Angus T. Jones Is Not Leaving Two and a Half Men: Source

TV Watch

By Elizabeth Leonard

11/28/2012 at 07:50 PM EST

The Half is back!

Ever since Angus T. Jones bashed Two and a Half Men in a now-viral video, it begged the question: Will the 19-year-old actor return to the hit show?

If he has it his way, he will.

"Angus expects to report to work after the holiday break in January," says a source close to the star. "He intends to honor his contract through the end of the season."

Jones, who called the show "filth" and urged viewers in a video interview on a religious website to stop watching, issued an apology Tuesday night, saying he has the "highest regard" for the "wonderful people" on the show.

Although Jones is not featured in an episode that tapes next week, he intends to show up on schedule after the break, the source says.

In the meantime, the source adds, "Angus is feeling positive and he is concentrating on spending some downtime with family and friends."

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LAFD billing firm's leak of personal data under investigation

Federal officials have opened a criminal investigation to determine whether confidential information was obtained illegally on hundreds of patients who rode in Los Angeles Fire Department ambulances, a high-level city lawyer said Wednesday.

The Fire Department has begun informing past patients that personal records, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, were accessed "deliberately and maliciously" by an employee of the company that provides ambulance billing services to the city.

Twenty-six notification letters have gone out so far and more than 900 people may have been victimized in total, said William Carter, chief deputy to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich. Carter said the Internal Revenue Service is one of the agencies conducting the investigation.

The city's ambulance billing duties are handled by Advanced Data Processing Inc., which received nearly $6 million from the Fire Department between June 2011 and Oct. 30, according to City Controller Wendy Greuel. Federal law protects private medical information, Carter said.

In its notification letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, the Fire Department said patient information was used to file fraudulent tax returns as part of a scheme to illegally obtain tax refunds. The department advised the potential victims to call the IRS to determine whether false returns had been filed in their names, and to take steps to protect their credit rating.

Lisa MacKenzie, a spokeswoman for Advanced Data Processing and its subsidiary, Intermedix Corp., said she could not discuss the matter Wednesday. A spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said only that Trutanich's office and the Fire Department were working closely with the billing company to investigate the incident.

The confidentiality breach is the latest embarrassment for a department struggling to address dispatching delays and problems with inaccurate 911 response time data. Over the last several months, the agency has found widespread problems with its performance data management, including flaws in a 30-year-old computer system and a lack of adequate training for firefighters working on response time analysis.

Fire Department officials had no comment on the investigation.

The new problems involving patient medical information could increase resistance to the city's efforts to privatize other operations, including management of the Los Angeles Zoo and the Los Angeles Convention Center. The council voted two years ago to take ambulance billing duties away from city employees, despite warnings from union officials that such a move would jeopardize patient information.

"I thought it was wrong to try to privatize ambulance billing for this reason ... and here it's come to pass," said Pat McOsker, president of the city firefighters union. "It's shameful, absolutely shameful, that some city contractor, a private company making a profit off this, has people getting access to people's private information."

City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, the city's top budget official, defended the decision to go with a private billing company. The agreement backed by Villaraigosa and the council, he said, ensured that the contractor is legally liable for any violation of the law that protects patient information.

"Our concern had been that mistakes could occur, and if the city did this work, the city would inherit 100% of the liability," he said.

In 2010, the year the ambulance billing contract was awarded, Advanced Data Processing paid nearly $71,000 to Englander, Knabe and Allen, the City Hall lobbying firm headed by lobbyist Harvey Englander and former Villaraigosa deputy chief of staff Marcus Allen, among others. Budget officials backed the privatization proposal, saying it would allow the Fire Department to focus on its core mission while upgrading its ambulance billing system.

Villaraigosa also weighed in, telling skeptical council members that the contract would help stabilize the city's finances during a budget crisis, make the Fire Department more efficient and, when combined with a second contract, avert $15 million in cuts. Switching to a private company also allowed the department to reduce the staff of its billing operation.

