Insight: Sandy shows hospitals unprepared when disaster hits home

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Kim Bondy was in New Orleans seven years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and scores of patients died in flooded hospitals cut off from power. She never thought that she might face that danger herself.

But on Monday night, as superstorm Sandy submerged parts of New York City, Bondy was one of 215 patients evacuated from New York University‘s Langone Medical Center after basement flooding from the East River cut off its electricity.

“Knowing everything that happened in New Orleans hospitals, I’m thinking, ‘I am not going to be that story,’” said Bondy, 46, a New Orleans resident who was hospitalized in New York over the weekend with a blocked intestine. “Did you not pay attention to what we learned from Katrina?”

The equipment failures at NYU and nearby Bellevue Hospital, the nation’s oldest and one of its busiest, brought to the fore what emergency experts have warned for years. Despite bitter lessons from the recent past, U.S. hospitals are far from ready to protect patients when disaster strikes their facilities.

“I’ve been asking hospitals to look at their own survivability” after a natural or manmade disaster, “and I just can’t get it on their radar screens,” said Dr. Art Kellerman, an expert in emergency preparedness in healthcare at the RAND Corp. “If you asked me the one city in America that has its act together, I would have said New York. That tells you how much trouble we’re in Dayton and Detroit and Sacramento.”

For most hospitals, “emergency preparedness” means being ready to treat a surge of patients from an earthquake or terror attack – disasters outside their walls. Even the federal program that coordinates hospitals’ preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services has this mindset: it focuses on planning for mass fatalities and quickly reporting their number of available beds, not having redundant electrical systems.

When the next Katrina or Sandy strikes, “we’re going to have the same problems,” warned a scientist who has led studies on hospital preparedness at a leading research institution. He asked not to be named so as not to antagonize hospital officials and others he works with.

For hospital administrators trying to keep their institutions in the black, disaster-resistant infrastructure is expensive and lacks the sex appeal of robotic surgery suites and proton-beam cancer therapy to attract patients.

“People don’t pick hospitals based on which one has the best generator,” Kellerman said.

UNWILLING TO INVEST

A recent survey by the Joint Commission, a nonprofit group that accredits more than 19,000 hospitals and other healthcare facilities, found that only one-third planned to upgrade their infrastructure, said head engineer George Mills.

“Two-thirds said they were going to keep going with what they had and hope it was enough,” he said. “Unfortunately, many of our hospital buildings are 50 or 60 years old.”

No national assessment has determined whether hospitals can survive a disaster, said a high-ranking HHS official.

Storm-hardened infrastructure is not cheap. Continuum Health, which operates St Luke’s Hospital in New York where Bondy was sent, spent about $ 10 million over the last decade on generators and other emergency measures. Mount Sinai Medical Center, next to Manhattan’s Central Park, is replacing four basement generators with four on higher floors for $ 12 million.

And many hospitals do not factor in all of the potential threats. As Sandy barreled toward New York City last weekend, hospitals tested their generators and assured city officials that they had enough fuel to run them for several days, according to all the hospitals interviewed.

NYU’s “emergency power system was designed and built according to all safety codes,” spokeswoman Allison Clair said. “We were confident we could withstand a (storm) surge of approximately 12 feet,” but it was at least a foot higher.

By Monday night, the NYU basement that houses one of its generators and fuel tanks for the seven on higher floors was under eight feet of water. Sensors shut down the fuel pumps, and the generators fell silent.

“There was no electricity and all the IV machines were going haywire,” said Bondy. “I heard one nurse yell to someone, don’t use that water, it’s brown. I couldn’t believe how fast things were failing.”

By all accounts, it could have been much worse had other preparations not been in place.

The staff used flashlights to carry out the evacuation. Police officers fanned out through the building and on stair landings as staff members carried patients to safety, including critically ill infants. Waiting ambulances – organized days ahead by the Federal Emergency Management Agency – had come from hundreds of miles away. Bondy’s driver was from Ohio, and needed to ask directions to the hospital that was due to receive her.

At St. Luke’s, staffers meeting evacuees had her checked in and settled in a room within 10 minutes. “Cupcake, don’t worry about it; we’ve got you,” a nurse told her.

HAND CARRYING FUEL

The response at nearby Bellevue was less coordinated. On Monday night, the power grid failed in its neighborhood and then its backup power stumbled as basement pumps meant to deliver fuel to the main generators on upper floors were flooded. Staffers hand-carried fuel for hours, but by Tuesday the situation was desperate. Bellevue began what became a full evacuation of some 725 patients.

