Cameron once said that the trouble with the social networking service was its "instant-ness" and the risk of people making themselves look foolish by sending too many Tweets.

On the day the government launched a controversial cap on welfare payments, Cameron sent this message: "@IDS_MP and I are determined to make work pay and help the UK compete on the #GlobalRace".

He meant to link to the account of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the minister behind the new limits on benefit payments.

However, Duncan Smith does not appear to have a Twitter account. Instead, the link was to a spoof page that jokes sardonically about the high price of champagne and foie gras.

One message said: "A 15 percent increase in MPs' pay is a disgrace. Has anyone seen the price of foie gras and Armand de Brignac...we need at least 25 percent."

Another read: "I've always supported a mansion tax. Your tax buys my mansion. Chin chin!"

Cameron's official spokesman made light of the slip-up, suggesting the episode could be summed up with the Twitter hashtag: #onetotakeonthechin.

Asked whether Cameron writes his own Tweets or approves them before his team sends them out, he said: "The prime minister's Tweets are entirely his views."

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Monday (U.S. unless stated):

1. Tiger Woods 2,380 points

2. Matt Kuchar 1,964

3. Brandt Snedeker 1,603

4. Phil Mickelson 1,518

5. Billy Horschel 1,459

6. Justin Rose (England) 1,358

7. Bill Haas 1,320

8. Kevin Streelman 1,259

9. Boo Weekley 1,196

10. Jason Day (Australia) 1,148

11. Jordan Spieth 1,114

12. Keegan Bradley 1,051

13. Webb Simpson 1,018

14. Adam Scott (Australia) 1,012

15. Harris English 1,011

16. Russell Henley 1,005

17. Hunter Mahan 1,003

18. D.A. Points 1,000

19. Jimmy Walker 996

20. Steve Stricker 990

(Editing by Caroline Helly)

The film is set for release in the autumn of 2015 and follows on the success of Mendes-directed predecessor "Skyfall", which earned $1.1 billion at the box office worldwide and was the highest-grossing film of all time in Britain, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said in a statement.

The screenplay for the Sony Pictures Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc film will be written by John Logan, who also worked on "Skyfall".

"Following the extraordinary success of 'Skyfall', we're really excited to be working once again with Daniel Craig, Sam Mendes and John Logan," Wilson and Broccoli said.

Mendes has been rumored as the director of the latest Bond project for months, but his participation was not a certainty while he was involved in the creation of a stage musical version of children's writer Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which opened last month.

"I am very pleased that by giving me the time I need to honor all my theatre commitments, the producers have made it possible for me to direct Bond 24," the 47-year-old Mendes said in the statement.

Mendes has a long background in theatre direction and burst on to the movie scene by winning an Academy Award for his debut feature "American Beauty" starring Kevin Spacey.

His collaboration with Craig as the suave superspy and handling of key new cast including Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw in "Skyfall" was widely praised by critics and helped the film become a major commercial success.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Chief prosecutor Hesham Barakat has received testimony from a court in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia that will be the base for an investigation by state security prosecutors into the jailbreak by Mohammed Morsi and more than 30 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The question of whether Hamas helped them escape during the chaos surrounding the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak has been debated in the media for months and proved a political headache for Morsi during his one-year rule as Egypt's first freely elected president. Critics in the opposition and judiciary have suggested that proof of foreign intervention on Egyptian soil could lead to treason charges.

The issue has taken on more significance since Morsi was ousted on July 3 by the military following a wave of protests in which millions of Egyptians called on him to step down. The toppled Islamist leader has been kept at an undisclosed Defense Ministry facility and no charges against him have been announced.

Hamas has denied any role in the Jan. 29, 2011, jailbreak at Wadi el-Natroun prison northwest of Cairo. Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders have said local residents helped them escape after most inmates left the facility.

The investigation stems from a court case against a former inmate, but judge Khaled Mahgoub turned what was in effect a low-profile trial into a public inquiry into the escape by Morsi and the other Brotherhood officials. A series of prison officials, police and intelligence agents testified, some behind closed doors.

In the end, Mahgoub referred the testimony he collected to the chief prosecutor's office with a request that he investigates the matter further.

The trial in Ismailia fits into a picture of strained relations between Morsi and the judiciary after what many judges saw as his encroachment on the independence of the judiciary.

A string of top police, prison and intelligence officials have blamed Hamas, a close ally of Morsi's Brotherhood, saying the militant group sent fighters from the Gaza Strip to join with Bedouins from the Sinai Peninsula to storm prisons and break out the jailed Hamas members.