Under its six-year agreement, the contractor receives at least 5% on the net revenue collected from patients transported in LAFD ambulances, according to city records.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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News Analysis: Sunni Leaders Gaining Clout in Mideast

Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency

A Palestinian woman in Gaza City on Tuesday walked amid the rubble left from eight days of fighting that ended in a cease-fire.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — For years, the United States and its Middle East allies were challenged by the rising might of the so-called Shiite crescent, a political and ideological alliance backed by Iran that linked regional actors deeply hostile to Israel and the West.

But uprising, wars and economics have altered the landscape of the region, paving the way for a new axis to emerge, one led by a Sunni Muslim alliance of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. That triumvirate played a leading role in helping end the eight-day conflict between Israel and Gaza, in large part by embracing Hamas and luring it further away from the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah fold, offering diplomatic clout and promises of hefty aid.

For the United States and Israel, the shifting dynamics offer a chance to isolate a resurgent Iran, limit its access to the Arab world and make it harder for Tehran to arm its agents on Israel’s border. But the gains are also tempered, because while these Sunni leaders are willing to work with Washington, unlike the mullahs in Tehran, they also promote a radical religious-based ideology that has fueled anti-Western sentiment around the region.

Hamas — which received missiles from Iran that reached Israel’s northern cities — broke with the Iranian axis last winter, openly backing the rebellion against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. But its affinity with the Egypt-Qatar-Turkey axis came to fruition this fall.

“That camp has more assets that it can share than Iran — politically, diplomatically, materially,” said Robert Malley, the Middle East program director for the International Crisis Group. “The Muslim Brotherhood is their world much more so than Iran.”

The Gaza conflict helps illustrate how Middle Eastern alliances have evolved since the Islamist wave that toppled one government after another beginning in January 2011. Iran had no interest in a cease-fire, while Egypt, Qatar and Turkey did.

But it is the fight for Syria that is the defining struggle in this revived Sunni-Shiite duel. The winner gains a prized strategic crossroads.

For now, it appears that that tide is shifting against Iran, there too, and that it might well lose its main Arab partner, Syria. The Sunni-led opposition appears in recent days to have made significant inroads against the government, threatening the Assad family’s dynastic rule of 40 years and its long alliance with Iran. If Mr. Assad falls, that would render Iran and Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, isolated as a Shiite Muslim alliance in an ever more sectarian Middle East, no longer enjoying a special street credibility as what Damascus always tried to sell as “the beating heart of Arab resistance.”

If the shifts seem to leave the United States somewhat dazed, it is because what will emerge from all the ferment remains obscure.

Clearly the old leaders Washington relied on to enforce its will, like President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, are gone or at least eclipsed. But otherwise confusion reigns in terms of knowing how to deal with this new paradigm, one that could well create societies infused with religious ideology that Americans find difficult to accept. The new reality could be a weaker Iran, but a far more religiously conservative Middle East that is less beholden to the United States.

Already, Islamists have been empowered in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, while Syria’s opposition is being led by Sunni insurgents, including a growing number identified as jihadists, some identified as sympathizing with Al Qaeda. Qatar, which hosts a major United States military base, also helps finance Islamists all around the region.

In Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi resigned as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood only when he became head of state, but he still remains closely linked with the movement. Turkey, the model for many of them, has kept strong relations with Washington while diminishing the authority of generals who were longstanding American allies.

“The United States is part of a landscape that has shifted so dramatically,” said Mr. Malley of the International Crisis Group. “It is caught between the displacement of the old moderate-radical divide by one that is defined by confessional and sectarian loyalty.”

The emerging Sunni axis has put not only Shiites at a disadvantage, but also the old school leaders who once allied themselves with Washington.

The old guard members in the Palestinian Authority are struggling to remain relevant at a time when their failed 20-year quest to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands makes them seem both anachronistic and obsolete.