Other city hospitals went into overdrive to receive Bellevue and NYU evacuees, and no patient deaths were reported. Around midnight on Monday, Zahava Cohen, nurse manager of the neonatal intensive care unit at Montefiore Medical Center, was roused by a knock on her office door.

“They’re calling from NYU,” a colleague told her. “They want to know how many babies we can take,” Cohen recalled.

Hospitals that remained functional were either lucky or better prepared. They didn’t lose power. But many were prepared if they had.

Montefiore built a 5-megawatt co-generation plant for heat and electricity in 1995, said Ed Pfleging, vice-president of engineering and facilities, and doubled its capacity a few years later. The plants now supply 90 percent of the power at its main campus, allowing the hospital to run for days if the electrical grid fails.

“During the 2003 blackout, we were the only New York hospital with fuel power,” he said.

Mount Sinai took in 64 NYU patients and some two dozen from Bellevue. It did not lose utility power this week, but was prepared with 13 back-up generators and several separate power systems if it had. Instead, communications were an Achilles heel.

Mount Sinai’s chief medical officer, Dr. Erin Dupree, was on the phone with her NYU counterpart on Monday night to discuss the evacuation, But they were repeatedly cut off as landlines and mobile phones failed throughout the city.

“We literally had no communications with these people,” she said. “They were in the dark, and we didn’t know who was coming here.”

That also could have been predicted. Loss of communication contributed to the scope of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York, when emergency responders were unable to receive instructions and information in the minutes before the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

“We all lost telecommunications on 9/11,” said Gail Donovan, chief operating officer of Continuum. “After Sandy we had limited cellphone capabilities at Beth Israel,” one of Continuum’s Manhattan hospitals, “so we used walkie-talkies.”

EMERGENCY DRILLS LIGHT ON DETAIL

What hospitals must do to harden themselves against disaster is determined by a patchwork of federal, state and local regulations. The Joint Commission mandates a long list of preparedness steps, including running disaster drills.

But many hospitals just go through the motions, said Dr. Dan Hanfling, special advisor on emergency preparedness at Inova Health System: “Until events of Sandy’s magnitude come along, emergency preparedness is just a box that has to be checked.”

Virtually no emergency drills simulate a disaster inside a hospital. “I can’t remember the last time a hospital ran a disaster drill where the hospital itself was the site of the disaster,” Kellerman said.

The Commission also requires hospitals to maintain back-up power equipment and test it 12 times a year for half an hour and for four hours once every three years. There is no requirement for war-gaming a situation that knocks out that equipment.

Only with “new construction or renovation projects” are hospitals supposed to place such equipment above flood level, explained the Commission’s Mills, and even in those cases it is something that “should” be considered but is not required. That means the stricken New York hospitals are not unusual.

“We are definitely making progress in preparedness, but many hospitals are still trying to figure this out,” said Inova’s Hanfling. “They would fare about the same” should another storm like Sandy roar ashore.

(Additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Martin Howell and Jackie Frank)

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Factbox: Obama, Romney solutions to stimulating the economy

(Reuters) – The health of the U.S. economy has been central to the campaign for the White House, with both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney seeking to convince voters they have a plan to usher in faster growth and job creation.

The economy has struggled to break above a 2 percent annual growth pace since the 2007-09 recession and unemployment remains uncomfortably high at 7.9 percent. About 23 million Americans are either unemployed, working only part-time although wanting full-time work, or want a job but have given up the search.

Here are Obama’s and Romney‘s key plans for the economy:

JOBS

Obama has said his job plan would strengthen American manufacturing, grow small businesses, improve the quality of education and make the country less dependent on foreign oil.

He envisions 1 million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 and more than 600,000 jobs in the natural gas sector, as well as the recruitment of 100,000 math and science teachers.

Repairing and replacing old roads, bridges, runways and schools are part of his plan to put Americans back to work. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to fund infrastructure projects.

Romney has promised 12 million jobs in his first term, or about 250,000 jobs a month. Economists say the economy would likely generate that amount of jobs anyway.

His plan focuses on tax reform, pushing the economy toward energy independence, cutting regulations and boosting trade, especially by reducing barriers to trade with China.

