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 10-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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Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

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

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Stock futures point to higher start

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.6 percent at 4.24 a.m. EST.

Dow Jones futures added 0.4 percent while contracts on the Nasdaq 100 were 0.8 percent higher.

Asian and European shares also rose on Thursday as hints from U.S. policymakers of progress toward reaching a fiscal deal boosted investors' risk appetites.

The Commerce Department releases a second preliminary estimate of gross domestic product for the third quarter and a first estimate of third-quarter corporate profits at 8.30 a.m. EST.

Third-quarter GDP growth will likely be raised to a 2.8 percent annual pace from 2 percent, thanks to restocking by businesses and a smaller deficit on the trade balance. Given that inventories will account for the bulk of the growth spurt, this should not be viewed as a sign of strength in the economy. The inventory boost is at the expense of growth in the fourth quarter.

Retailers including Nordstrom , Gap and TJX are expected to post increases in November sales, aided by a busy Thanksgiving weekend. Excluding drugstores, chains are expected to post a November same-store sales gain of 3.3 percent according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, slower than the 3.5 percent growth they saw in November 2011.

Kroger, the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, is expected to report third-quarter earnings per share of $0.43, up from $0.33 on year earlier. The report will give investors insight into spending by mainstream consumers and a read into food costs following this summer's devastating drought.

Upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co will also provide its quarterly report, with EPS seen at $0.63 from $0.70 on year earlier, and update investors on how it expects holiday sales to shape up.

Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department are nearing agreement on a long-delayed contract for a fifth batch of F-35 fighter jets, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer told Reuters on Wednesday.

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday voted that an experimental Johnson & Johnson drug for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis appears to be safe and effective, but highlighted potential heart and liver-safety issues.

Mark Fields said his top priority when he starts running Ford Motor's Co global operations next month will be to build on the 'One Ford' plan.

Video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc forecast net loss for the current quarter even as legal costs stay high due to patent lawsuits against Google Inc's GOOG.O Motorola Mobility Inc and Cisco Systems Inc .

ATM maker NCR Corp said it would buy Israeli software company Retalix Ltd for $650 million in a bid to expand its footprint in the retail sector.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 106.98 points, or 0.83 percent, to 12,985.11 on Wednesday. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 10.99 points, or 0.79 percent, to 1,409.93. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 23.99 points, or 0.81 percent, to close at 2,991.78.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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Egypt protests continue in deadlock over Mursi powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters were in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday, demanding that Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers.

Five months into the Islamist leader's term, and in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that unseated predecessor Hosni Mubarak last year, police fired teargas at stone-throwers following protests by tens of thousands on Tuesday against the declaration that expanded Mursi's powers and put his decisions beyond legal challenge.

Protesters say they will stay in Tahrir until the decree is withdrawn, bringing fresh turmoil to a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring and delivering a new blow to an economy already on the ropes.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers, while protesters want him to dissolve an Islamist-dominated assembly that is drawing up a new constitution and which Mursi protected from legal review.

Any deal to calm the street will likely need to address both issues. But opposition politicians said the list of demands could grow the longer the crisis goes on. Many protesters want the cabinet, which meets on Wednesday, to be sacked, too.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, who has not had a job for two years. He is one of many in the square who are as angry over economic hardship as they are about Mursi's actions.

"We want the scrapping of the constitutional declaration and the constituent assembly, so a new one is created representing all the people and not just one section," he said.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length. The United States, a big donor to Egypt's military, has called for "peaceful democratic dialogue".

Two people have been killed in violence since the decree, while low-level clashes between protesters and police have gone on for days near Tahrir. Violence has flared in other cities.

WRANGLES

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges in talks.

That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was much room for interpretation. The judges themselves are divided, and the broader judiciary has yet to back the compromise. Some have gone on strike over the decree.

The fate of the assembly drawing up the constitution has been at the centre of a wrangle between Islamists and their opponents for months. Many liberals, Christians and more moderate Muslims have walked out, saying their voices are not being heard in the body dominated by Islamists.

