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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Romney, Obama look for edge as campaign nears end

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Three days. Nine states — give or take. A magic 270 electoral votes. For President Barack Obama and rival Mitt Romney, the final touch-and-go stretch of campaigning is down to the numbers.

New hiring reports or a new jobless rate. Spending totals or early vote totals. Percentage points and rhetorical points. Frequency of stops or size of crowds. In a game of metrics, each camp is looking for that last measure that will separate them at the finish line.

After holding mostly small and mid-size rallies for much of the campaign, Obama's team is planning a series of larger events this weekend aimed at drawing big crowds in battleground states. Still, the campaign isn't expecting to draw the massive audiences Obama had in the closing days of the 2008 race, when his rallies drew more than 50,000.

Obama's closing weekend also includes two joint events with former President Bill Clinton: a rally Saturday night in Virginia and an event Sunday in New Hampshire. The two presidents had planned to campaign together across three states earlier this week, but that trip was called off because of Superstorm Sandy. And, of course, there is always Ohio, the top battleground of them all.

In a whiff of 2008 nostalgia, some of Obama's traveling companions from his campaign four years ago were planning to join him on the road for the final days of his last campaign. Among them are Robert Gibbs, who served as Obama's first White House press secretary, and Reggie Love, Obama's former personal aide who left the White House earlier this year.

Not to be outdone, Romney hosted a massive rally Friday night in West Chester, Ohio, drawing more than 10,000 people to the Cincinnati area for an event that featured rock stars, sports celebrities and dozens of Republican officials. It was a high-energy event on a cold night designed to kick off his own sprint to the finish.

Romney arrived in New Hampshire close to midnight on Friday after an 18-hour day on the campaign trail that took him from Virginia to Wisconsin to Ohio. He was attending a morning rally on the New Hampshire seacoast before making an afternoon appearance in Iowa, and two more in Colorado. He shifted an original plan to campaign in Nevada on Sunday in favor of a schedule likely to bring him back to Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Aides stress that his schedule is fluid and may change with little notice as they evaluate where his time is best spent.

On Saturday, Obama's first stop was in Mentor, Ohio, then he was campaigning in Milwaukee and Dubuque, Iowa, and ending the day in Bristow, Va. On Sunday, he was taking his campaign to New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado and, yes, Ohio.

Polling shows the race remains a toss-up heading into the final days. But Romney still has the tougher path; he must win more of the nine most-contested states to reach 270 electoral votes: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Romney has added Pennsylvania to the mix, hoping to end a streak of five presidential contests where the Democratic candidate prevailed in the state. Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 10 percentage points in 2008; the latest polls in the state give him a 4- to 5-point margin. Romney will campaign in the Philadelphia suburbs on Sunday. Obama aides scoff at the Romney incursion, but they are carefully adding television spending in the state and are sending Clinton to campaign there Monday.

The final frenzy of campaigning comes in the wake of Superstorm Sandy that has dominated much of the news coverage for the past several days as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut recover from the brunt of its force. Friday also offered an economic finale to the campaign with the release of October jobs reports that contained better than average economic news but gave both campaigns a talking point. Employers added a better-than-expected 171,000 jobs last month, but the jobless rate ticked up to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent — mainly because more people jumped back into the search for work.

In crucial early voting, Obama holds an apparent lead over Romney in key states. But Obama's advantage isn't as big as the one he had over John McCain four years ago, giving Romney hope that he could make up that gap in Tuesday's election.

About 25 million people already have voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia. No votes will be counted until Election Day, but several battleground states are releasing the party affiliation of people who have voted early. So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have the edge in Colorado.

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Kuhnhenn reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

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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.

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

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Microsoft vs Google trial raises concerns over secrecy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two weeks before a high-stakes trial pitting Google's Motorola Mobility unit against Microsoft, Google made what has become a common request for a technology company fighting for billions of dollars: A public court proceeding, conducted largely in secret.

Google and Microsoft, like rivals embroiled in smartphone patent wars, are eager to keep sensitive business information under wraps - in this case, the royalty deals they cut with other companies on patented technology. Microsoft asked for similar protections in a court filing late on Thursday.

Such royalty rates, though, are the central issue in this trial, which begins November 13 in Seattle.

U.S. District Judge James Robart has granted requests to block many pre-trial legal briefs from public view. Though he warned he may get tougher on the issue, the nature of the case raises the possibility that even his final decision might include redacted, or blacked-out, sections.