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Cyber Monday sales best ever, for Amazon’s Kindle too

(Reuters) – Internet sales jumped more than 30 percent on Cyber Monday, making it the biggest online shopping day ever, according to data released on Tuesday.

Walmart.com, the online division of Walmart U.S., had its best sales day in history, a spokeswoman said.

Cyber Monday also was a record day for sales of Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle devices, the online retailer said, without specifying the number sold.

Still, eBay Inc, operator of one of the largest online marketplaces, outperformed its arch rival Amazon.com over the crucial first five days of the holiday shopping season, according to one closely watched measure.

Cyber Monday has been the biggest online shopping day in recent years, as workers return to offices and make holiday purchases on their computers. This year, the boom in smart phone and tablet adoption has added extra fuel to online shopping.

Cyber Monday sales online jumped 30.3 percent from the same day last year, according to International Business Machines Corp, which analyzes transactions from 500 U.S. retailers.

Mobile devices accounted for 18 percent of visits to retailer websites and 13 percent of sales on Cyber Monday. That was up 70 percent and 96 percent, respectively, compared with the same day last year, IBM reported.

To that end, Walmart.com said Cyber Monday online traffic from Walmart’s mobile apps jumped 280 percent versus a year ago.

On Monday, when retailers offered big Cyber Monday online deals, web shopping peaked at 11:25 a.m. EST (1625 GMT), IBM said. That timing suggests shoppers continue to check out online offers while still at work, even though more people have high-speed Internet access at home than in previous years.

AMAZON’S KINDLE DEAL

Amazon.com cut the price of its 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet by $ 30 to $ 129 on Monday, and it was the company’s most successful Cyber Monday deal ever, the retailer said.

Nine of the top 10 best-selling products on Amazon.com have been Kindles, Kindle accessories and digital content since the company unveiled new devices on September 6, it said.

Worldwide sales of Kindle devices more than doubled during the Thanksgiving weekend from the 2011 period, Amazon said.

“Demand for Kindle Fire is stronger than expected,” said Chad Bartley, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. “This suggests Amazon is competing effectively against Apple and Google in the near term, and increased device ownership could drive sales of digital media and physical products over the long term.”

Bartley raised his estimate for fourth-quarter Kindle Fire unit sales to 8 million from 5.5 million and increased his forecast for Amazon’s fourth-quarter revenue to $ 22.75 billion from $ 22.25 billion.

Shares of Amazon closed down almost 0.1 percent at $ 243.40 on Nasdaq. Stock in Wal-Mart Stores Inc shed 0.6 percent to close at $ 69.50.

A FIRST FOR EBAY

Still, eBay sales may have outperformed Amazon during the early part of the holiday shopping season, according to ChannelAdvisor, which helps third-party merchants sell more via websites including eBay.com and Amazon.com.

ChannelAdvisor data excludes sales specifically by Amazon, so the data does not capture Kindle device revenue and many other transactions. About 60 percent of Amazon’s unit sales are generated by the company itself, while 40 percent come from third parties operating on its platform.

ChannelAdvisor said client sales – sales generated by third-party merchants using the company’s service – soared 55.2 percent on eBay.com on Cyber Monday from a year earlier. That was about five times faster than last year’s growth.

For the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, which ChannelAdvisor calls the “Cyber Five,” client sales on eBay.com rose 38.3 percent compared with the same days in 2011.

ChannelAdvisor said client sales on Amazon.com jumped 42.4 percent on Cyber Monday compared with a year earlier. Over the “Cyber Five,” client sales on Amazon.com rose 37.7 percent, the firm said.

This is the first time since at least 2007 that client sales on eBay.com have grown faster than client sales via Amazon.com during the holiday season, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. The firm started tracking this in 2007, he noted.

EBay shares lost 0.5 percent to close at $ 51.15 on Tuesday. The stock rose almost 5 percent to a new multi-year high on Monday after ChannelAdvisor released its early Cyber Monday results.

