Bomb wounds Israeli officer on Gaza border

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli officer was severely wounded on Tuesday when a bomb went off beside an army patrol along the border with the Gaza Strip, a military spokeswoman said.

The attack came hours before the Emir of Qatar arrived in Gaza in the first visit by a head of state to the blockaded enclave since it was taken over in 2007 by the Iranian-backed Islamist Hamas movement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will deliver a strong response to the attack. "We will fight and we will hit them very, very hard," Netanyahu said.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack that an Israeli military statement said was carried out against soldiers on a "routine patrol adjacent to the security fence in the central Gaza Strip".

The wounded officer was evacuated by helicopter to hospital, the statement added.

Israel on Monday killed two Palestinian militants, one of them a Hamas gunman.

Although Hamas is hostile to Israel, it has regularly sought to stay out of recent cross-border confrontations as it shores up its Gaza rule in the face of more radical challengers and reaches out to potential Arab allies abroad.

(Aditional reporting by Nudal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Maayan Lubell; editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Qatar emir makes history, visits Hamas-run Gaza Strip

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - The Emir of Qatar entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday for a visit that broke the isolation of it Islamist rulers, Hamas, but disappointed Israel and mainstream Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.

Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani crossed into Gaza from Egypt at the head of a large delegation on what is billed as a humanitarian visit to inaugurate $250 million worth of reconstruction projects.

It was the first trip by a head of state to Gaza since 1999 and the emir was given a red-carpet welcome by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who declared it a historic day for the enclave, which backs on to the Mediterranean sea.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas's arch-rival, said it hoped the visit would not undermine efforts to rebuild Palestinian unity or signal approval for a separate Palestinian territory.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said it was "astounding" that Qatar was taking sides, noting that the emir "has never dignified the PA with a visit".

Hamas seized control of the enclave in 2007 after a brief battle with the armed wing of Abbas' Fatah movement. It refuses to renounce violence or to recognize Israel's right to exist and it is ostracized by the West as a terrorist organization.

Haniyeh denies Hamas is seeking to create its own state in the tiny enclave, which is under partial blockade by Israel, with Egypt helping to enforce the Jewish states' restrictions.

The emir and his large delegation were greeted by a Hamas honour guard and Palestinian and Qatari flags decorated the route on the main road north to the city of Gaza, a key highway that Qatar will rebuild.

His visit coincided with another round in the low-level conflict between Israel and Hamas. An Israeli officer was badly injured by an explosion on the Gaza border and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a "strong response", which often comes in the form of Israeli air strikes.

The emir was due to make a public appearance in one of Gaza's largest soccer stadiums, and security arrangements have been in place for days ahead of the visit, seen by Hamas as a victory after five years of isolation.

Western-allied Gulf Arab states are trying to lure Hamas away from its alliance with Iran, whose nuclear energy program has raised the prospect of a war with Israel.

Qatar's emir has met Israeli leaders in the past and is working hard to boost the diplomatic clout of his small country. He has also previously sought to mediate between Hamas and Fatah to end the divisions that have weakened the Palestinian cause.

Hamas says his trip would mark the beginning of the end of Israel's blockade policy.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, writing by Douglas Hamilton, editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Over 100,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon now: UNHCR

GENEVA (Reuters) - Lebanon has become the third of Syria's neighbors after Turkey and Jordan to register more than 100,000 refugees from Syria's civil war, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.

In all, more than 358,000 Syrians fleeing the 19-month-old conflict have registered in four neighboring states, including Iraq, and tens of thousands more have fled but not sought international assistance, it said.

Lebanon has seen its own Syrian-related unrest, exacerbated by the assassination last week of a senior intelligence officer who had pursued evidence of Syrian attempts to destabilize Lebanon.

"In Lebanon, we have not seen, despite the recent turmoil, a decrease in people crossing," UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva.

Jordan now has 105,737 registered Syrian refugees, followed by 101,834 in Turkey, 101,283 in Lebanon and 42,661 in Iraq. The UNHCR has forecast that a total of up to 700,000 Syrian refugees may have fled abroad by the end of the year.