Romney says Obama has not been aggressive enough in challenging unfair Chinese trade practices and that he would use both the threat of U.S. sanctions and coordinated action with allies to force China to abide by global trade rules.

HOUSING

Even though the housing crisis is at the heart of the economy’s woes, Obama and Romney did not spell out detailed plans for how they would address it.

Obama has promoted efforts to help troubled borrowers refinance and win record low interest rates, but his initiatives have fallen far short of their originally intended market.

He has battled the independent regulator of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Edward DeMarco, trying to convince him to allow those mortgage finance firms to reduce principal for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. A quick resolution of the standoff is unlikely after the election.

Romney said at one point in the campaign that the housing market needed to hit bottom on its own without government intervention and he has offered few clues on his likely approach to foreclosures.

Democrats and Republicans agree the government’s heavy hand in the mortgage market should be reduced, but neither candidate has outlined a plan to do that.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Obama can be expected to offer Chairman Ben Bernanke a third term should he want it, but Fed watchers believe the former Princeton professor would prefer to depart after a grueling eight years in the job. Bernanke’s term as chairman expires on January 31, 2014.

Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen is viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Bernanke, and would be at least as dovish in terms of being prepared to keep monetary policy ultra-stimulative until the labor market has improved substantially.

Romney has said explicitly he would not reappoint Bernanke to a third term. Fed watchers expect whoever is chosen by Romney to be slightly more hawkish than Bernanke in terms of readiness to raise interest rates to keep inflation at bay.

Romney advisers Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw and John Taylor are all viewed as top contenders to replace Bernanke. Hubbard and Mankiw may be a bit more hawkish than the current chairman, but not much, and neither would likely start an aggressive tightening campaign the moment he arrived. Taylor, however, has criticized the Bernanke Fed’s policy stance as too loose.

FISCAL POLICY

Obama has proposed cutting the government budget deficit by more than $ 4 trillion over the next decade by allowing the Bush tax cuts for upper-income Americans to expire and by eliminating loopholes. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to reduce the deficit.

Romney wants to cut marginal tax rates for individuals by 20 percent and broaden the tax base by closing loopholes. He would keep all the Bush tax cuts in place in a plan he says would be revenue-neutral. Obama has charged the numbers do not add up.

Romney has also said he wants to reduce federal spending to 20 percent of U.S. GDP over four years from its current level of about 24 percent.

Both want to reduce the corporate tax rate, although Romney would reduce it further.

REGULATIONS

Obama is seen keeping on his current path as regulators work to put in place provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. It is not known whether Securities and Exchange Chairman Mary Schapiro will remain, but Obama would likely appoint a replacement who would not roll back investor protections to benefit corporations and financial firms.

Romney has pledged to repeal the entire law. But policy experts see that as a largely hollow campaign pledge because a wholesale repeal would be politically unpopular and Democrats are likely to retain control of the Senate.

Instead, they see Romney working with Congress to craft narrowly tailored bills targeting what Republicans see as the biggest problem spots: the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading, the impact on end-user companies of derivatives reforms and the continued existence of too-big-to-fail financial firms. Romney would also like to curb the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another creature of the legislation.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani, Alister Bull, Doug Palmer, Margaret Chadbourn and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Peter Cooney)

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Gruesome video raises concerns about Syria rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — A video that appears to show a unit of Syrian rebels kicking terrified, captured soldiers and then executing them with machine guns raised concerns Friday about rebel brutality at a time when the United States is making its strongest push yet to forge an opposition movement it can work with.

U.N. officials and human rights groups believe President Bashar Assad‘s regime is responsible for the bulk of suspected war crimes in Syria‘s 19-month-old conflict, which began as a largely peaceful uprising but has transformed into a brutal civil war.

But investigators of human rights abuses say rebel atrocities are on the rise.

At this stage “there may not be anybody with entirely clean hands,” Suzanne Nossel, head of the rights group Amnesty International, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. has called for a major leadership shakeup of Syria’s political opposition during a crucial conference next week in Qatar. Washington and its allies have been reluctant to give stronger backing to the largely Turkey-based opposition, viewing it as ineffective, fractured and out of touch with fighters trying to topple Assad.

But the new video adds to growing concerns about those fighters and could complicate Washington’s efforts to decide which of the myriad of opposition groups to support. The video can be seen at http://bit.ly/YxDcWE .

“We condemn human rights violations by any party,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, commenting on the video. “Anyone committing atrocities should be held to account.”