EBay’s holiday advertising campaign, which included TV commercials, likely attracted more shoppers to its online marketplace, Wingo said.

EBay was also “aggressive” with holiday promotions and gift guides, and the company’s category-specific websites focused on things like fashion and electronics, were well integrated with the broader holiday promotions, unlike last year, Wingo explained.

However, the main driver may have been mobile shopping, an area in which eBay and its payments division PayPal invested early and heavily, Wingo added.

“With less than 10 percent of commerce coming from mobile devices and far higher levels ahead, we believe this trend will carry eBay Marketplace and PayPal for the next few years,” Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note to investors on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco and Jessica Wohl in Chicago, additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid, Lisa Von Ahn, Gunna Dickson and David Gregorio)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dancing with the Stars Crowns an All-Star Winner

TV Watch
Update

By Mike Fleeman

UPDATED
11/27/2012 at 11:00 PM EST

• Originally published 11/27/2012 at 10:50 PM EST

Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke Charvet

Adam Larkey/ABC

There's a new leading lady!

The first all-female finale of Dancing with the Stars featured all-stars Shawn Johnson, Kelly Monaco and Melissa Rycroft in a fierce battle Tuesday night for the mirror ball trophy.

After taking big risks in Monday night's performance show, the stars and their pro partners – Derek Hough, Val Chmerkovskiy and Tony Dovolani – performed "instant dances."

With the competitors getting their dance-style instructions less than an hour before hitting the floor, the field was whittled down to two couples. Read on to find out who won.

After Monaco was the first eliminated, it came down to Johnson and Rycroft. And the winner was ... Rycroft!

Amid showering confetti, the reality star and Dovolani clutched the trophy. They embraced and jumped up and down.

Rycroft was the only competitor among the final three all-stars to not have won before. Dovolani had labored 14 seasons without previously winning.

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

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

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

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

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

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Online:

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

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Reps. Maxine Waters, Ed Royce in line for House leadership posts

WASHINGTON — Veteran Reps. Ed Royce, an Orange County conservative, and Maxine Waters, a South Los Angeles liberal, are about to gain higher profiles in the next Congress.

Royce (R-Fullerton) is expected to be named the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Waters (D-Los Angeles) the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.

Their new positions will help offset the state's expected loss of influence on Capitol Hill following the defeat or retirement of a number of the delegation's senior members.

Royce won the backing of the Republican leadership Tuesday to succeed Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who must step down because of GOP term limits for its committee leaders. The recommendation is expected to be approved Wednesday by the party's rank and file. Democrats later this week will announce the committee's ranking members.

Royce's ascent to the Foreign Affairs Committee chairmanship will give Republicans from deep-blue California the gavels of three committees in the GOP-controlled House.

Reps. Howard P. "Buck'' McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Darrell Issa (R-Vista) will continue to chair the Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees, respectively. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield will continue to serve as majority whip, the third-ranking House GOP leadership post.

Ros-Lehtinen backed Royce as her successor. A majority of the committee's Republicans also supported him, calling him a "team player." Royce was probably aided by the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has provided from his campaign treasury to help elect fellow Republicans.

When he takes over in January, Royce is expected to push the Obama administration to be more aggressive in dealing with Iran, which he has called the "gravest threat" facing the U.S. and its allies, and in promoting human rights in China, Russia and other countries.

Royce pledged to "work against the administration's most harmful foreign policies and exercise strong oversight over the State Department."

Royce, 61, has maintained a low profile in his 20 years in the House, but has been active in foreign affairs, including sponsoring legislation to create Radio Free Afghanistan, promote trade with Africa and crack down on human rights abuses in Vietnam.

Waters, 74, is in line to take retiring Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's seat as the top Democrat on the panel that oversees the banking industry, capital markets and housing programs. Her likely ascension to the post comes after the House Ethics Committee dropped a case against her in September.