Fleming called for international support for countries hosting the refugees. "These nations should not be expected to carry the entire burden alone," she said.

Some 6,815 Syrian refugees have registered in North Africa, nearly all in Egypt, but the Egyptian government has said that there are up to 150,000 Syrians in the country, who may still seek refugee status if their money or visas run out, Fleming said.

She also urged European countries to keep open their borders for people fleeing Syria and grant them asylum.

Some 16,474 Syrians sought asylum in the European Union, Norway or Switzerland between January 2011 and August 2012, according to the UNHCR's latest figures.

"We have seen some uneven treatment depending on the asylum systems in the countries in Europe. However, we have not seen any indication that borders are closed," Fleming said.

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks in Damascus on Sunday with President Bashar al-Assad, has proposed that Assad's forces and the rebels hold fire during the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha which starts on Friday.

The UNHCR said that "in anticipation of a possible truce during Eid", it was preparing 10,000 emergency relief kits for displaced families in areas around Aleppo, Syria's largest city, and Idlib that it had so far been unable to reach.

Syrian rebels cast doubt on Monday on prospects for a temporary truce, saying it was not clear how it could be implemented.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Fighting flares in Lebanese city over Syria loyalties

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Four people were killed and 15 wounded in overnight gun battles in the Lebanese city of Tripoli in a second night of fighting between Sunni and Alawite gunmen loyal to different sides in the war in neighboring Syria, a military source said on Tuesday.

In the capital Beirut, tension eased after troops fanned out across the city to clear the streets of gunmen who had clashed on Sunday night.

The violence flared after the assassination of senior Lebanese security official Wissam al-Hassan, who was opposed to the Syrian leadership, in central Beirut on Friday.

The bombing and the ensuing clashes brought the civil war in Syria into the heart of Lebanon and triggered a political crisis, with the opposition demanding the resignation of the mostly pro-Damascus cabinet of Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The fighting in Tripoli took place between the neighboring areas of Bab al-Tabbaneh, a Sunni Muslim stronghold, and Jebel Mohsen, an Alawite district.

Three Sunnis and one Alawite were killed and 15 people were wounded, a military medical source told Reuters. Residents said combatants traded machinegun-fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

On Tuesday morning, Tripoli's center was busy and traffic moved freely. Lebanese army soldiers kept watch in armored vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns. But shops close to the combat zone were shuttered.

A fruit market on the front line was closed and residents said they feared snipers. Teenagers in t-shirts with guns hid behind buildings to peek out up the hill into Jebel Mohsen.

Tripoli's Sunni Muslims support the Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, who are mostly from Syria's Sunni majority.

Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. He can count on the support of Hezbollah, a powerful Shi'ite Islamist armed group that is part of the Mikati government, as well as other Shi'ites and Alawites in Lebanon's complex sectarian and political mix.

BOUTS OF FIGHTING

The overnight violence in Tripoli - which has suffered previous bouts of fighting since the Syrian conflict started 19 months ago - brought the toll to at least 10 dead and 65 wounded since Friday.

Lebanon is still haunted by its 1975-1990 civil war, which made Beirut a byword for carnage and wrecked large parts of the city. Many Lebanese fear the Syrian war will propel their country back to those days, destroying their efforts to rebuild it as a center of trade, finance and tourism with a measure of democracy.

Opposition politicians have accused Syria of being behind Friday's killing of Brigadier General Hassan, who had worked to counter Syrian influence in Lebanon.

A Sunni Muslim, he helped to uncover a bomb plot that led to the arrest and indictment in August of a pro-Assad former Lebanese minister.

He also led an investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon.

Mikati, who is also a Sunni Muslim, had personal ties to the Assad family before he became prime minister in January last year. His cabinet includes Hezbollah as well as Christian and other Shi'ite politicians close to Damascus.

He offered to resign at the weekend to make way for a government of national unity but President Michel Suleiman persuaded him to stay in office to allow time for talks on a way out of the political crisis.

If he were to stand down before an alternative was worked out, it would mean the collapse of the political compromise that has kept the peace in Lebanon.