She said the Free Syrian Army has urged its fighters to adhere to a code of conduct it established in August, reflecting international rules of war.

The summary execution of the captured soldiers, purportedly shown in an amateur video, took place Thursday during a rebel assault on the strategic northern town of Saraqeb, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

It was unclear which rebel faction was involved, though the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra was among those fighting in the area, the Observatory said.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows a crowd of gunmen in what appears to be a building under construction. They surround a group of captured men on the ground, some on their bellies as if ordered to lie down, others sprawled as if wounded. Some of the captives are in Syrian military uniforms.

“These are Assad’s dogs,” one of the gunmen is heard saying of those cowering on the ground.

The gunmen kick and beat some of the men. One gunman shouts, “Damn you!” The exact number of soldiers in the video is not clear, but there appear to be about 10 of them.

Moments later, gunfire erupts for about 35 seconds, screams are heard and the men on the floor are seen shaking and twitching. The spray of bullets kicks up dust from the ground.

The video’s title says it shows dead and captive soldiers at the Hmeisho checkpoint. The Observatory said 12 soldiers were killed Thursday at the checkpoint, one of three regime positions near Saraqeb attacked by the rebels in the area that day.

Amnesty International’s forensics analysts did not detect signs of forgery in the video, according to Nossel. The group has not yet been able to confirm the location, date and the identity of those shown in the footage, she said.

After their assault Thursday, rebels took full control of Saraqeb, a strategic position on the main highway linking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo — which rebels have been trying to capture for months — with the regime stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

On Friday, at least 143 people, including 48 government soldiers, were killed in gunbattles, regime shelling attacks on rebel-held areas and other violence, the Observatory said.

Of the more than 36,000 killed so far in Syria, about one-fourth are regime soldiers, according to the Observatory. The rest include civilians and rebel fighters, but the group does not offer a breakdown.

Daily casualties have been rising since early summer, when the regime began bombing densely populated areas from the air in an attempt to dislodge rebels and break a battlefield stalemate.

Karen Abu Zayd, a member of the U.N. panel documenting war crimes in Syria, said the regime is to blame for the bulk of the atrocities so far, but that rebel abuses are on the rise as the insurgents become better armed and as foreign fighters with radical agendas increasingly join their ranks.

“The balance is changing somewhat,” she said in a phone interview, blaming in part the influx of foreign fighters not restrained by social ties that bind Syrians.

Abu Zayd said the panel, though unable to enter Syria for now, has evidence of “at least dozens, but probably hundreds” of war crimes, based on some 1,100 interviews. The group has already compiled two lists of suspected perpetrators and units for future prosecution, she said.

Many rebel groups operate independently, even if they nominally fall under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. In recent months, rebel groups have formed military councils to improve coordination, but the chaos of the war has allowed for considerable autonomy at the local level.

“The killing of unarmed soldiers shows how difficult it is to control the escalation of the conflict and establish a united armed opposition that abides by the same ground rules and norms in battle,” said Anthony Skinner, an analyst at Maplecroft, a British risk analysis company.

Rebel commanders and Syrian opposition leaders have promised human rights groups that they would try to prevent abuses. However, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report in September that statements by some opposition leaders indicate they tolerate or condone extrajudicial killings.

Free Syrian Army commanders contacted by the AP on Friday said they were either unaware or had no accurate details about the latest video.

Ausama Monajed, a member of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, called for the gunmen shown in the video to be tracked down and brought to justice.

He added, however, that atrocities committed by rebels are relatively rare compared to what he said was a “massive genocide by the regime.”

Regime forces have launched indiscriminate attacks on residential neighborhoods with tank shells, mortar rounds and bombs dropped from warplanes, devastating large areas. In raids of rebel strongholds, Assad’s forces have carried out summary executions, rights groups say.

Rebels have also targeted civilians, setting off car bombs near mosques, restaurants and government offices. Human Rights Watch said in September it collected evidence of the summary executions of more than a dozen people by rebels.

In August, a video showed several bloodied prisoners being led into a noisy outdoor crowd in the northern city of Aleppo and placed against a wall before gunmen shot them to death. That video sparked international condemnation, including a rare rebuke from the Obama administration.

The latest video emerged on the eve of a crucial opposition conference that is to begin Sunday in Qatar’s capital of Doha. More than 400 delegates from the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups are expected to attend to choose a new leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a more unified and representative opposition, even suggesting the U.S. would handpick some of the candidates.