Waters has served as chairwoman or ranking member of every one of the banking panel's subcommittees. During her tenure, she has championed a nationwide program that has provided billions of dollars to buy and fix up foreclosed properties and has sponsored legislation that requires the Treasury Department and other agencies to create offices to promote opportunities for minorities and women.

With her ideological opposite, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), wielding the gavel and setting the committee agenda, "I see fireworks ahead," said Bart Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

Waters, in a letter to Democratic colleagues, declared herself "ready to defend" the 2010 overhaul of financial regulations from Republican attack.

Some banking industry representatives are anxious over Waters' new position. She told the CEOs of the big banks at one hearing, "All of my political life, I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in the best interest always of the very people that they claim to serve."

But she has been reaching out to industry groups and others that deal with the committee.

"There's going to be some shouting, but there's going to be a lot less than people are expecting," Mark A. Calabria, the Cato Institute's director of financial regulation studies, said of the Hensarling and Waters leadership posts. "We might all be surprised."

richard.simon@latimes.com

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Egypt’s President Said to Limit Scope of Judicial Decree

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians at a burned-out school in Cairo on Monday before the funeral of an activist who was injured in a clash and died Sunday.

CAIRO — With public pressure mounting, President Mohamed Morsi appeared to pull back Monday from his attempt to assert an authority beyond the reach of any court. His allies in the Muslim Brotherhood canceled plans for a large demonstration in his support, signaling a chance to calm an escalating battle that has paralyzed a divided nation.

After Mr. Morsi met for hours with the judges of Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council, his spokesman read an “explanation” on television that appeared to backtrack from a presidential decree placing Mr. Morsi’s official edicts above judicial scrutiny — even while saying the president had not actually changed a word of the statement.

Though details of the talks remained hazy, and it was not clear whether the opposition or the court would accept his position, Mr. Morsi’s gesture was another demonstration that Egyptians would no longer allow their rulers to operate above the law. But there appeared little chance that the gesture alone would be enough to quell the crisis set off by his perceived power grab.

Protesters remained camped in Tahrir Square, and the opposition was moving ahead with plans for a major demonstration on Tuesday.

The presidential spokesman, Yasser Ali, said for the first time that Mr. Morsi had sought only to assert pre-existing powers already approved by the courts under previous precedents, not to free himself from judicial oversight.

He said that the president meant all along to follow an established Egyptian legal doctrine suspending judicial scrutiny of presidential “acts of sovereignty” that work “to protect the main institutions of the state.” The judicial council had said Sunday that it could bless aspects of the decree deemed to qualify under the doctrine.

Mr. Morsi had maintained from the start that his purpose was to empower himself to prevent judges appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak from dissolving the constituent assembly, which is led by his fellow Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. The courts have already dissolved the Islamist-led Parliament and an earlier constituent assembly, and the Supreme Constitutional Court was widely expected to rule against this one next week.

But the text of the original decree had exempted all presidential edicts from judicial review until the ratification of a constitution, not just those edicts related to the assembly or justified as “acts of sovereignty.”

Legal experts said that the spokesman’s explanations of the president’s intentions, if put into effect, would amount to a revision of the decree Mr. Morsi issued last Thursday. But lawyers said that the verbal statements alone carried little legal weight.

How the courts would apply the doctrine remained hard to predict. And Mr. Morsi’s opposition indicated it was holding out for far greater concessions, including the breakup of the whole constituent assembly.

Speaking at a news conference while Mr. Morsi was meeting with the judges, the opposition activist and intellectual Abdel Haleem Qandeil called for “a long-term battle,” declaring that withdrawal of Mr. Morsi’s new powers was only the first step toward the opposition’s goal of “the withdrawal of the legitimacy of Morsi’s presence in the presidential palace.” Completely withdrawing the edict would be “a minimum,” he said.

