Early tests: No E.coli in German sprouts

Berlin (CNN) -- No traces of the deadly E. coli bacteria have been found in initial tests at a German bean sprout farm suspected of being the source of the outbreak that has killed at least 22 people, agriculture officials in the state of Lower Saxony said Monday.

But authorities said they might not find any evidence of E. coli if it affected only a batch of bad sprouts and is no longer in the supply chain.

Test results are back for 20 of the 40 samples, Lower Saxony officials said Monday. It's not clear when the rest of the test results will be available.

On Sunday, officials said German-grown sprouts are the likely source for the E. coli outbreak.

Gert Lindemann, agricultural minister in Lower Saxony, said there is a "direct link" between a company in the town of Bienenbuettel and "these people getting sick." The firm has been shut down and its products have been recalled, Lindemann said.

It is not immediately clear how the E. coli strain may have gotten into the sprouts, officials said. No E. coli has been found in the company.

The company, Gaertnerhof, said Monday that it was recalling all products.

Gaertnerhof said in a statement it was "shocked and worried.... that part of our production has been linked to E.coli infections" and had never had a problem in its 25 years of growing sprouts.

It said it had found no evidence of E. coli during routine testing in January or during tests in response to the health scare in May.

But a leading German microbiologist said Monday that bean sprouts were a "plausible" source of the infection.

Sprouts can contain bacteria, which then spread in the growing process, said Alexander Kekule of the University of Halle-Wittenberg.

"Either it was inside the seed, which I do not think is the case, or the bacteria was inside the water," Kekule said on Germany's NDR radio. He is not working directly on the case.

Sprouts are bred in large drums that are heated to just over human body temperature. That is both the ideal temperature for sprouts and bacteria to grow, the agriculture ministry of Lower Saxony said.

Authorities say the infection may have taken place too long ago to be found at the company itself. But several restaurants and cafeterias linked to the outbreak got sprouts from the company, officials said.

Two workers at the agricultural company have come down with severe cases of diarrhea; in at least one of those cases, E. coli was the cause, Lindemann said.

Bienenbuettel is in the district of Uelzen in north-central Germany.

The outbreak of a virulent strain of E. coli has infected more than 2,200 people in at least 12 countries, European health authorities said Sunday.

All but one of the 22 fatalities were reported in Germany, where officials say it's too early to determine whether the peak of the outbreak has passed. One person in Sweden also died after visiting Germany.

Last week, Spain vehemently rejected suggestions that its cucumbers could be blamed, after the European Food Safety Alert Network said E. coli was found in organic cucumbers originating from Spain, packaged in Germany and distributed to various countries.

Authorities called for the cucumbers to be pulled from sale.

Germany later said Spanish produce was not the source of the infection, and furious Spanish farmers are now demanding hundreds of millions of euros in compensation from Germany.

Jose Maria Pozancos, the head of the Spanish fresh produce exporters group Fepex, wants Germany to apologize formally, pay Spanish farmers at least 400 million euros ($584 million) for their losses, and help Spain repair damaged consumer confidence.

Spanish produce exporters have seen a 40% decline in demand since the crisis began, Pozancos said.

In Germany, there have been 627 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) -- a form of kidney failure -- in the current European outbreak, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. That's more cases of HUS than in any other recorded outbreak, worldwide.

Fifteen patients in Germany have died of HUS, according to the center, while six died of enterohemorrhagic E. coli, a strain that causes hemorrhaging in the intestines and can result in abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea.

Reports indicate that an estimated 1,605 people have that E. coli strain so far but do not have HUS, according to the center.

Infections have also been identified in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, according to the organization.

Two women and a man who traveled last month to northern Germany remain hospitalized in the United States with HUS, Chris Braden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. A fourth person developed bloody diarrhea, but was not hospitalized, he added.

Two U.S. service members in Germany also developed diarrhea, Braden said. "We have no expectation that this will spread in our country," he added.

The U.S. government website foodsafety.gov says that since 1996, "there have been at least 30 reported outbreaks of food-borne illness associated with different types of raw and lightly cooked sprouts. Most of these outbreaks were caused by Salmonella and E. coli."

The World Health Organization says that in 1996, "an outbreak linked to contaminated radish sprouts in school lunches caused 9,451 cases" of E. coli in Japan.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen, Al Goodman and Per Nyberg contributed to this report.