Clinton’s comments reflected growing U.S. impatience with the Syrian opposition, which, in turn, has accused Washington of not having charted a clear path to bringing down Assad.

The Syrian National Council plans to elect new leaders during the four-day conference but is cool to a U.S. proposal to set up a much broader group and a transitional government, said Monajed, the SNC member who runs a think tank in Britain.

U.S. officials have said Washington is pushing for a greater role for the Free Syrian Army and representation of local coordinating committees and mayors of liberated cities in Syria.

Nuland said that it would be easier for the international community to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians and non-lethal aid to the rebels once a broader, unified opposition leadership is in place.

Such a body could also help persuade Assad backers Russia and China “that change is necessary” and that Syria’s opposition has a better plan for the country than the regime, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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UK: Apple must apologize again over copycat claims

LONDON (AP) — British judges say Apple needs to apologize once more for falsely claiming that South Korea’s Samsung copied its iPad, the latest embarrassing episode in the tech rivals’ world-spanning patent battle.

Apple Inc. was ordered to print an apology on its website after British judges repeatedly rejected its claim that Samsung Electronics Co. ripped off its designs when creating its own tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab.

Apple did post an apology, but judges at London’s High Court ruled Thursday that it didn’t go far enough and ordered a new one posted to its site within 48 hours.

Samsung and Apple are locked in a series of international lawsuits over alleged copyright violations, including a California case which saddled Samsung with a $ 1 billion fine for copying Apple’s design.

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Ralph Nader to Stephen Colbert: Give me your Super PAC cash!

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Stephen Colbert‘s super PAC is sitting on nearly $ 778,000 in cash, and five-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader knows exactly where to spend it.

On Ralph Nader.

If only Colbert would listen.

The longtime consumer advocate told TheWrap in an exclusive interview that he has been trying to get the “Colbert Report” host to donate the money remaining in Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’s coffers to the nonprofit American Museum of Tort Law he plans to build.

Dedicated to personal injury and other tort cases, the museum will go up in Nader’s hometown of Winsted, Conn. Nader announced the plans, and started fundraising, 14 years ago.

“Since he deals with wrongful injuries and reputations night after night, there must be a little humor here,” Nader told TheWrap. “Tell him we’ll name the courtroom after him.”

There’s just one problem: Nader can’t get to Colbert, even though Nader feels responsible for the Comedy Central host’s success.

In 2004, while Colbert was hosting “The Daily Show” during the birth of Jon Stewart’s first child, Nader was the interviewed guest. A year later, Colbert got his own show.

“He did so well that they gave him his own program,” Nader said. “So you’d think he’d be accessible to me, right?”

Apparently, wrong.

Even as Colbert trolled the Republican presidential campaigns as a possible third-party candidate during the primary earlier this year, Nader – the nation’s perennial third-party runner – couldn’t get in touch with him.

“Forget it, forget it,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to reach celebrity media these days.”

A spokesman for Colbert and Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls from TheWrap requesting comment.

Nader did tell TheWrap that he was happy to see Colbert satirize the growing role of money in electoral politics and draw attention to a candidate outside the two-party nexus.

“Since our elections are for sale at ever-higher auction prices, it’s good that he did this satirical effort to highlight the absurdity of it all,” Nader said.

Colbert first announced the formation of his own super PAC during a March 2011 segment of his show. He set up a company in the regulatory oasis of Delaware called Anonymous Shell Company and began raising funds for a farcical campaign.

After briefly declaring his candidacy for “President of the United States of South Carolina,” Colbert launched a series of ads urging voters to cast ballots for Rick Parry — a spinoff of then-candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Later, he threw his support behind Herman Cain, the pizza mogul who was widely mocked for his candidacy and seemingly far-fetched tax plans.

While he scored around $ 1 million for his PAC, the $ 778,000, according to an SEC filing, is what’s left after advertising and expenses.

So far, Nader seems to be one of the few people gunning for the funds. But Colbert has floated at least one idea about how to spend it.

After real-estate-mogul-cum-reality-star-cum-political-blowhard Donald Trump offered President Obama $ 5 million to a charity of his choice to reveal his college and medical records, Colbert made Trump an offer.

The comedian said he’d donate $ 1 million to a charity of Trump’s choice – if he allows Colbert to dip his testicles in his mouth.

So far, at least, Trump has not accepted the offer.

