. Its web of allegiances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy. Chaos in Syria could send unsettling ripples across the region.
For now, Assad still has a strong bulwark to prevent his meeting the same fate as the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia or Libya anytime soon. His key advantages are the support of Russia and China, fear among many Syrians about a future without Assad, and the near-certainty that foreign militaries will stay away.
But the unrest is eviscerating the economy, threatening the business community and prosperous merchant classes that are key to propping up the regime. An influential bloc, the business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges.
The opposition has tried to rally these largely silent, but hugely important, sectors of society. But Assad's opponents have failed so far to galvanize support in Damascus and Aleppo ? the two economic centers in Syria.
Sunday's sanctions, however, could chip away at their resolve.
Since the revolt began, the regime has blamed the bloodshed on terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to divide and undermine Syria. The bloodshed has laid bare Syria's long-simmering sectarian tensions, with disturbing reports of Iraq-style sectarian killings.
Syria is an overwhelmingly Sunni country of 22 million, but Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect. Assad, and his father before him, stacked key military posts with Alawites to meld the fates of the army and the regime ? a tactic aimed at compelling the army to fight to the death to protect the Assad family dynasty.
Until recently, most of the bloodshed was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. Lately, there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad's forces ? a development that some say plays into the regime's hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.
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Youssef reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
BAGHDAD, ? A string of explosions hit a Baghdad market and the capital's western outskirts on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and exposing the challenges still facing Iraqi security forces just over a month before all American troops leave the country.
The bombings mark the second major attack against Iraqi civilians this week and come as American forces are packing up to leave and handing over their remaining security responsibilities to Iraqi forces. Many Iraqis are concerned that insurgents may use the transition period to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.
Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the American withdrawal, which is required under a 2008 security pact between the U.S. and Iraq. About 15,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000.
Earlier this week, the top U.S. general in Iraq, Lloyd Austin, said that there would likely be some "turbulence" after American troops leave. But he did not think there would be a wholesale descent into violence.
The first blasts Saturday struck an area where people looking for work were gathered in the mostly Sunni village of al-Zaidan, west of Baghdad. Seven people were killed and 11 others were wounded, police officials said.
Hours later, three bombs exploded near kiosks in a market in downtown Baghdad where vendors were selling CDs and military uniforms, killing eight people and wounding 19 others.
"I went outside my shop and saw people running in all directions trying to leave the market area. I saw several bodies and wounded people on the ground," said Mohammed Youssef, who owns a clothing shop in the area.
Iraqi military commanders later ordered all the vendors selling products in the area to close up their kiosks and move, in an attempt to clear out the area and make it harder for insurgents to hide bombs.
Health officials at Abu Ghraib's general hospital and at three hospitals in Baghdad confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The market had until recently been protected by blast walls, but the military spokesman for Baghdad, Qassim al-Moussawi, said they were removed because the security situation in the city has been improving.
The bombers "try to prove their presence and hinder our efforts to remove all the concrete walls, but we will continue removing them and keeping control," he said.
Baghdad is crisscrossed with concrete blast walls that both reassure and frustrate residents. The walls helped reduce violence and protect areas such as markets or major buildings. But they also create huge traffic jams and hurt the economy.
The Iraqi security forces have been slowly removing the blast walls, but some people in the market area Saturday said they wanted them back.
"We have been expecting something bad in the market after the security forces removed the blast barriers a few days ago," said Youssef.
Violence has ebbed across Iraq since the height of the fighting, but deadly bombings and shootings still occur almost daily as U.S. troops prepare to leave. On Thursday evening, 19 people died in the southern city of Basra after three bombs went off in quick succession.
As the U.S. has drawn down the number of American troops in Iraq over the last year, the U.S. military has played more of an advising role to Iraqi security forces, leaving the more high-profile jobs such as patrolling and manning checkpoints to Iraqi security forces.
