Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a nine-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Wall Street rises as "fiscal cliff" remarks lift market

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in volatile trade on Wednesday after comments from the top Republican in Congress on a possible compromise to avoid the "fiscal cliff" turned the market on its head.

House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avert large tax hikes and spending cuts currently under discussion in Washington could be reached. President Barack Obama, speaking later in the day, said he hoped to get a deal done in the next four weeks.

"The fiscal cliff is dominating the discussion, and short term, we're a little bit too optimistic on it being fixed right away," said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in New York.

The market has been swinging on headlines from Washington for weeks now, with Wednesday's gyrations once again highlighting the importance that Wall Street is giving to finding a solution to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

Liberals want tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to help balance the budget, while conservatives make a case for deep cuts in programs for the poor and a widening of the tax base to raise revenues without raising tax rates.

"Both (Democrats and Republicans) have potential to benefit from compromise. It's just a question of not losing face in the process," Manley said.

Boehner's words triggered a comeback in stocks after the S&P 500 fell 1 percent, partly on weak data on the housing sector.

Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp jumped 5.9 percent to $102.19 after the retailer became the latest company to announce a special dividend ahead of expected tax hikes that are part of the negotiations.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 65.16 points, or 0.51 percent, to 12,943.29. The S&P 500 Index <.spx> gained 4.71 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,403.65. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.20 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,977.99.

Housing stocks fell after data showed new U.S. single-family home sales fell slightly in October, while September's pace of sales was revised sharply lower.

The PHLX housing index <.hgx> slipped 0.6 percent, but is still up more than 8 percent in the last eight sessions.

Knight Capital Group Inc shares jumped 13.5 percent to $3.37 on news that Getco Holding proposed a $1.4 billion merger with Knight, while Virtu Financial offered to buy Knight for at least $1.1 billion.

Apparel retailer Express Inc rose 9.8 percent to $14.26 after it forecast strong earnings for the current quarter as lower prices and easy-to-understand discounts led to robust Black Friday sales.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters stock surged 27.3 percent to $36.86 a day after it forecast quarterly and full-year earnings well ahead of analysts' expectations.

(Reporting by Ed Krudy; Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Tibetan Protesters Injured in Crackdown; Self-Immolations Continue

BEIJING — At least five Tibetans have set fire to themselves in recent days to protest Chinese rule in Tibetan regions, while at least 5 Tibetan students were in critical condition and 15 others were being treated for injuries after security forces cracked down on a large protest in western China on Monday, according to reports by Radio Free Asia and Free Tibet, an advocacy group.

The protest took place in an area of Qinghai Province that the Chinese call Hainan Autonomous Prefecture, and that Tibetans call Tsolho. More than 1,000 Tibetans, mostly students and teachers, took to the streets to demand equal rights for ethnic minorities and the freedom to study and use the Tibetan language. Several reports said the protest began after local officials distributed a booklet that condemned Tibetans who had self-immolated and belittled the Tibetan language.

With the five recent self-immolations, at least 22 Tibetans have set fire to themselves this month alone, and 86 since 2009, according to Radio Free Asia. The first case was a monk from Kirti Monastery, which became the heart of the self-immolations last year and earlier this year, though the acts have since become more widespread and now constitute one of the largest such phenomena anywhere in the world in recent memory. The latest four cases were reported Sunday and Monday in the western China provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai, which all have significant Tibetan populations.

The students who protested Monday were from the Chabcha Sorig Lobling School, according to Free Tibet. They gathered at 5:40 a.m. and marched peacefully into the town of Chabcha. Chinese security forces began a violent crackdown at 9 a.m., the report said. “It’s still unclear what happened next, but many young students were so badly injured they were taken straight to hospital,” Free Tibet said. Security forces locked down the town, the group added. Radio Free Tibet reported that security forces fired tear gas and beat students with rifle butts, arresting four.