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Lennon’s Tooth to Help Fight Cancer

Imagine there’s no oral cancer. It isn’t hard to do. You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.

Those rewritten John Lennon lyrics may be Tony Gedge‘s new motto.

Gedge has made it his life’s work to reduce the rates of oral cancer in his native Britain. And now, Gedge has enlisted the former Beatle to help inspire Brits to walk into the dentist and receive a simple, 10-minute-long test for oral cancer.

Specifically, Gedge has turned to one of John Lennon’s molars.

Encased in a smart silver pendant, Lennon’s tooth is going on tour. Walk into your dentist’s office, try on the necklace with the tooth, and get a free cancer screening.

“The biggest group at risk for oral cancer are males, 55-59,” Gedge told ABC News. “They were around when the Beatles were doing their thing. So to appeal to the 55-plus boomer market, to get them into the practice with something they know – the Beatles – was far easier than getting them in by spouting a bunch of statistics.”

In 2010 in Britain, nearly 2,000 people died from oral cancer. In the U.S., that number was 7,850, with more than 40,000 new cases. If the cancer is caught early, most people will survive. (Click here for the National Cancer Institute’s guide to preventing Oral Cancer.)

For Gedge, those statistics are personal.

Gedge lost his father to mouth cancer, and his mother now feeds through a tube because she too had oral cancer.

“Since that happened, I’ve been working with dentists to help them promote dentistry to make it more interesting to the general public,” he says.

In the mid 1960s, Lennon gave his tooth to his housekeeper, Dot Jarlett, while she worked at his home southwest of London. Her family kept it until last year, when Canadian dentist Michael Zuk bought it in an auction for more than $ 31,000.

Zuk then created three necklaces containing fragments of tooth and sent one to Gedge, who runs a charity called Dental Mavericks.

In the next few weeks the necklace will visit 16 dental practices. Dentists will check anyone who comes in to see the tooth for oral cancer – an easy and painless detection that can be done with the help of a special light.

Castlepark Dental Centre in Hull in northeast England, one of the first practices taking part, has already screened about 100 people, Gillian Fisher, the practice manager, told ABC News.

“Fifty years ago this week the Beatles were playing at the local cinema,” Fisher said. “The patients were coming in and talking about what they were wearing, what they were playing. It was a total trip down memory lane for them. Through the curiosity we’re hoping to raise awareness of mouth cancer.”

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US economy adds 171,000 new jobs

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Do ordinary Americans feel their economy is on the road to recovery?

The US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was much more than had been expected.

But the official figures from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate still rose to 7.9%, having fallen to 7.8% in September, as more workers resumed the search for jobs.

Only people who are currently looking for a job count as unemployed.

Unemployment is one of the key issues ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election.

The figures were the last major set of economic data scheduled before the election and the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, has made the state of the jobs market one of the central planks of his campaign.

“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill,” he said.

“The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work.”

The number of jobs created in the previous two months was revised upwards, with an extra 34,000 jobs added in September and 50,000 added in August.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

For President Obama, there is good and bad news in these latest jobs figures.

He can breathe a sigh of relief that, when Americans vote next week, there are more of them with jobs than when he took office.

His challenger Mitt Romney can no longer accuse him of presiding over a net loss of jobs.

However, the unemployment rate rose and is now higher than it was when Mr Obama took over at the White House.

Setting out the key figures still leaves another vital political question: who is at fault for the state of the US labour market?

Was it due to a recession already in full swing when he took over or did his policies aggravate the situation?

“We’ve made real progress,” Barack Obama told a crowd in Ohio.

“But we’ve got more work to do.”

Despite the new jobs, Barack Obama will still go to the polls with the highest rate of unemployment of any president seeking re-election since Franklin D Roosevelt.

The unemployment rate edged up slightly because the number of people looking for jobs increased. These were people who had previously given up hope of finding work, but who now think they may have a better chance. As a result, this increase may be seen as a sign of confidence in the economy, analysts say.

The total workforce, which is the number of people either working or looking for jobs, rose 578,000 in October.

Improved direction

The Labor Department said in its release that Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast of the US on 29 October, had had “no discernable effect” on the employment data.

The number of involuntary part-time workers, who would prefer to be working full-time, fell 269,000 to 8.3 million, having risen by 582,000 in September.