Free Patriotic Movement parliamentarian Michel Aoun, a Christian politician and an ally of Hezbollah, said Lebanon could not live with such a power vacuum, and noted that formation of a government could take six months or more.

"What happened (Hassan's assassination) constitutes a security setback but if there was a vacuum, maybe the country would be in chaos," he told the Beirut Daily Star newspaper.

(Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Headphones making noise, and Colorado companies join the party

Headphones emerged front and center during this summer's London Olympics — as a fashion statement and as unofficial marketing billboards.

Numerous athletes, with little else to distinguish their appearance from teammates, prominently donned headsets from several high-profile brands, including Beats by Dr. Dre and Sol Republic, which landed the coveted spot covering the ears of Olympic darling Michael Phelps.

Colorado, as it turns out, is home to at least three headphone makers. They're not exactly household names, but two have enjoyed some degree of success and a third recently launched.

The newest comes from Todd Beetcher, founder of Boulder-based startup QAK, which in June released a pair of Bluetooth wireless headsets called Thump.

Beetcher, who said he has about 20 years experience working with startups, took a simple approach with his latest venture: Ride Apple's coattails.

"Why fight the Apple marketing machine?" he said. "They do a really good job, and accessory companies make a lot of money off of them."

Thump is designed for active users like runners and bikers, and work seamlessly with Apple's iPhone.

Manufactured in China, the headphones are packaged and branded in Boulder and sold at headphone kiosks in Park Meadows, Cherry Creek Shopping Center and FlatIron Crossing.

Telluride-based Arriva also jumped on the Apple bandwagon with its first product in 2008, headphones designed for the iPod shuffle.

Founder Ben Blouse racked up thousands of dollars in debt to finance the business. Though he's reeled in significant sales to help pay off some of that, thanks in part to positive reviews from New York Times tech columnist David Pogue this year and in 2008, Blouse wonders occasionally why he's in the ultra-competitive business.

The company's latest in-ear wireless headphones work with Bluetooth-capable cellphones or digital music players. Sometimes users struggle with the wireless connection and immediately blame the headset rather than the device.

"It's a nightmare with Bluetooth," Blouse said. "In some ways, I almost feel like 'why did I do this' because there are so many things that can go wrong, and so many times it's not (our) fault. It's the fault of the device."

Still, he chugs along, preparing to release updated versions of the Leo in multiple colors. Arriva's headphones can be purchased online at Arriva.com or Amazon.com.

Perhaps the most established Colorado headphone maker is Wheat Ridge-based Able Planet. The company is a regular exhibitor at the annual Consumer Electronics Show and produces high-end, noise-canceling headphones that compete directly with Beats and Bose.

Though lower-end headphones such as those from Arriva and QAK represent the majority of sales, models priced above $100 doubled their unit share to 6 percent last year and accounted for more than $342 million in sales through November 2011, according to market research firm NPD Group.

Independent makers such as Sol, and not major electronics manufacturers such as Sony, are grabbing attention for their stylish headphones, giving hope to upstarts such as QAK and Arriva.

"The big companies are coming and going," Blouse said. "This is a whole different ball game. Companies like us can come out of blue and become a pretty good hit."

Andy Vuong : 303-954-1209, avuong@denverpost.com or fb.com/byandyvuong

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Sound, style and comfort of three headphones from Colorado companies

If you're in the market for a new pair of headphones, consider one from the following three Colorado-based companies. I've ranked them based on sound, style and comfort.

Sound — Able Planet's Clear Harmony noise-cancelling headphones easily offer the best sound, but also come with the heftiest price tag. Nearly half of all headphone purchasers say sound quality is "extremely important" or "very important" in their decision to buy, according to the NPD Group. Frequent travelers should strongly consider the Clear Harmony because they do a great job of blocking out noise during flights. They retail for $350, and a lower-end version called Sound Clarity sells for $200. Older models can be purchased at deep discounts on Amazon.com.

Style — Thump by QAK takes the cake on style, and offers good sound quality for $80 headphones. The in-ear, Bluetooth-enabled set features a hard form factor that wraps around the back of the head. A minor complaint is that it's not clear without instructions which button should be used to pair the headphones with a smartphone or digital music player.