That has undermined the work of the assembly, which is tasked with shaping Egypt's new democracy. Without a constitution in place, the president's powers are not permanently defined and a new parliament cannot be elected.

For now, Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. His decree says his decisions cannot be challenged until a new parliament is in place. An election is expected in early 2013.

"If Mursi doesn't respond to the people, they will raise their demands to his removal," said Bassem Kamel, a liberal and former member of the now dissolved parliament that was dominated by Mursi's party, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He said Tuesday's protest showed that Egyptians "understood that the Brotherhood isn't for democracy but uses it as a tool to reach power and then to get rid of it".

Protecting his decisions and the constituent assembly from legal review was a swipe at the judiciary, still largely unreformed since Mubarak's era. In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

One presidential source said Mursi wanted to re-make the Supreme Constitutional Court, a body of top judges that earlier this year declared the Islamist-led parliament void, leading to its dissolution by the then ruling military.

Both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, but Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.

The courts have dealt a series of blows to Mursi and the Brotherhood. The first constituent assembly, also packed with Islamists, was dissolved. An attempt by Mursi in October to remove the unpopular general prosecutor was also blocked.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack the prosecutor general and appoint a new one, which he duly did.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)

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The Complete List: 'Dancing with the Stars' Winners

The Complete List: 'Dancing with the Stars' Winners

On Tuesday night, TV personality and former Bachelor contestant Melissa Rycroft became the latest Dancing with the Stars victor! Click through the gallery for a look back at all the previous mirror ball winners.

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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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Stock futures signal flat to lower open

PARIS (Reuters) - Stock futures pointed to a flat to lower open on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.22 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.13 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures flat at 5.12 a.m. ET.

European stocks inched lower in morning trade, retreating for only the second time in eight sessions as renewed worries over the pace of U.S. budget talks prompted investors to book a portion of their recent strong gains. <.eu/>

Deep divisions at the Federal Reserve were on display on Tuesday, just two weeks before the U.S. central bank's next policy-setting meeting, with one top Fed official pushing for more easing, and another advocating limits.

U.S. retailer Costco Wholesale Corp is to pay a special dividend of $7.00, worth a total $3.0 billion to investors, it said when posting monthly same-store sales that beat forecasts.

Microsoft Corp has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the month since the launch, according to one of the new co-heads of the Windows unit, setting a faster pace than Windows 7 three years ago.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc forecast quarterly and full year earnings well ahead of analysts' expectations, helped by an expanded lineup of single-serve coffee makers and drinks, sending its shares up 22 percent in after-hours trade.

Clothing maker PVH Corp posted a bigger quarterly profit on Tuesday despite a slight drop in sales as its higher margin Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger businesses grew faster, and its shares gained one percent in after-hours trade.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp said Marillyn Hewson, set to become chief executive on January 1, would receive an annual base salary of $1.38 million and a target bonus percentage of 175 percent in 2013.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas, to raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as it diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.

Nokia said on Wednesday that an arbitrator has ruled in its favor in a patent dispute with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) over use of Nokia's patents related to wireless local access network (WLAN) technology.

Shares in energy drink maker Monster Beverage Corp soared more than 13 percent on Tuesday on comments by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that did not suggest any immediate action against makers of the caffeinated drinks, although the regulator will consider adding warnings and more information on the drink labels.

Jeff Zucker, a former head of NBCUniversal and the producer of Katie Couric's talk show, will be named president of Time Warner Inc's ratings-starved CNN cable news channel, a source close to the situation said on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks slid on Tuesday in a choppy session, losing ground in the last hour before the close after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed disappointment that there has been "little progress" in dealing with the "fiscal cliff."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 89.24 points, or 0.69 percent, to 12,878.13 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 7.35 points, or 0.52 percent, to finish at 1,398.94. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> lost 8.99 points, or 0.30 percent, to end at 2,967.79.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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Arafat's grave opened for poison tests

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Forensic experts took samples from Yasser Arafat's buried corpse in the West Bank on Tuesday, trying to determine if he was murdered by Israeli agents using the hard-to-trace radioactive poison, Polonium.