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Tests to reveal ID of 2 Air France bodies

NEW: It could take months to identify the victims of the crash, an official saysEnough DNA is recovered to identify two bodies found this month, the official saysAll 228 people on Air France 447 died when the plane crashed mysteriously two years agoThe bulk of the wreckage was located this year after an unprecedented search

Paris (CNN) -- French air crash investigators expect to be able to identify two bodies recovered this month from an Air France crash that killed 228 people two years ago, an official close to the investigation told CNN Tuesday.

Having recovered enough DNA to know they will be able to identify the victims, police launched a new operation Saturday to bring up more bodies from the wreck on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the official said.

Everyone on board Air France 447 was killed when the plane mysteriously dropped out of the sky en route from Brazil to France on June 1, 2009.

Two years later, no one knows why the Airbus A330 slammed into the ocean in stormy weather, falling so fast that air masks did not have time to drop.

But investigators trying to determine the cause have recovered the complete contents of the flight data recorder and the last two hours of cockpit conversation, they said earlier this month.

It will take several weeks to analyze the data, French air accident experts said May 16.

Discovering that there was data on the recorders "is excellent news. It is really going to help us work out what happened on that plane," said Martine Del Bono, spokeswoman for France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA).

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were found at the beginning of May after an unprecedented series of submarine searches of a mountain range 3,900 meters (12,700 feet) under the ocean. They were brought to the surface and taken to Paris by ship and plane.

The investigators recovered two bodies from the fuselage -- after finding only about 50 bodies in the days immediately after the crash.

They said this month that they would not bring up more bodies if they could not identify the two they already have. But after recovering enough DNA to identify the bodies, they launched a new operation this weekend, the official close to the investigation told CNN Tuesday.

The bodies have not actually been identified yet, adding that the process could take months, said the official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive details of the investigation.

The bulk of the plane, located earlier this year, contains many more human remains, according to investigators.

Recovering more bodies will be a difficult task, with miles of cable required to bring each one up over a period of three hours, they said.

Investigators also brought an engine and an avionics bay containing computers to the surface, they said.

The pilots of Air France 447 lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic known for severe turbulence, officials said. But exactly what caused the plane to plunge into the ocean remains a mystery.

The fuselage was discovered in April with bodies still inside, investigators said.

Some relatives of those who died have expressed reservations about remains being brought to the surface.

Last month Robert Soulas, head of a support group for families of flight victims, said: "For me, personally I would like to leave the bodies of my children, my two children, on the seabed."

Other relatives have called for the bodies to be recovered.

CNN's Winnie Andrews in Paris contributed to this report.

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Navy successfully tests prototype ocean-going laser weapon

From Charley Keyes, CNN Senior National Security Producer STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe laser destroyed an outboard motor on a small boat more than a mile away, the Navy says"We can really kind of get the attention of an attacking boat," a Navy research official saysSuch a weapon could be used against pirates or suspected terrorists Washington (CNN) -- Science fiction became science fact when the U.S. Navy barbecued an outboard motor off the coast of California.

This was no pleasure-boating mishap: It was the first successful test of a high-energy laser and proof that a weapon using that technology could protect Navy ships or immobilize pirates.

The laser, mounted on a Navy warship, was able to destroy an outboard motor on a small boat bobbing "more than a mile away," according to Michael Deitchman, director of air warfare and weapons at the Office of Naval Research. The Navy is carefully guarding specific details of last week's test but the video is a popular stop on YouTube. (Search for Maritime Laser Demonstration.)

"We can really kind of get the attention of an attacking boat," Deitchman said in a telephone interview.

And the power of the laser can be adjusted for distance -- what the experts call "tune-ability" -- from just a bright light to a small hole in the bow to the destructive beam that torched the outboard motor in the test. A laser weapon could be used to disable pirate boats off the coast of Africa or to keep suspected terrorist vessels for away from Navy ships.

There has been talk about lasers since the middle of the 20th century and decades of research about how to make an effective weapon. Deitchman says the successful test proved to scientists with the Navy and Northrop Grumman that the technology has potential.

Previously, lasers had been tested either in the air or on land. The humidity and up-and-down swells of the Pacific introduced a whole new set of variables. In this case, the laser was linked into what was already on board. "We were able to integrate into the existing tracking and targeting system," Deitchman said.

And this "proof of concept test" kicks the project along to Navy and Defense Deaprtment decision-makers who will decide whether to move ahead with additional tests and development.

"What we are doing is saying, 'Here's what's possible,'" Deitchman said.

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