But U.S. troops have played a key role in helping Iraqi forces gather intelligence on suspected insurgents, something that will be lost when the American military departs.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Austin said that Iraqis are very good at human intelligence ? gathering information from a local population that they know well. But they lack the American technology and ability to analyze intelligence gathered from multiple sources and then use that information to combat terror networks such as al-Qaida.
"What we've learned about al-Qaida is they have a very sophisticated network and the ability to kind of see themselves across the country, and synchronize activities," he said. "In order to counter that I think you need the ability to put pressure on the network."
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Associated Press staff in Baghdad, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Hadi Mizban, contributed to this report.
A man checks stock indexes on a screen of a bank in Milan, Italy, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. For the second time in as many market days, Italy paid sharply higher borrowing rates in an auction Monday, as investors continued to pressure the eurozone's third largest economy to come up with reforms urgently. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
A man checks stock indexes on a screen of a bank in Milan, Italy, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. For the second time in as many market days, Italy paid sharply higher borrowing rates in an auction Monday, as investors continued to pressure the eurozone's third largest economy to come up with reforms urgently. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
A man checks stock indexes on a screen of a bank in Milan, Italy, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011. For the second time in as many market days, Italy paid sharply higher borrowing rates in an auction Monday, as investors continued to pressure the eurozone's third largest economy to come up with reforms urgently. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
PARIS (AP) ? European leaders rushed Monday to stop a rampaging debt crisis that threatened to shatter their experiment in a common euro currency and devastate the world economy as a result.
In a measure of how rapidly the peril has grown, ideas unthinkable even three months ago were being seriously considered, including having sovereign nations cede control over their budgets to a central European authority.
World stock markets, glimpsing hope that Europe might finally be shocked into stronger action, had one of their best days in weeks. The Dow Jones industrial average in New York rose 300 points. In France, stocks rose 5 percent, a remarkable move.
More relevant to the crisis at hand, borrowing costs for European nations stabilized after rising alarmingly in recent weeks ? first in Greece, then in Italy and Spain, then in France and Germany, the two most stable economies in continental Europe.
The yields on benchmark bonds issued by Italy and Germany rose, but only by hundredths of a percentage point. The yield fell 0.1 percentage points on bonds of France, 0.14 points for those of Spain and 0.22 points for Belgium.
European finance ministers prepared for a summit beginning Tuesday in Brussels. Italy readied an auction of bonds designed to raise euro8 billion, or about $10.6 billion ? and steeled itself for the high interest rates it will have to pay.
In Washington, President Barack Obama huddled with European Union officials, and the White House insisted Europe alone was responsible for fixing its debt problems.
"This is something they need to solve and they have the capacity to solve, both financial capacity and political will," presidential spokesman Jay Carney said.
As the crisis played out across the Atlantic Ocean, a raft of ideas once considered taboo gained sudden prominence.
Among them was a fiscal union of the 17 countries that share the euro currency, a proposal that some analysts have said would be a great leap toward creating a United States of Europe.
While the details are not clear, such a union could give a central European authority the power to enforce rules on the budgets of individual countries. That would pose a practical problem ? how to make such a body democratically accountable.
More delicately, it would force the nations of Europe to swallow their national pride, cede some sovereignty and agree to strengthen ties with their neighbors rather than fleeing the euro union during the crisis.
"The common currency has the problem that the monetary policy is joint, but the fiscal policy is not," Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said in a meeting with foreign reporters in Berlin. "Consequently, we are working now to expand the common currency through a common stability policy."
With a fiscal union in place, the European Central Bank might also find it more palatable to stage a massive intervention in the European bond market to drive down borrowing costs and keep the debt crisis under control.
A fiscal union, and enforced budget discipline, might ease the ECB's concerns about the concept known as moral hazard ? essentially, that bailing out free-spending countries would only encourage them to do it again.
Another option is for the six nations in the 27-member European Union that have top-notch AAA credit ratings to sell bonds together, known as eurobonds, to help the countries in the deepest trouble because of debt.