Kathy Jones from Charles Schwab said they were good numbers, but warned that: “We’re way short of where we need to be to bring down the unemployment rate to where the Federal Reserve would like to see, closer to 6% than 8%.”

“We would need to see twice as many jobs as we’re seeing, but the direction has improved.”

The average number of jobs added per month so far in 2012 has been 157,000, which is slightly ahead of the average of 153,000 in 2011.

Continue reading the main story

"Remember that butterfly whose wing-beat in the Amazon causes a storm over the Atlantic? I think she is hovering over the election right now"

The category adding the most jobs in October was professional and business services, followed by healthcare and retailing.

There was also a small increase in employment in the construction sector, which has been helped by a pick-up in house building.

The average working week was 34.4 hours for the fourth month in a row, while the average hourly wage was down one cent at $ 23.58 (£14.69).

Despite there being signs of momentum in the jobs market, there is great concern in the US about what 2013 will bring.

Whoever wins the presidential election will have to reach a budget agreement with legislators by the end of the year, to prevent $ 600bn of tax increases and spending cuts kicking in automatically in 2013.

The measures, known as the fiscal cliff, could take the US back into recession.

There is also some uncertainty about the coming months as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

Many businesses will have their work interrupted by effects of the storms. On the other hand, reconstruction on the East Coast is likely to increase employment in the construction sector.

In New York, the Dow Jones index opened higher but had fallen 40 points, or 0.3%, by late morning trading, while the US dollar was up two-fifths of a cent against the pound.

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Canada will push to keep bank capital rules on schedule

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will urge all countries to stick to the agreed schedule for implementing tougher bank capital rules at a November 4-5 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.

The so-called Basel III rules are the world’s regulatory response to the financial crisis, forcing banks to triple the amount of basic capital they hold in a bid to avoid future taxpayer bailouts.

They were to be phased in from January 2013 but areas such as the United States and the European Union are not yet ready and U.S. and British supervisors have criticized them as too complex to work.

The Canadian official, who briefed reports ahead of the meeting on condition that he not be named, said it was imperative that the rules, the timelines and the principles behind them be respected and said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would make that view known to his G20 colleagues.

Canada sees the European debt crisis as the biggest near-term risk to the global economy, and it also expects the U.S. debt crisis to be top of mind at the talks, the official said.

But the meeting takes place just before the U.S. presidential election and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be absent, so it remains unclear how much the G20 can pressure Washington on that front.

Some other countries have also scaled back their delegations, raising doubts about how meaningful the meeting will be.

The official dismissed that argument, saying high-level officials substituting for their ministers allowed for extremely important issues to be addressed anyway.

He said holding each country around the table accountable to its past commitments helped keep the momentum going toward resolving global economic problems.

(Reporting by Louise Egan; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by M.D. Golan)

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‘Wreck-It Ralph’ celebrates video-game nostalgia

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” opening Friday, the title character is the bad guy from a fictional 1980s video game. Despite faithfully doing his job well for 30 years, he gets no respect at work, so he escapes through the wires of Litwak’s Family Fun Center searching for another game where he might prove his worth.

Along the way, Ralph takes viewers on a nostalgic trip through the history of video games, from the blocky, eight-bit look of the ’80s through the swirly, colorful, Nintendo 64-inspired games of the ’90s to the gritty, ultra-detailed first-person shooters of today.

For director Rich Moore and the 450 artists and animators behind the Walt Disney Animation Studios production, video games are as integral a part of childhood as the green army men and pull-string cowboys celebrated in Pixar’s “Toy Story” films.

“There’s a lot of history in video gaming — serious nostalgia,” Moore said. “The worlds of video games are so fertile. They cover everything, and so many different genres. You can kind of make up whatever you want and it can feel like a game.”

Besides the scores of fictional game characters featured in the film, there’s also familiar arcade favorites such as Q(asterisk)Bert, Clyde (the orange ghost from Pac-Man), Sonic the Hedgehog and Zangief from “Street Fighter.”

“It’s pretty awesome to animate game characters that you knew as a child,” said animation supervisor Renato dos Anjos. “It’s like living in a dream world. All your favorite heroes and villains are in your hands.”

“Wreck-It Ralph” centers on Ralph (John C. Reilly), the 9-foot, 643-pound bad guy from the ’80s video game “Fix-It Felix Jr.” Ralph’s job is to wreck the apartments of Niceland so Felix (Jack McBrayer) can fix them. But while Felix is lauded and loved for his efforts, Ralph is ostracized to a trash heap on the edge of town. Fed up and bummed out — especially when he realizes he wasn’t invited to a 30th anniversary party for “Fix-It Felix Jr.” — Ralph goes rogue, tripping through the wires of the arcade into games where he doesn’t belong.