The events could not be independently confirmed; Chinese officials have barred foreign journalists from traveling to the sites of protests or self-immolations by Tibetans. Phone calls made on Tuesday to offices of the prefecture government and party committee went unanswered. A woman answering a call on the prefecture emergency hot line said she had not heard of any protests.

Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the United States government, said the school in Chabcha, known as Gonghe in Chinese, trained students in medicine. The offending booklet that inspired the protests was called “Ten Real Views of Tsolho Area,” and the medical students burned all the copies given to them and “called for equality among nationalities and freedom to study the Tibetan language,” according to a person who was quoted anonymously by Radio Free Asia.

Moves by officials in Qinghai to restrict the use of the Tibetan language, particularly in classrooms, have resulted in protests by students before. The northeast Tibetan region that Qinghai encompasses, generally called Amdo, is historically an area known for Tibetan scholarship and the production of cultural works. Even today, poets, writers and singers in Qinghai create works in the Tibetan language that are distributed widely across the Tibetan world.

Mia Li contributed research.

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Google Breaks All Android App Reviews, Threatens Android Fans’ Safety

“A Google User” is now the number one Android game and app reviewer on Google Play, Android’s version of Apple’s App Store. That’s because every single one of the millions of existing reviews, possibly including yours, has had its author replaced with this nameless, faceless person.

Screenshots taken by Jeremiah Rice of the Android Police blog show this prolific (but completely generic) author has taken over the Google Play store. Meanwhile, if you visit the store on your Android smartphone or tablet you won’t see a name attached to most reviews at all; just the review’s title, and the device that the game or app was run on.

Believe it or not, this is all intentional. It’s the start of a new Google policy … one which may threaten some Android fans’ safety or privacy.

​Google+, whether you like it or not

Google now requires you to have a Google+ (pronounced “Google Plus”) account in order to leave reviews on Google Play, the Chrome Web Store, and Google Maps. No reason for the switchover is given in the pop-up which explains this; you simply click “Continue” if you want your reviews tied to your Google+ account, and if you don’t want them linked you don’t write them at all. If you don’t have a Google+ account, you have to sign up for one before you can write a review.

​Why Google is Plus-ifying everything

Google’s success as a company is determined by how many ads it sells. Google’s share of the ad market is being eaten into by Facebook, which has essentially “walled off” a huge part of people’s day-to-day lives in a place Google can’t index or sell any ads on. For better or for worse, Google’s execs feel that what they need to do to compete is copy Facebook, in the form of Google+.

Why? Because if everyone is “Plusing” things instead of “Liking” them, and if everything people do shows up on Google+ instead of Facebook, then now Google (instead of Facebook) knows what you’re doing online and where you’re doing it — and that gives it a much better position from which to display and sell ads.

​Why this is a problem for many

Besides the obvious privacy concerns (although Google offers limited tools to manage how much it tracks you), Google+’s “real names” policy is dangerous to anyone whose safety is jeopardized by attaching their given name to their online activities. This includes women who are victims of stalking, minors who are victims of abuse, transgender persons in transition, and dissidents in repressive political or religious regimes. By requiring a Google+ account to use more and more of its services, Google is forcing these people to choose between excluding themselves and running the risk of having ​all​ of their Google services terminated for a “real name” policy violation, including their personal Gmail accounts.

Google+ policy allows for pseudonymous accounts, if you’re widely known by that pseudonym online. Everyone’s Google+ page, however, has a button to report what anyone feels is a suspicious name, which puts marginalized persons like those listed above at the mercy of every “troll” who comes by.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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What Does Brad Pitt Think of the Parodies of His Chanel No. 5 Commercial?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/27/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

Saturday Night Live spoofed him. Several times. Heck, even dogs did it. But Brad Pitt still stands by his not-so-popular Chanel No. 5 commercial.

“I kind of liked it,” he told Access Hollywood on Monday. “I respect what [Chanel does]. They do some really quality things.”

However, he also respects the people who’ve made fun of it.

“I haven’t [seen the parodies],” he added, “but I say absolutely fair play.”