Comfort — Arriva's Leo beats the other two in comfort thanks to its unique design. The wireless, in-ear headphones feature a wavy, bendable body that can adjust to the shape of your head. The set is extremely lightweight, perfect for active users. The Leo costs $80, which includes Acoustibuds tips.

— Andy Vuong, The Denver Post

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.

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Mandarin Chinese becoming first choice as second language

Ivie Hunt was barely 6 last spring and had just finished kindergarten when she shocked the hostess at a Denver Asian restaurant by chatting comfortably in Mandarin Chinese.

"Here was this little blond, white girl having a full conversation with the hostess in Mandarin," said her mother, Ann Hunt, who admitted to being a bit stunned herself.

That kind of surprise may wear off as Mandarin Chinese becomes the first choice of a growing number of second-language learners.

More language students are saying adios to the recent stampede to learn Spanish and huan ying — or welcome — to mastering a Chinese dialect now spoken by an estimated 100 million non-Chinese.

In Colorado, there are many Ivies — ages 3 to 99 — twisting their tongues and brains around the foreign concepts of Mandarin grammar, tones and characters.

More than 60 schools around the state — ranging from primary-level immersion schools to universities to private language enterprises — are teaching this most widely spoken language in the world. More online classes are popping up. Chinese-language clubs are taking over tables in coffee shops. Chinese tutors are becoming a hot commodity.

The popularity of Mandarin has been driven by several factors: China's ascendancy in the global economy means anyone doing business on an international basis is likely to encounter Mandarin speakers. The spotlight on the 2008 Beijing Olympics increased tourism to China and heightened interest in Mandarin. Also, more Americans are traveling to China to adopt Chinese babies and want to be conversant with their children.

Speaking Mandarin has become a hot ticket on college applications as well as a starred addition to executive résumés.

"If you are going to get around in the world, you are going to need to speak Chinese. It's a language everyone is going to be speaking," said aviation consultant Mike Boyd, who

studies Mandarin for one intense hour a week at the Colorado Chinese Language School in Denver.

That message may be catching the attention of the younger set — and their parents — the most.

It is no longer so unusual for preschoolers to be signed up for Mandarin instruction. At least one school district has dropped Spanish classes and added K-12 Chinese. Some charter schools are offering total immersion in Mandarin beginning in kindergarten. That's how Ivie could chatter in Chinese after one year at the Denver Language School without ever being anywhere near the Great Wall or the Ming Tombs.

And that's why Trinity Jones, 12, thinks nothing of having conversations in Mandarin while socializing with her classmates at the Denver Center for International Studies.

Trinity had the option of immersing herself in French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese or Lakota, but she was fixed on learning the language spoken by more than a billion people in the world.

"I knew it would help me in the future," said Trinity, who already has her sights set on being a government translator or working for a company such as Apple in China.

Mandarin has become such an important language around the state that the University of Colorado at Boulder has added a program called Teaching East Asia. It is geared toward training more Chinese instructors and furthering learning about China for more students. It is also aimed at getting a handle this year on just how many

Chinese-language schools and learners are out there.

The program uses funding from an initiative called STARTALK that was developed under President George W. Bush to promote teaching and understanding of "strategically important" languages.

Jon Zeljo with the Teaching East Asia program said one focus of the summer institutes held for teachers and students the past three years has been to make Mandarin classes sustainable by giving Chinese teachers more resources and to expose more students to Mandarin at a young age.

The Chinese government is assisting in this endeavor by funding half the salaries of Chinese teachers through Chinese Language Council International programs called Confucius Institutes or through a Chinese Ministry of Education program called Hanban.

Kuo Li teaches Mandarin and Chinese culture to 144 students at Battle Mountain High School in Edwards with Chinese government help and said his students are learning much more than how to pronounce Chinese tones correctly.

"Chinese gives these students a larger horizon in their future lives," he said.

Amanda Sauer is principal at Erie Elementary in the St. Vrain Valley School District, which has embraced the teaching of Mandarin more than any other district in the state. Four Chinese-language teachers are half funded by Hanban.