In Egypt's polarized political climate, opponents of the ousted leader used the issue against him, saying friends of the Brotherhood violated the country's security and fed its instability. The eagerness of some in the intelligence and security agencies to blame Hamas reflect in part resentment of the Brotherhood's ties with the militant group, which they have long seen as a threat.

News of the intended investigation came one day after authorities issued arrest warrants for the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, and nine other Islamists accused of inciting violence after deadly clashes the latest moves by the new military-backed government as it tries to choke off the group's campaign to reinstate Morsi.

The warrants drew an angry response from the Brotherhood, which said "dictatorship is back" and insisted it will never work with the interim rulers.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Ali Amr to express his "deep concern about continued detentions in Egypt and arrest warrants issued against Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others."

Ban said, "There is no place for retribution or for the exclusion of any major party or community in Egypt."

Badie's whereabouts are not known, but many of the others are believed to be taking refuge somewhere near a continuing sit-in by the group's supporters outside the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in an eastern Cairo district that is traditionally a Brotherhood stronghold.

Security agencies have jailed five leaders of the Brotherhood, including Badie's powerful deputy, Khairat el-Shaiter, and shut down its media outlets.

The prosecutor general's office said Badie, another deputy, Mahmoud Ezzat, el-Beltagy and popular preacher Safwat Hegazy are suspected of instigating Monday's clashes with security forces outside a Republican Guard building that killed 54 people most Morsi supporters in the worst bloodshed since he was ousted.

The Islamists have accused the troops of gunning down the protesters, while the military blamed armed backers of Morsi for attempting to storm a military building.

___

Associated Press writer Peter Spielmann at the United Nations contributed.

In the , where the temperature is about minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 210 degrees Celsius), scientists had thought a certain reaction involving alcohol molecules couldn't take place, because at such low temperatures, there shouldn't be enough energy to rearrange chemical bonds. But surprisingly, research has shown that the reaction occurs at a rate 50 times greater in space than at room temperature.

Now, by simulating the conditions of space in a laboratory, scientists have found a possible explanation for how the reaction occurs: .

Tunneling depends on the odd rules of quantum mechanics, which state that particles don't usually have decided states, positions and speeds, but exist in hazes of probability. This means that a particle might have a strong probability of being located on one side of a wall, but still retain a very small chance of actually being on the other side of it, allowing it, occasionally, to "tunnel" through a wall that would otherwise be an impassable barrier. []

This tunneling ability might allow particles to undergo chemical reactions that should be impossible due to the lack of energy at the low temperatures of space.

"The answer lies in ," chemist Dwayne Heard of the University of Leeds in the U.K., who led the research, said in a statement. "Chemical reactions get slower as temperatures decrease, as there is less energy to get over the 'reaction barrier.' But quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible to cheat and dig through this barrier instead of going over it. This is called 'quantum tunneling.'"

Quantum tunneling states last only very, very briefly, making reactions taking advantage of them difficult. But that's where the cold temperature might help, because some molecules formed during the reaction process might be transient at room temperature, but last slightly longer at very cold temperatures.

"We suggest that an 'intermediary product' forms in the first stage of the reaction, which can only survive long enough for quantum tunneling to occur at extremely cold temperatures," Heard said.

In a lab, Heard and his colleagues created the same cold conditions in space, and observed reactions of the alcohol methanol with an oxidizing chemical called a hydroxyl radical, and found that these gases react to create methoxy radicals.

Now, the scientists want to test other types of alcohol-related reactions under similar conditions.

"If our results continue to show a similar increase in the reaction rate at very cold temperatures, then scientists have been severely underestimating the rates of formation and destruction of complex molecules, such as alcohols, in space," Heard said.

The findings were published online June 30 in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Editor's Note: This article was updated at 3:30 p.m. EDT to correct the values of the temperature in space, which is minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 210 degrees Celsius). In the original version, the Fahrenheit and Celsius values were switched.

Follow Clara Moskowitz onand. Follow us,and. Original article on.

The GOP House leadership released a smaller version of the five-year bill late Wednesday, dropping a politically sensitive section of the legislation that would have made small cuts to the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program. Republicans are divided on how big cuts should be to food stamps, which have doubled in cost in the last five years. Democrats have opposed any cuts.

The White House swiftly issued a veto threat of the legislation, saying food stamps should not be left out of the bill. The White House had also threatened to veto the original bill, saying it did not include enough reductions to farm subsidies and that the food stamp cuts were too high.