Yep — the man who made millions off the trippy 30-second spot hasn’t had the chance to catch SNL on Hulu yet. “I’ve been overseas,” he shared, “so I’ve been blissfully protected.”

But that’s not to say he won’t have a chuckle eventually; he told Extra he would probably watch the SNL spoofs (starring Taran Killam) when he wasn’t working so much. And we’ll look forward to hearing his reaction. Tell us: Are you still not so into the Chanel No. 5 ads?

PHOTOS: FIND THE BEST FALL FRAGRANCE FOR YOU!

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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Wall Street slips on cliff caution, but homebuilders shine

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks declined on Tuesday as wrangling continued in Washington over budget talks, while homebuilders' stocks outperformed the broader market after positive data.

Strengthening the case for a sustained rebound in housing, single-family home prices rose for an eighth straight month in September. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> advanced 0.5 percent, with all but one of its 19 components posting gains.

"As long as you have interest rates as low as they are right now, housing is definitely back," said Brian Amidei, managing director at HighTower Advisors in Palm Desert, California.

Despite strong housing data, an increase in planned business spending and a more than 4-year high in consumer sentiment, traders were cautious as politicians in Washington made little progress in dealing with the "fiscal cliff."

Markets have lately focused on whether Congress and the White House can agree on ways to avoid some $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are due to kick in early next year.

"If there's any reason why the (stock) market has stalled out, it's because large investors have decided to step back and see this play out, because I think they're very aware of how important this is," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 74.53 points, or 0.57 percent, to 12,892.84. The S&P 500 Index <.spx> dropped 5.68 points, or 0.40 percent, to 1,400.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> shed 4.80 points, or 0.16 percent, to 2,971.98.

The S&P 500 was holding at 1,400, a key psychological level it reclaimed last week. Last week, the S&P 500 gained nearly 4 percent.

As budget talks linger, Las Vegas Sands and Supertex added their names to a growing list of companies announcing special dividends aimed at helping investors avoid a possibly higher tax burden next year.

Las Vegas Sands jumped 5.5 percent to $46.46. Supertex rose 3.4 percent to $17.41.

Food maker Ralcorp Holdings shares jumped 26.5 percent to $88.82 after long-time suitor ConAgra Foods sealed a deal to buy it for $5 billion. ConAgra shares gained 4.3 percent to $29.50.

Corning Inc shares rose 6.7 percent to $12.11 after the specialty glass maker said it expects full-year sales of its Gorilla glass, used in smartphones and tablets, to approach $1 billion.

McMoRan Exploration Co shares tumbled 11.8 percent to $8.51 a day after the oil and gas driller gave a disappointing update on a key gas prospect in a Gulf of Mexico well.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editibg by Jan Paschal)

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Egypt’s President Said to Limit Scope of Judicial Decree

CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi agreed Monday to scale back a sweeping decree he had issued last week that raised his edicts above any judicial review, according to a report by a television network allied with his party. The agreement, reached with top judicial authorities, would leave most of Mr. Morsi’s actions subject to review by the courts, but preserve a crucial power: protecting the constitutional council from being dissolved by the courts before it finishes its work.

Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

Protesters ran for cover during clashes with riot police at Tahrir square in Cairo on Monday.

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians mourned Mohammed Gaber Salah, an activist who died Sunday from injuries sustained during protests, before his funeral on Monday in Cairo.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that sponsored Mr. Morsi and his party, announced that it was canceling a major demonstration in support of the president that had been planned for Tuesday.

Cracks appeared in Mr. Morsi’s government on Sunday over the decree after the justice minister, Ahmed Mekki, began arguing publicly for a retreat, and at least three other senior advisers resigned over the measure. The move had also prompted widening street protests and cries from opponents that Mr. Morsi, who already governs without a legislature, was moving toward a new autocracy in Egypt, less than two years after the ouster of the strongman Hosni Mubarak.