He’s drawn to “Hero’s Duty,” a contemporary shooting game led by tough-as-battle-armor Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), in which soldiers who destroy the invading CyBugs win a glittery medal — tangible proof of their heroic efforts. With such a trophy, Ralph figures the Nicelanders would have to appreciate him. But he isn’t programmed to handle such ultra-violent play, and when things go awry, Ralph finds himself trapped in the pink-hued, candy-filled world of Sugar Rush. Here he meets another video-game misfit, Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), whose pixelated programming glitch makes her an outcast.

Reilly, McBrayer and Silverman all grew up as gamers, and say bringing life to their animated characters called upon the same imagination and determination gaming did when they were kids.

“If you were born any time after 1965, when I was born, video games made a huge impression,” Reilly said, adding that when “Space Invaders” first came out, “it was like a spaceship landed in the bowling alley.”

“People can’t fully appreciate what an insane change that was,” he continued. “Because there were no computers; there were no cellphones. I didn’t even have a VCR at that point. There was no way to manipulate something on a screen. And all of a sudden, this thing lands in the arcade.”

McBrayer grew up with an Atari 2600 system, “but we kept that over at grandma’s house so we wouldn’t get too attached to it.”

He remembers taking his report card to Super Scooper, the ice-cream parlor/arcade near his Georgia home, where good grades were rewarded with video-game tokens. He preferred the “cutesy, non-threatening games” and the escape they provided.

“So many kids won’t even recognize half of these (game references in the film),” McBray said, “but I hope they have fun just realizing that there’s this whole world of video-game characters and environments that make up the history of the video games they’re playing now.”

Silverman, whose early arcade favorites included “Asteroids,” ”Missile Command” and “Space Invaders,” notes that video games have been around for 30 years, “but in technology years, that’s like 200 years old.”

The actors said they don’t play video games much these days, but the film’s director does, whipping out his iPhone during a recent interview to prove the point.

“I feel really, really fortunate to have been someone who got to grow up with them,” said Moore, whose previous directing credits include “The Simpsons” and “Futurama.” So it’s an honor and a privilege to be the guy that gets to pull from one end of the timeline to this end of the timeline … to put them in a movie and put them in a story that pays tribute to all of them.”

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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Online:

http://disney.go.com/wreck-it-ralph/

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Kardashian boosts “X Factor” ratings, but wins few fans

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Khloe Kardashian‘s first outing as the new co-host of “The X Factor” helped boost the show’s audience by 30 percent, yet the reality star got mixed reviews for a nipple-baring debut that made headlines – but many TV critics found awkward.

Kardashian, 28, best known for starring with socialite sisters Kim and Kourtney in “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” shocked some viewers by wearing a sheer purple blouse without a bra on Wednesday’s first live episode of the TV singing contest.

“I think the air conditioning is on high tonight. It’s very distracting,” judge and producer Simon Cowell quipped on the show, apparently referring to the glimpses of nipple.

But Kardashian was less impressive in her hosting duties.

The Washington Post said Kardashian “came across like the novice she is, shouting her lines despite the mic clutched in her hand and making awkward small talk with contestants and judge and executive producer Simon Cowell.”

Nevertheless, Kardashian brought more eyeballs to the show. Some 7.4 million viewers watched “The X Factor” on Fox television, according to early ratings data, up some 30 percent from last week’s 5.7 million and a 13 percent increase in the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers.

Kardashian was Cowell’s personal pick for the job as part of his efforts to revamp the singing contest after a disappointing first season. But the reality star’s lack of experience had already raised eyebrows, and “X Factor” has often drawn a smaller audience than last year.

Cowell told reporters earlier this week that Kardashian “wants to prove (to) anyone who doubted her that she’s capable of doing the job … she really has got a fun personality.”

The New York Daily News called Kardashian a “surprisingly good host,” while The Hollywood Reporter said “both Kardashian and (co-host Mario) Lopez seemed at ease in their new roles.”

The Hollywood Gossip website, however, said Kardashian was “every bit as boring and awkward as we imagined she would be.”

“The X Factor” is broadcast on Fox, a unit of News Corp.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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