Legal experts are increasingly troubled by the level of secrecy that has become commonplace in intellectual property cases where overburdened judges often pay scant attention to the issue.

Widespread sealing of documents infringes on the basic American legal principle that court should be public, says law professor, Dennis Crouch, and encourages companies to use a costly, tax-payer funded resource to resolve their disputes.

"There are plenty of cases that have settled because one party didn't want their information public," said Crouch, an intellectual property professor at University of Missouri School of Law.

Tech companies counter that they should not be forced to reveal private business information as the price for having their day in court.

The law does permit confidential information to be kept from public view in some circumstances, though companies must show the disclosure would be harmful.

Google argues that revelations about licensing negotiations would give competitors "additional leverage and bargaining power and would lead to an unfair advantage."

Robart has not yet ruled on Google and Microsoft's requests, which, in the case of Google includes not only keeping documents under seal, but also clearing the courtroom during crucial testimony.

It is also unclear whether Robart will redact any discussion of royalty rates in his final opinion. The judge, who will decide this part of the case without a jury, did not respond to requests for comment.

NOT PAYING ATTENTION

Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp have been litigating in courts around the world against Google Inc and partners like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which use the Android operating system on their mobile devices.

Apple contends that Android is basically a copy of its iOS smartphone software, and Microsoft holds patents that it contends cover a number of Android features.

Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion, partly to use its large portfolio of communications patents as a bargaining chip against its competitors.

Robart will decide how big a royalty Motorola deserves from Microsoft for a license on some Motorola wireless and video patents.

Apple, for its part, is set to square off against Motorola on Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, in a case that involves many of the same issues.

In Wisconsin, Apple and Motorola have filed most court documents entirely under seal. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb did not require them to seek advance permission to file them secretly, nor did she mandate that the companies make redacted copies available for the public.

Judges have broad discretion in granting requests to seal documents. The legal standard for such requests can be high, but in cases where both sides want the proceedings to be secret, judges have little incentive to thoroughly review secrecy requests.

In Apple's Northern California litigation against Samsung, both parties also sought to keep many documents under seal. After Reuters challenged those secrecy requests, on grounds it wanted to report financial details, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ordered both companies to disclose a range of information they considered secret - including profit margins on individual products - but not licensing deals. Apple and Samsung are appealing the disclosure order.

In response to questions from Reuters last week, Judge Crabb in Wisconsin, who will also decide the case without a jury, acknowledged she had not been paying attention to how many documents were being filed under seal. Federal judges in Madison will now require that parties file redacted briefs, she said, though as of Wednesday, Apple and Motorola were still filing key briefs entirely under seal.

"Just because there is a seed or kernel of confidential information doesn't mean an entire 25-page brief should be sealed," said Bernard Chao, an intellectual property professor at University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Crabb promised that the upcoming trial would be open.

"Whatever opinion I make is not going to be redacted," she told Reuters in an interview.

CHECKING THE COMPS

Microsoft sued Motorola two years ago, saying Motorola had promised to license its so-called "standards essential" patents at a fair rate, in exchange for the technology being adopted as a norm industrywide. But by demanding roughly $4 billion a year in revenue, Microsoft says Motorola broke its promise.

Robart will sort out what a reasonable royalty for those standards patents should be, partly by reviewing deals Motorola struck with other companies such as IBM and Research in Motion - much like an appraiser checking comparable properties to figure out whether a home is priced right.

In this case, though, the public may not be able to understand exactly what figures Robart is comparing. Representatives for Microsoft and Google declined to comment.

In its brief, Microsoft said licensing terms could be sealed without the need to clear the courtroom.

"Permitting redaction of this information will minimize the harm to Microsoft and third parties while also giving due consideration to the public policies favoring disclosure," the company argued.

IBM and RIM have also asked Robart to keep licensing information secret.

Chao doesn't think Robart will ultimately redact his own ruling, even though it may include discussion of the specific royalty rates. "I can't imagine that," he said.

Most judges cite lack of resources and overflowing dockets as the reason why they don't scrutinize secrecy requests more closely, especially when both parties support them.

In Wisconsin, Crabb said that even though she will now require litigants to ask permission to file secret documents, it is highly unlikely that she will actually read those arguments - unless someone else flags a problem.

"We're paddling madly to stay afloat," Crabb said.