Republicans have been counting votes for the bill containing only the farm programs over the last two days, with a food stamp bill to come at a later date. Farm groups, anti-hunger groups and conservative groups have all opposed the idea, for different reasons.

The split bill is an attempt to gather support from conservatives who voted against the $100 billion-a-year farm bill. The House rejected the farm bill in June by a vote of 234-195, with 62 Republicans voting against it, many of them saying the bill's 3 percent cut in food stamps was not enough.

The idea is that the farm portion of the bill, which contains about $2 billion a year in cuts to farm subsidies, could pass without the food stamp provisions. By splitting the two, Republicans might be able to make bigger cuts in food stamp programs and pass that bill with conservative support.

House Democrats reacted angrily to the last-minute move. Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, called it a "bill to nowhere" since the Democratic Senate is likely to add the food stamp money back in. The Democratic-led Senate, which overwhelmingly passed a farm bill with smaller cuts to food stamps, would be reluctant to go along with a split bill or further cuts to the programs.

"This dead-on-arrival messaging bill only seeks to accomplish one objective," Hoyer said. "To make it appear that Republicans are moving forward with important legislation even while they continue to struggle at governing."

Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said he sees "no clear path to getting a bill passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president."

House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said as recently as last week that he opposed splitting the bill. But he has now reluctantly agreed to the strategy, saying he would support it if his Republican leaders could deliver the votes. Late Wednesday, he gave a reserved endorsement of the plan to the GOP-controlled Rules Committee, which determines the procedures for floor debate.

"Maybe the old dynamic of how we have done things since 1965 isn't valid anymore," he said. "Maybe it is time to try something different."

Lucas said as he left the meeting that he didn't know if the leadership had the 218 votes necessary for passage.

The bill would also repeal laws from the 1930s and 1940s that kick in when current farm law expires. Farm-state lawmakers have kept those laws on the books so there would be incentive to pass new farm bills and avoid expiration, but the threat of outdated policies kicking in has been a headache for farmers who worry they can't depend on Congress to create new laws or extend more recent versions of the law.

Repealing those decades-old laws could mean that Congress would have little incentive to create new farm bills, however, and could make many farm programs permanent.

Farm groups and anti-hunger groups have warned that separating the farm and nutrition programs after decades of linking them would be misguided. Rural lawmakers have long added money for food stamps to the farm bill, which sets policy for agricultural subsidies and other farm programs, to gather urban votes for the measure.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, last week, more than 500 farm groups asked the GOP leadership not to split the legislation.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said splitting the bill would be a "major mistake."

Conservative groups have also campaigned against the strategy, saying it is a ruse to get the bill in conference with the Senate, where food stamps will be added back in with smaller cuts. Andy Roth of the Club for Growth sent a letter to members Wednesday saying the new bill would merely end up "leaving us back where we started."

Passing a food stamp-only bill would not be easy as Republicans have disagreed on how much should be cut. The House Agriculture Committee bill would cut about $2 billion a year from the almost $80 billion-a-year program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. But some on the right would like to see much bigger cuts and to change the structure of the program.

Lucas said he hopes a food stamp bill would come to the floor quickly, so the House and Senate can begin negotiations and get a farm bill passed.

"The quicker that second bill is passed the easier it is to complete the whole process," he said.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has opened what it calls a recall query to look at whether a stress test GM is using on a portion of the recalled cars is good enough, because the fire occurred after the procedure that was meant to catch the problem.

In May, GM recalled 42,904 2012 and 2013 model Buick LaCrosse and Regal cars, and 2013 model Chevrolet Malibu Eco cars equipped with its "eAssist" mild hybrid system to repair circuit boards that may overheat and lead to a loss of battery charge or, in extreme cases, a fire in the trunk.

Overheating of the circuit boards in the generator control module in some of the vehicles may cause problems, including loss of battery charge and the illumination of a malfunction indicator light. The issue does not involve the eAssist battery.

If the warnings are ignored, the engine may stall. There may also be a burning or melting odor.

Of the recalled cars, about 22,000 are getting their battery packs replaced, while the rest undergo the screening test to see if the control module needs to be replaced, GM said. A spokesman said the recall is continuing and the automaker is cooperating with NHTSA in its probe.

The spokesman said GM remains unaware of any injuries or crashes related to the issue and he pointed out that changes in the production process at the plant were made and no other vehicles are affected.