The six countries are Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Austria. But Germany, which has the largest economy in Europe, has resisted this plan because Germany pays the biggest share of European bailouts, and German borrowing costs would rise.
While Europe buzzed over the possible solutions, the euro appeared to be in increasing danger. Experts said the currency could fall apart within days without drastic action, with consequences rivaling those of the 2008 financial crisis.
"Everyone knows that if the eurozone crashes the consequences would be very dramatic and in the race after that there would no winners, just losers," said Finland's finance minister, Jutta Urpilainen.
For countries that decided to leave the euro group and return to their own sovereign currency, the conversion would be wrenching.
If Germany broke away, for example, its national currency could rise in value quickly because the German economy is stronger on its own than the European economy as a whole. But a stronger German mark would damage Germany's economy because Germany depends heavily on exports, and it would cost more for everyone else to buy German goods.
As for weaker countries that decided to leave, depositors would probably yank money out of their banks, fearing a plummeting currency. Savers would not want their euros replaced with, say, feeble Greek drachmas.
If countries tried to repay their old euro debts with their own currencies, they'd be considered in default and struggle to sell bonds in global financial markets. Corporations would face the same squeeze.
Overall, economists at UBS estimate, a weak country that left the eurozone would see its economy implode by 50 percent.
The United States would suffer, too, if worldwide credit froze up and European economies tumbled into recession. The European Union buys almost 20 percent of the goods the U.S. exports.
Wolfgang Munchau, a columnist for the influential Financial Times newspaper, wrote Monday that the common currency "has 10 days at most" to avoid collapse. He called for decisions on a fiscal union and the creation of a powerful common treasury.
Unlike the United States, which has centralized institutions in Washington for raising taxes and spending money, the euro nations have 17 independent treasuries with little oversight from Brussels, the headquarters of the EU.
That would change under the fiscal union proposal being aired ahead of another summit that begins Dec. 9 of finance ministers for the countries that use the euro. Ten nations in the EU do not use the euro currency, most notably Britain.
While not explicitly backing a fiscal union, Germany and France have promised to propose measures that will make the 17 euro countries operate under strict and enforceable rules, so that no country, however small, can wreak such damage again.
Already, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group devoted to economic progress, was warning that the global economy was in for a rocky road in coming months.
In its six-month report Monday, it said the continued failure by EU leaders to stem the debt crisis "could massively escalate economic disruption" and end in "highly devastating outcomes."
The latest turmoil came last week, after Germany tried to auction $8 billion worth of its national bonds and could only persuade investors to buy $5.2 billion. It was a sign that even mighty Germany was not immune from the debt crisis.
Investors around the world will watch the Italian bond auction Tuesday. If it receives a similarly poor reception, more European countries would be in danger of being locked out of the international bond market.
Exactly how a fiscal union would take shape in Europe is an open question.
Schaeuble, the German financial minister, said the proposal would require passage only by the 17 countries that use the euro currency. The other 10 countries in the EU, such as Britain, Poland and Sweden, could adopt it if they wanted to.
But analysts said such a move would take a long time to come to fruition.
"We do seem to be moving slowly towards more of a fiscal union but at a pace that may result in all the components being put in place after a complete meltdown of the financial system," said Gary Jenkins, an economist with Evolution Securities.
Many think the ECB is the only institution capable of calming frayed market nerves. But Merkel, the German chancellor, has continually dismissed the prospect of a bigger role for the ECB.
"The ECB has the means to provide a credible measure to avoid further contagion in the sovereign bond markets," the OECD's Chief Economist Carlo Padoan said. "And if you ask me if that is the lender of last resort function, I would say yes."