Sauer echoes Li's statement.

"Our district looked at how to prepare kids for 21st-century jobs — to help them have a global view," she said.

Students in kindergarten through second grade in Erie start out with sessions every other week that focus more on Chinese culture than on learning grammar. Students move on to weekly classes focused on writing characters and language-building in third grade. They can then choose whether to continue learning Chinese in middle and high school.

Ann Hunt is pretty sure Ivie will continue her Chinese studies. She and her husband, Dr. James Hunt, have already decided their 2-year-old son will also have the chance to learn Mandarin. They have mused over what it will be like to eventually have two teenage children in the house who are fluent in a language that is a mystery to them and to the two older children in the family.

Already, they struggle with not being able to help Ivie with her Mandarin homework.

"Overwhelming is how I would describe it," she said. "Overwhelming but amazing."

Or, as her daughter might tell her, in Mandarin it is jingren — amazing.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.

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106 counties likely to determine who wins the presidency

LEESBURG, Va. — How Virginia goes in the presidential election may come down to voters who live amid the small wineries, affluent subdivisions and Civil War battlegrounds of Loudoun County.

Voters in the tony Hamilton County suburbs around the humming riverside economic engine of Cincinnati may tip the balance in Ohio.

To win Florida, either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney probably will have carried Hillsborough County, where the urban seaport town of Tampa bleeds into communities of Spanish-speaking voters and retired Midwesterners.

Those areas are vastly different, yet each is full of fickle voters and bound by a proclivity to swing between Republican and Democrat every four years. All are main targets as the president and his Republican challenger look for enough victories in enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

The race may come down to an even narrower slice of the electorate than the nine most contested states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. The outcome probably will depend on what happens in the 106 counties that Republican George W. Bush won in 2004 and that voted for Democrat Obama in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis.

AP reviewed the vote returns in those nine states during the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections to identify the counties that have swung between the parties and were most likely to do it again Nov. 6.

These counties are home to people such as Matt Blunt, a 42-year-old information-technology manager from Sterling, Va., in Loudoun County, outside Washington. Blunt voted for Obama in 2008, hoping he could change Washington's bitter tone, but now backs Romney.

"What I see in Romney is the stronger potential for leadership than we've seen in the past four years," Blunt said, adding that Obama "hasn't lived up to the promise."

Constant polling

In these counties more than anywhere else, voters' phones ring every night with automated telephone surveys. Every day, glossy mailers hit their mailboxes. Televisions crackle day and night with campaign ads.

In fact, voters in the Cincinnati, Tampa and northern Virginia TV markets have been subjected to presidential campaign advertising totaling $127 million, almost one-fifth of the total spent nationwide this year.

"There's more — and more concentrated — contact with voters in these counties that swung back and forth in these states than anybody," said Charlie Black, a veteran Republican presidential campaign strategist and informal Romney adviser.

In a race where any bit of an advantage could make the difference, the campaigns go to all this trouble to sway a tiny fraction of the electorate. In 2008, there were 6.2 million votes from those 106 counties; that was not even 5 percent of the roughly 137 million who voted for president.

There is no single reason to explain why these counties seem to shift with the political wind. Their voters are far from monolithic, having little in common other than their voting patterns.

In most of these places, there are few truly undecided voters, forcing Obama and Romney to subdivide the electorate in their attempt for any edge.

In northern Virginia, for example, Obama is reaching out to newcomers and younger veterans. Romney's pitch is stronger toward retired military members, sportsmen and social conservatives.

In counties in the West, Obama is courting educated women and Latinos. Romney is attempting to make inroads with both but is more focused on businesswomen and small-business owners.

As a whole, voters in these counties are less racially diverse than the nation, with a smaller percentage having a college education.

One such area is working-class Sandusky County, Ohio, where the automotive industry's rebound has pushed the county's unemployment below the state average. The list also includes parts of southern Virginia, with a substantial African-American population, and North Carolina's Research Triangle.

If there's one area where these counties are linked, it may be that many have a wide segment of working-class white voters, an important group for Romney and one that Obama has struggled with.