The Wisconsin case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin is Apple Inc. vs. Motorola Mobility Inc., 11-cv-178. The Seattle case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington is Microsoft Corp. vs. Motorola Inc., 10-cv-1823.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle.; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Andrew Hay and Bernadette Baum)

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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.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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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The strategy: Grind it out, get out the vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — For President Barack Obama, winning re-election rests on a workman-like, get-out-the-vote strategy aimed at protecting key territory in the Midwest, ramping up minority turnout and building early voting leads that could protect against a late surge by Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

It's a far cry from the lofty rhetoric and gauzy closing argument advertisements that defined Obama's final push in 2008. And it's a reflection of a race that remains tight in its final days, and an outcome that could hinge on little more than battleground state turnout.

"We have two jobs: One, persuade the undecideds, and two, to turn our voters out," said Jim Messina, Obama's data-driven campaign manager.

Obama himself has gotten deeply involved in those efforts. He made a personal appeal to 9,000 undecided voters on a conference call from Air Force One, promoted early voting by casting his own ballot before Election Day and offered encouragement to staff and volunteers during numerous stops to battleground state campaign offices.

"I hate to put the burden of the entire world on you, but basically it's all up to you," Obama told volunteers this week in Orlando, Fla. His comments were meant to be light-hearted, but they spoke to the degree to which his campaign is counting on its massive ground game to carry Obama to re-election.

The campaign relied heavily on that operation this week when Superstorm Sandy forced Obama off the campaign trail and back to Washington for three days to oversee the federal response. The Democratic get-out-the-vote effort kept churning, allowing Obama to project presidential leadership and offer comfort in a crisis — intangibles his campaign knows could be beneficial in persuading late-breaking voters.

They helped him win over at least one person: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, who said Obama's handling of the storm was key his decision to endorse the president.

Obama, in his closing argument to voters, is trying to burnish his bipartisan credentials, seeking to convince voters he's the same man who burst into the political spotlight eschewing the notion of red states or blue states.

Polls show Obama and Romney tied nationally. But the president's advisers say the map of competitive states tilts in their favor. The president started the race with more pathways than Romney for reaching the required 270 Electoral College votes, and aides say all of those options are still within reach. Romney's campaign, on the other hand, is still grappling for a clear roadmap to 270.

Nine states are up for grabs: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and Nevada.

Key to Obama's electoral strategy is protecting a Midwestern firewall: Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, a three-state combination that would put him over the necessary threshold. The president will visit those states multiple times in the campaign's final stretch, including four straight days of travel to Ohio.

Obama can win without Ohio. But if he does carry the state's 18 electoral votes, it would make Romney's path to victory far more difficult, requiring the Republican to win nearly every other competitive state or pull off upsets in traditionally Democratic states.

Private polling from both parties has Obama leading Romney in Ohio, where the president's bailout of the auto industry is popular. And more Democrats than Republicans in the state have cast early votes.

Romney's campaign is looking to expand the battleground map by making a late play for a trio of left-leaning states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. That's forced Obama's team to buy television advertising time in states where it had hoped to avoid spending money.

Obama aides insist it's not in trouble in those states and aides say there are no plans for Obama or Vice President Joe Biden to travel there in the campaign's closing days. Instead, they say their strong fundraising efforts have given them the financial means to defend against Romney's criticism wherever he decides to run ads.

But aides say turnout, not ads, will determine the election. Obama's team has put particular emphasis on ramping up turnout during early voting periods, especially among "sporadic" voters who may be less likely to go to the polls on Election Day.

Their efforts appear to be bearing fruit. Democrats have an edge in votes cast in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have an advantage in Colorado.

Obama's campaign says boosting early vote totals could put some states out of reach for Romney even before Election Day. In Ohio, for example, Obama aides estimate the Republican would need to carry at least 53 percent of the vote cast there on Tuesday in order to remain in contention.

It's more than just party registration that has Obama's team feeling confident. They tout data showing two-third of those who have already voted were women, young people, blacks and Hispanics. Obama is almost certain to win the majority of those voting blocs.

Aides say minority voting in particular is on track to reach an all-time high, perhaps as high as 28 percent of all voters.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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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)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Microsoft pushes new Windows to developers

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Days after launching Windows 8, Microsoft Corp is mounting a strong campaign to win over the software developers it needs to kick-start its new operating system.

A lack of apps is Microsoft's Achilles heel as it attempts to catch Apple Inc and Google Inc in the rush toward mobile computing.

Windows 8, the new Surface tablet and a range of Windows-based phones - all unveiled in the past week - are designed to close that gap, but the world's largest software company still needs to convince developers to recreate the thriving 'ecosystem' that made PCs so successful.