With a threatened strike by the nation’s judges, a plunge in the country’s stock market and more street protests looming, Mr. Morsi’s administration initially sent mixed messages on Sunday over whether it was willing to consider a compromise: a spokesman for the president’s party insisted that there would be no change in his edict, but a statement from the party indicated for the first time a willingness to give political opponents “guarantees against monopolizing the fateful decisions of the homeland in the absence of the Parliament.”

Mr. Mekki, the influential leader of a judicial independent movement under Mr. Mubarak and one of Mr. Morsi’s closest aides, actively tried to broker a deal with top jurists to resolve the crisis.

The reaction to the decree had presented the most acute test to date of the ability and willingness of Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to engage in the kind of give and take that democratic government requires. But he also must contend with real doubts about the willingness of his anti-Islamist opponents to join him in compromise. Each side is mired in deep suspicion of the other, a legacy of the decades when the Brotherhood survived here only as an insular secret society, demonized as dangerous radicals by most of the Egyptian elite.

“There is a deep mistrust,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo who studies the Brotherhood. “It is an ugly round of partisan politics,” he said, “a bone-crushing phase.”

The scale of the backlash against the decree appeared to catch Mr. Morsi’s government by surprise. “In his head, the president thought that this would push us forward, but then it was met with all this inflammation,” Mr. Mekki said. He faulted the president for failing to consult with his opponents before issuing it, but he also faulted the opponents for their own unwillingness to come to the table: “I blame all of Egypt, because they do not know how to talk to each other.”

Government and party officials maintained that Mr. Morsi was forced to claim the expansive new powers to protect the process of writing the country’s new constitution, and that the decree would be in effect only until the charter was in place. A court of judges appointed under the Mubarak government was widely rumored to be about to dissolve the elected constitutional assembly, dominated by Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies — just as the same court had previously cast out the newly elected Islamist-led Parliament — and the decree issued by Mr. Morsi on Thursday gave him the power to stop it.

“I see with all of you, clearly, that the court verdict is announced two or three weeks before the court session,” Mr. Morsi told his supporters on Friday, referring to the pervasive rumors about the court’s impending action in a fiery speech defending his decree. “We will dissolve the entire homeland, as it seems! How is that? How? Those waywards must be held accountable."

He said that corrupt Mubarak loyalists were “hiding under the cover of the judiciary” and declared, “I will uncover them!”

But instead of rallying the public to his side and speeding the country’s political transition, as Mr. Morsi evidently hoped, his decree has unleashed new instability across the country. On Sunday, the first day of business here since the decree was issued, the Egyptian stock market fell by about 9.5 percent, erasing more than $4 billion of value.

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Angus T. Jones: 'Please Stop Watching Two and a Half Men'

TV Watch

11/26/2012 at 03:15 PM EST

Has Angus T. Jones pulled a Charlie Sheen?

The 19-year-old Two and a Half Men star has spoken out against the CBS sitcom in a manner that's sure to ruffle some network feathers.

"If you watch Two and Half Men, please stop watching Two and Half Men," Jones says in a video posted on YouTube by TheForerunner777 (watch it below) in which the actor discusses his Christian faith. "I'm on Two and Half Men and I don't want to be on it. Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth."

"People say it's just entertainment," he continues. "Do some research on the effects of television in your brain and I promise you, you'll have a decision to make when it comes to ... what you watch on television. It's bad news."

Jones, who in 2008 was paid roughly $1.2 million a season, then references "the enemy" and how someone like him cannot appear on a TV show. (Jones has played Jake Harper on Men since 2003.)

"A lot of people don't like to think about how deceptive the enemy is," says Jones. "There's no playing around when it comes to eternity ... People will see us and be like, 'I can be a Christian and be on a show like Two and a Half Men.' You can't. You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that. I know I can't."

On the subject of his series, Jones concludes, "I'm not okay with what I'm learning [about] what the Bible says and being on that television show. You go all or nothing."

A rep for CBS has not responded to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

CHICAGO (AP) — They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.

Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.

The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.

The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses — from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.

"I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries," said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.

Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.

More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.

"There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk," he said.

Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.

The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.

Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.

A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.

Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

Trade group: http://www.naarso.com

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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