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Pylas reported from London and Wiseman from Washington. Melissa Eddy, Juergen Baetz, Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising in Berlin, and Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki contributed to this story.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and Curiosity rover lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. The rocket will deliver a science laboratory to Mars to study potential habitable environments on the planet. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Backdropped by the Atlantic Ocean, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls toward the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Friday Nov. 25, 2011. Atop the rocket is NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover nicknamed Curiosity enclosed in its payload fairing. Liftoff is planned during a launch window which extends from 10:02 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. EST on Saturday Nov. 26. Curiosity, has 10 science instruments designed to search for signs of life, including methane, and will help determine if the gas is from a biological or geological source. (AP Photo/NASA
In this 2011 artist's rendering provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover examines a rock on Mars with a set of tools at the end of its arm, which extends about 2 meters (7 feet). The mobile robot is designed to investigate Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? The world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, NASA's Curiosity rover, rocketed toward Mars on Saturday on a search for evidence that the red planet might once have been home to itsy-bitsy life.
It will take 8? months for Curiosity to reach Mars following a journey of 354 million miles.
An unmanned Atlas V rocket hoisted the rover, officially known as Mars Science Laboratory, into a cloudy late morning sky. A Mars frenzy gripped the launch site, with more than 13,000 guests jamming the space center for NASA's first launch to Earth's next-door neighbor in four years, and the first send-off of a Martian rover in eight years.
NASA astrobiologist Pan Conrad, whose carbon compound-seeking instrument is on the rover, had a shirt custom made for the occasion. Her bright blue, short-sleeve blouse was emblazoned with rockets, planets and the words, "Next stop Mars!"
Conrad jumped, cheered and snapped pictures as the rocket blasted off a few miles away. So did Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist in charge of Curiosity's rock-zapping laser machine, called ChemCam.
Wiens shouted "Go, Go, Go!" as the rocket soared. "It was beautiful," he later observed, just as NASA declared the launch a full success.
The 1-ton Curiosity ? as large as a car ? is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot. There's a drill as well as the laser-zapping device.
It's "really a rover on steroids," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's an order of magnitude more capable than anything we have ever launched to any planet in the solar system."
The primary goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether cold, dry, barren Mars might have been hospitable for microbial life once upon a time ? or might even still be conducive to life now. No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.
Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras. No previous Martian rover has been so sophisticated or capable.
With Mars the ultimate goal for astronauts, NASA also will use Curiosity to measure radiation at the red planet. The rover also has a weather station on board that will provide temperature, wind and humidity readings; a computer software app with daily weather updates is planned.
The world has launched more than three dozen missions to the ever-alluring Mars, which is more like Earth than the other solar-system planets. Yet fewer than half those quests have succeeded.
Just two weeks ago, a Russian spacecraft ended up stuck in orbit around Earth, rather than en route to the Martian moon Phobos.
"Mars really is the Bermuda Triangle of the solar system," Hartman said. "It's the death planet, and the United States of America is the only nation in the world that has ever landed and driven robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, and now we're set to do it again."
Curiosity's arrival next August will be particularly hair-raising.
In a spacecraft first, the rover will be lowered onto the Martian surface via a jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.
Curiosity is too heavy to use air bags like its much smaller predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, did in 2004. Besides, this new way should provide for a more accurate landing.
Astronauts will need to make similarly precise landings on Mars one day.
Curiosity will spend a minimum of two years roaming around Gale Crater, chosen as the landing site because it's rich in minerals. Scientists said if there is any place on Mars that might have been ripe for life, it would be there.
"I like to say it's extraterrestrial real estate appraisal," Conrad said with a chuckle earlier in the week.
The rover ? 10 feet long and 9 feet wide ? should be able to go farther and work harder than any previous Mars explorer because of its power source: 10.6 pounds of radioactive plutonium. The nuclear generator was encased in several protective layers in case of a launch accident.
NASA expects to put at least 12 miles on the odometer, once the rover sets down on the Martian surface.
This is the third astronomical mission to be launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA since the retirement of the venerable space shuttle fleet this summer. The Juno probe is en route to Jupiter, and twin spacecraft named Grail will arrive at Earth's moon on New Year's Eve and Day.
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Public release date: 28-Nov-2011
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