"Please go out and write lots of applications," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pleaded with 2,000 developers on Tuesday, kicking off an annual, four-day meeting at its campus near Seattle.

The event, called 'Build,' is the equivalent of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and Google's I/O event.

Microsoft gave each paying attendee one of its Surface tablets and 100 gigabytes of free space on its SkyDrive online storage service. On top of that, handset partner Nokia threw in a free Lumia 920 smartphone running Windows Phone 8.

The unprecedentedly generous give-away signals the intent of what Microsoft openly calls "evangelism." Most developers at the meeting, who paid up to $2,000 to attend, are already converted to the Windows religion. But this year there is a feeling that Microsoft can re-establish itself as a relevant platform for developers.

"The sessions are overflowing. Everybody wants to learn," said Greg Lutz, product manager at development tools company ComponentOne, who is attending the conference.

"The Surface is really exciting. It's been interesting to see people that would normally be critics of Microsoft surprised to see how good it is," said Lutz, whose company makes features that developers can use in apps, such as calendars or charts.

Microsoft recognizes it needs apps to flesh out its new online Windows Store and make Windows 8 machines more attractive to users, said Russ Whitman, chief strategy officer at Ratio Interactive, a design agency that helps companies create apps.

"The catalog (of apps) is where they are weak, there's no doubt," he said. "But if Microsoft stays focused on quality not quantity, they can win."

DEVELOPER DOUBTS

When Windows 8 launched on Friday, some major content providers had prominent apps in the Windows store, such as Netflix Inc, the New York Times and Rovio's Angry Birds Space. But big names such as Facebook and Twitter were missing.

Twitter moved to rectify that on Tuesday, announcing that a native Windows app would be rolled out "in the months ahead." Dropbox, a fast-growing cloud storage service, also announced it would soon have a Windows app, as did online payment firm PayPal and sports network ESPN.

But Facebook, which now has more than 1 billion users, has not yet made public any plans for a Windows app, despite the fact Microsoft is a minor shareholder.

And Microsoft still has to overcome indifference from many developers who do not see demand from users or simply do not have the resources to build Windows apps alongside iOS and Android.

"Windows 8 is getting good reviews and the tile user interface is a great fit with our geo-visual content," said Jason Karas, CEO at website Trover, where users can share photos of interesting discoveries. "It's on the roadmap for Trover, but we are still a very lean team, so we're hesitant to support a third platform until we have all the innovations we want to see in iPhone and Android in place."

Microsoft has yet to persuade other influential online services, for example car-rental firm Zipcar or real estate information firm Zillow, to develop for Windows 8.

To get more developers on board, Microsoft is spending this week demonstrating how it is making it easier to develop apps for Windows and get them into the real world.

A key part of that is a new set of tools tying in its Azure cloud service, which allows Windows apps to easily harness data stored in remote servers.

"Some of the new changes are pretty incredible and are going to make developing, especially some of the mobile apps, much easier," said Mike Cousins, a software developer following the conference by webcast from Calgary, Canada.

"It just makes it super-easy to integrate mobile clients into your application," said Cousins, who is developing Shuttr, a site for photographers to display and sell their work. "It's been reduced from probably a week's work to minutes."

400 MILLION NEW MACHINES

Microsoft's best argument to developers is the sheer size of the Windows user base.

Microsoft sold 4 million upgrades to Windows 8 in its first four days, a mere fraction of the 670 million or so machines running Windows 7. Ballmer said there would be 400 million new devices running Windows next year, including PCs, tablets and phones, and the company would be marketing heavily to consumers.

That is an attractive audience for developers, and Whitman at Ratio Interactive said he saw many new faces at Microsoft's event this week who previously were more interested in web-based apps and other platforms.

"There's a new generation of developers that can build on Windows 8 that have been building using JavaScript and HTML," he said. "Seeing some of those developers show up and talk about building apps using other languages is pretty cool. It's a whole different group than Microsoft has traditionally been able to court."

One Wall Street analyst said developers may even be tempted to switch back to Microsoft after working with Apple's iOS platform.

"There does seem to be some excitement about the new operating system and many of the new devices that are coming to market," said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. "We have heard some developers talk about 're-Microsofting' and moving from their Macs for app development."

Cousins said that once developers see the user base for Windows 8 grow, the momentum will start to have an effect.

"All the new PCs people buy will be Windows 8, and people will start demanding Windows 8 apps from companies, and then they will start making them," he said. "I think we'll see a wave of apps coming out pretty soon."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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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)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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