Khaled Ali, a human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate, pointed to the growing crowd of protesters camped out in Tahrir Square for a fourth night. “The one who did the action has to take it back,” Mr. Ali said.

Moataz Abdel Fattah, a political scientist at Cairo University, said Mr. Morsi was saving face during a strategic retreat. “He is trying to simply say, ‘I am not a new pharaoh; I am just trying to stabilize the institutions that we already have,’ ” he said. “But for the liberals, this is now their moment, and for sure they are not going to waste it, because he has given them an excellent opportunity to score.”

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Women Sizzle in Dancing with the Stars All-Star Finale

TV Watch

By Aaron Parsley

11/26/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

From left: Shawn Johnson, Kelly Monaco and Melissa Rycroft

Craig Sjodin/ABC (3)

It's raining 10s, hallelujah!

On the final Monday night of competition for the all-star season of Dancing with the Stars, the all-female top three – Melissa Rycroft, Shawn Johnson and Kelly Monaco – took big risks during two final routines with their partners.

Each couple performed their favorite dance of the season and "super-sized freestyle," which allowed the pros – Tony Dovolani, Derek Hough and Val Chmerkovskiy – to incorporate the music and choreography of their choice with sets, additional performers and costumes to create routines to wow the judges and the voters at home.

Here's how it all played our inside the ballroom on Monday night:

Melissa and Tony dominated with two perfect 30s for a total of 60. Kelly and Val were close behind with 59 points. And Shawn and Derek remained very much in it with 57.

ROUND 1
Kelly and Val, who have not scored a 10 this season, chose the paso doble as their favorite dance. "I want to make it so technically perfect, so passionate that the judges have no choice but to give us a 10," she said before doing a routine that judge Len Goodman called their "best dance to date." But it wasn't perfect: Carrie Ann Inaba spotted a "little slip-up," an unintentional release, and knocked off half a point, leaving them just shy of 30 with 29.5.

Melissa and Tony performed their favorite dance, a samba. Bruno Tonioli called her a "deliciously irresistible Brazilian bombshell," and said, "You've grown so much as a performer. You really have blossomed." Added Len: "You captured the party flavor of the samba, great technique, great rhythm, fabulous." They earned a perfect 30.

Shawn and Derek decided to revisit their quickstep and performed their original choreography even though some of the moves were against the rules. "The standing ovation means everything to us," Shawn said, explaining their determination to entertain rather than just earn points. Though the judges said the routine was "fantastic," they also called them out for their controversial decision. "You're not allowed to break hold, which you did, you're not allowed to do lifts, which you did," Len said. "You leave me nowhere to go." Added Carrie Ann: "Points do matter ... I'm a little disappointed but I hope your risk pays off." They scored 27 our of 30.

ROUND 2
Kelly started her super-size freestyle by performing aerial work hanging from the ballroom rafters as Val played the violin. According to Bruno the routine, which they danced to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," combined Cirque du Soleil with Dirty Dancing. "This was the perfect dance," Carrie Ann said of their 29.5-point performance. "You executed everything great, you added artistry and you told us a happy ending to a beautiful love story."

Melissa and Tony did something never done before in the finale – a contemporary routine. "We're taking a huge risk," she said of their lift-heavy dance. Carrie Ann agreed: "With great risk comes great rewards," she said, "Freestyle jackpot!" The routine left Len speechless but when he held up his 10-point paddle, he said, "I wish I had an 11." They earned another perfect 30.

Shawn and Derek performed the final dance of the night with the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team – a.k.a. The Fierce Five. "It was a medley of Derek and Shawn's greatest hits," was Len's assessment. Carrie Ann called it "sensational." Bruno said it was "the crowning glory on a fantastic night," and they got a perfect 30.

But will it be enough to make up for their unconventional quickstep? On Tuesday the couples will perform one more time for points when they pick their music and dance live on the air. And then an all-star winner will be crowned.

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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

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

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