NHTSA questioned the effectiveness of the screening test because the fire in March occurred in a car that had already gone through the testing as part of a service procedure before the recall. That same test is being used on almost half the cars in the recall.

Regulators said in documents filed online that the fire drew "into question whether or not the procedure can effectively identify a defective (control module)."

The recall query could lead NHTSA to ask GM to replace the control module in the recalled cars that underwent the stress test.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

BOSTON (Reuters) - An admitted murderer and former top associate of reputed Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger is due to return to the witness stand on Tuesday to detail Bulger's crimes.

Kevin Weeks, 57, is the second top-ranking member of the once-feared "Winter Hill" gang to take the stand in Bulger's trial on charges he committed or ordered 19 murders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Weeks, who spent just five years in prison after confessing to five murders but agreeing to testify against Bulger, on Monday recounted his role in some of the murders Bulger is accused of committing.

He described Bulger, one of Boston's most notorious gangsters, as an intimidating figure who once aimed a machine gun at a muscle-bound man in a successful extortion bid.

"Those muscles aren't going to do you any good now," Weeks recalled Bulger saying. The threat worked and the gang extorted some $480,000 from the man, Weeks said.

The 83-year-old Bulger, who spent years on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list of fugitives, has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, though on the first day of the trial his attorneys said Bulger did commit extortion, loansharking and drug dealing.

His attorneys have argued Bulger was never an informant for the FBI in the defense's effort to undermine the 700-page file the bureau amassed on Bulger over more than a decade as he regularly met with John Connolly, a FBI special agent .

Bulger's lawyers have argued that Connolly, who is serving a 40-year prison sentence for racketeering and murder, fabricated much of the contents of the file to provide cover for his frequent meetings with Bulger. The lawyers said Bulger paid Connolly for information but gave none of his own.

Providing information to the FBI was considered a major breach of the underworld code. The revelation that Bulger had cooperated with investigators came out after he fled Boston on a tip from Connolly, and led many of his associates to turn against him.

Bulger spent more than 16 years in hiding before authorities arrested him in Santa Monica, California, in June 2011.

Weeks is the second of three close associates of Bulger who are key prosecution witnesses in the trial, which is now in its fifth week. John "The Executioner" Martorano took the stand last month and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi is also due to testify.

Bulger's life story inspired Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning film "The Departed," with Jack Nicholson playing a character loosely based on Bulger.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Lovering; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index touched a one-week high on Tuesday as weakness in gold producers and smartphone maker BlackBerrywas offset by robust gains in the energy sector, fueled by a jump in the price of oil, and by a rise in Valeant Pharmaceuticals .

Investors were encouraged by data showing U.S. new motor vehicle sales in June were poised to record their strongest month in more than 5-1/2 years and that factories posted a second straight month of gains in new orders in May.

The index climbed for a third straight session, playing catch-up with gains in global equities on Monday, when the Toronto market was closed for the Canada Day holiday.

The energy sector had the biggest positive influence on the Canadian market as supply worries in the Middle East and Africa boosted oil prices.

"We're seeing value across the resource space, including energy, but definitely not without some volatility," said Youssef Zohny, portfolio manager at Stenner Investment Partners, a unit of Richardson GMP. "On a relative basis, the valuations are becoming very attractive in the energy sector."

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite indexclosed up 49.27 points, or 0.41 percent, at 12,178.38. The index hit a high of 12,217.36 earlier in the session.

Despite Tuesday's gain, the resource-heavy index is down about 2.1 percent this year because of a lackluster outlook for commodities, trailing the S&P 500and other global tock market measures.

"It is a stock picker's market," said Jordan Zinberg, managing director and portfolio manager at Donville Kent Asset Management. "Investors who are buying the index are going to be fairly disappointed; they have been fairly disappointed over the past few years."

"We're quite negative on the resource market," he added. "I don't think you'll see global money coming back to the Canadian market until you see the resource market pick up."

Donville Kent's Capital Ideas Fund, whose biggest holdings include Constellation Software Incand Paladin Labs Inc , has had a return of investment of more than 12 percent since the start of the year.

Seven of the 10 main sectors on the index were higher on Tuesday.

Shares of energy producers added 1.2 percent.Canadian Natural Resources Ltdgained more than 2.1 percent to C$30.28, and Enbridge Incwas up 1.5 percent at C$44.88.

Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, rose 0.2 percent. Toronto-Dominion Bank

Valeant advanced 4.8 percent to C$95 after RBC raised the stock's price target. The drugmaker played the biggest role of any single stock in leading the index higher and helped the healthcare group gain 2.1 percent.