Starting with an edge

In the hunt for 270, Obama starts with more states and electoral votes in his column. Romney must take back from the incumbent some states that Obama carried four years ago, including North Carolina and Virginia, which had been reliably Republican until 2008.

In Virginia, public and private polls show Obama narrowly ahead. Internal Republican polls have shown Romney leading in Loudoun and Prince William counties. Over time, these once-reliably Republican counties have become more politically diverse, as younger, well-educated, racially and ethnically diverse voters have flocked to Washington's suburbs. Obama won four years ago by aggressively going after them and the state's robust African-American electorate.

Romney can win Virginia by taking Loud-oun County away from the Democrats, holding down Obama's likely edge in other Washington suburbs and running up big numbers in rural southern Virginia and the conservative Tidewater area.

In Ohio, Romney needs Hamilton County, especially the Cincinnati suburbs, to offset Obama's edge in Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton. Obama needs to trim Romney's advantages in the suburbs and southeastern Ohio's coal country.

The dynamic is similar in Nevada's Washoe County. It's home to Reno, a gambling mecca at the foot of the Sierra Nevada that is a diverse mix of people, including retired and active-duty military from the nearby Naval air base, Latinos and transplants from northern California.

If Romney stands a chance of carrying Nevada, he needs to cut into Obama's edge in Las Vegas and run up big margins in the vast ranching and mining country elsewhere. But he stands little chance of beating Obama in Nevada without Washoe County, which accounts for 15 percent to 20 percent of the state's vote.

While Obama has concentrated his Nevada efforts on Las Vegas, Romney has focused aggressively on Washoe County's veterans, and for good reason.

"Washoe is a county where Republicans need to win to have a chance in Nevada," Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said.

But some swing-voting counties don't look like they may be swinging back any time soon.

The best example is Osceola County, a bedroom community to Orlando, Fla., that has experienced an influx in the past decade of Puerto Ricans, Latinos who are U.S. citizens.

The shift of these typically Democratic-leaning voters, as well as other Spanish-speaking voters in Colorado and Nevada, is part of a longer-term trend going in the Democrats' favor and spreading into other neighboring states over the coming generation.

While it bodes well for Democrats in the future, there are no guarantees for Obama this year.

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A list of 106 swing-voting counties

The Associated Press has identified 106 swing-voting communities in the nine states where President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are competing hardest. Voters in these counties, and cities in the case of Virginia, picked President George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008, and these places could again be pivotal this year.

Colorado:

Alamosa

Arapahoe

Huerfano

Jefferson

Larimer

Ouray

Florida:

Flagler

Hillsborough

Osceola

Pinellas

Iowa:

Adams

Allamakee

Audubon

Bremer

Carroll

Cedar

Crawford

Delaware

Emmett

Franklin

Greene

Hamilton

Hardin

Iowa

Kossuth

Louisa

Marshall

Palo Alto

Union

Warren

Winnebago

Nevada:

Washoe

Carson City

New Hampshire:

Belknap

Carroll

Hillsborough

Rockingham

North Carolina:

Bladen

Buncombe

Caswell

Cumberland

Forsyth

Granville

Hyde

Jackson

Martin

Pitt

Wake

Watauga

Wilson

Ohio:

Hamilton

Lake

Ottawa

Sandusky

Tuscarawas

Wood

Virginia:

Buckingham

Caroline

Essex

Henrico

King and Queen

Loudoun

Montgomery

Prince William

Westmoreland

(Cities)

Chesapeake

Harrisonburg

Hopewell

Manassas

Manassas Park

Radford

Staunton

Suffolk

Winchester

Wisconsin:

Barron

Brown

Burnett

Calumet

Chippewa

Clark

Columbia

Door

Forest

Jefferson

Juneau

Kewaunee

Langlade

Lincoln

Manitowoc

Marathon

Marinette

Marquette

Monroe

Oconto

Oneida

Outagamie

Racine

Richland

Rusk

Sawyer

Shawano

Washburn

Waupaca

Waushara

Winnebago

Wood

Source: The Associated Press

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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