Palestinians witnessed the funeral of their hero and longtime leader eight years ago, but conspiracy theories surrounding his death have never been laid to rest.

Many are convinced their icon was the victim of a cowardly assassination, and may stay convinced whatever the outcome of this autopsy. But some in the city of Ramallah where he lies deplored the exhumation.

"This is wrong. After all this time, today they suddenly want to find out the truth?" said construction worker Ahmad Yousef, 31, who stopped to watch the disinterment, carried out behind a wall of blue plastic near the Palestinian presidency headquarters.

"They should have done it eight years ago," he said.

French magistrates in August opened a murder inquiry into Arafat's death in Paris in 2004 after a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of polonium on clothing of his which was supplied by his widow, Suha, for a television documentary.

"Samples will be taken according to a very strict protocol and these samples will be analyzed," said Darcy Christen, spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland that carried out the original tests on Arafat's clothes.

"In order to do these analyses, to check, cross-check and double cross-check, it will take several months and I don't think we'll have anything tangible available before March or April next year," he added.

Arafat was always a freedom fighter to Palestinians but a terrorist to Israelis first, and a partner for peace only later. He led the bid for a Palestinian state through years of war and peacemaking, then died in a French hospital aged 75 after a short, mysterious illness.

No autopsy was carried out at the time, at the request of Suha, and French doctors who treated him said they were unable to determine the cause of death.

But allegations of foul play immediately surfaced, and many Palestinians pointed the finger at Israel, which confined Arafat to his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah for the final two and a half years of his life after a Palestinian uprising erupted.

Israel denies murdering him. Its leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, now lies in a coma from which he is expected never to awake. Israel invited the Palestinian leadership to release all Arafat's medical records, which were never made public following his death and still have not been opened.

FRENCH INVESTIGATORS

Polonium, apparently ingested with food, was found to have caused the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. But some experts have questioned whether Arafat could have died in this way, pointing to a brief recovery during his illness that they said was not consistent with radioactive poisoning. They also noted he did not lose all his hair.

Eight years is considered the limit to detect any traces of the fast-decaying polonium and Lausanne hospital questioned in August if it would be worth seeking any samples, if access to Arafat's body was delayed as late as "October or November."

Not all of Arafat's family agreed to the exhumation, and his wife Suha chose not to attend the operation she had prompted.

Working in parallel with the forensic team, French magistrates were in Ramallah this week to ask if members of Arafat's inner circle might be able to shed light on his death.

One source told Reuters the French had a list of 60 questions, and had questioned one man for five hours.

Many Palestinians acknowledge that a Palestinian would almost certainly have had to administer any poison, wittingly or unwittingly.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Tom Pfeiffer)

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HTC confirms 5-inch ‘Deluxe’ smartphone won’t launch in Europe

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How Zero Dark Thirty Copied Bin Laden's Compound

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow reteams with her Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal for Zero Dark Thirty, a chronicling of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the two opened up to Nightline about how they recreated bin Laden's compound.

VIDEO: Zero Dark Thirty Trailer

The filmmakers built a full-scale version of the compound in Jordan, and Bigelow says that everything from the carpet to the marks on the walls were taken from ABC News footage that she studied frame by frame.

"Everything we could find from that video we replicated," Bigelow said. "Every conceivable piece of information that we could find we replicated."

As to the controversy over whether or not the filmmakers received classified information to make the movie, Mark Boal says, "I certainly did a lot of homework, but I never asked for classified materials. To my knowledge I never received any."

Zero Dark Thirty, starring Jessica Chastain, Kyle Chandler, James Gandolfini, Chris Pratt and Jennifer Ehle, hits theaters January 11.

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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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