But the materials sector, which includes mining stocks, gave back 2.1 percent. The group was dragged down by a nearly 3 percent drop in gold-mining shares as the bullion price slipped.

Barrick Gold Corplost 7.7 percent to C$15.32. The miner was also hit by its plans to slow construction at its already delayed Pascua-Lama gold project in South America as it looks to rein in spending.

BlackBerry extended its decline after releasing a disappointing quarterly report on Friday. A slew of brokerages have since cut their ratings and price targets on the stock. BlackBerry dived 7.8 percent to C$10.22.

($1=$1.05 Canadian)

(Editing by Chris Reese; and Peter Galloway)

MTHATHA, South Africa (Reuters) - A feud between factions of Nelson Mandela's family descended into soap opera farce on Thursday when his grandson and heir, Mandla, accused relatives of adultery and milking the fame of the revered anti-apartheid leader.

In a news conference broadcast live on TV that stunned South Africans, Mandla Mandela confirmed rumors that his young son, Zanethemba, was in fact the child of an illicit liaison between his brother Mbuso and Mandla's now ex-wife Anais Grimaud.

With Mandela on life-support in a Pretoria hospital, the escalating feud has transfixed and appalled South Africa in equal measure as it contemplates the reality that the father of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" will not be around forever.

"Mbuso impregnated my wife," Mandla said in Mvezo, the Eastern Cape village 700 km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg where Mandela - now 94 years old and critically ill - was born and where Mandla serves as the formal chief of the clan.

Mandla, 39, first raised questions about his son's paternity last year when he split from French-speaking Grimaud, who has since moved back home to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. He also revealed then that he was unable to have children.

His attempts to get the family to address the questions of Zanethemba's paternity had been rebuffed in the interests of preserving a semblance of unity in South Africa's most famous family, Mandla said.

"This matter has never been discussed by the so-called members of the family who say that they want to ensure there is harmony in this family," he said, challenging reporters to conduct DNA tests to confirm his allegations.

"The facts are there. You may go and find out, do the necessary tests that are needed," he said. His brother Mbuso has denied being the father of the child.

Newspapers have plastered "Mandela vs. Mandela" headlines across their front pages and editorials have bemoaned the cruel irony of bitter divisions inside the family of a man lauded the world over as the epitome of reconciliation between races.

The government said that Mandela remained "critical but stable" after nearly four weeks in hospital.

"THE MANDELA WAGON"

The sleepy community of Mvezo, set amid the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, has been at the center of a vicious dispute that may ultimately determine where South Africa's first black president will be laid to rest.

Two years ago, Mandla exhumed the bodies of three of Mandela's children from Qunu, where Mandela grew up, and moved them the 20 km to Mvezo, where Mandla has built a visitor center and a memorial center dedicated to his grandfather.

Mandla said he moved the bodies based on his right as chief to decide the final resting place of family members, especially his father Makgatho who died of an AIDS-related illness in 2005.

"I hold the right to determine where he is buried. I am the chief of Mvezo, as a traditional leader and the head of the royal house of Mandela," said Mandla, dressed in a black leather jacket and red shirt.

Despite his assertions, many of South Africa's 53 million people believe the exhumations were part of a deliberate plan to ensure Mandela was buried in Mvezo.

Last week, a rival faction of the family, led by Mandla's aunt Makaziwe and including Mbuso, won a court order for the bodies to be returned to Qunu - an edict carried out late on Wednesday after a last-minute legal bid by Mandla failed.

Speaking calmly and deliberately in front of a bank of cameras, Mandla lashed out at Makaziwe and members of the wider family, accusing them of trying to cash in on the legacy of one of the 20th century's most respected political figures.

"This is the very family that has taken their own father, their own grandfather, to court for his monies," he said, referring to a long-running legal bid by Makaziwe to remove the guardians of a Mandela charitable trust.

"It seems like anyone and everyone can come and say 'I am a Mandela' and demand to be part of the decision-making in this family," he said. "Individuals have abandoned their own families and heritage and decided to jump on the Mandela wagon."

Makaziwe has declined to comment on the graves dispute, telling reporters that it is a "private family matter".

The three Mandela children exhumed from Mvezo are an infant girl who died in 1948, a boy, Thembi, who died in a car crash in 1969, and Mandla's father, Makgatho. In all, Mandela fathered six children from his three marriages.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Gareth Jones)