CDC: Supergerms cause 1 in 7 infections caught in hospitals

CDC: Supergerms cause 1 in 7 infections caught in hospitals

NEW YORK

Supergerms cause 1 out of 7 infections caught in hospitals, health officials said Thursday.

The bugs include the staph infection MRSA and five other bacteria resistant to many kinds of antibiotics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

That leaves hospitals with few – if any – medicines to fight dangerous infections in already-sick patients.

Google helping in Zika virus fight

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina

Google said Thursday that a half-dozen of its engineers are working to help Brazil track the Zika virus and the mosquito that spreads it by doing one of the things the search-engine giant does best: write algorithms.

Volunteer Google engineers in San Francisco and New York are working with UNICEF counterparts to create a system that combines several types of data to help predict where the Aedes aegypti mosquito might next be particularly active, helping in eradication efforts.

Mideast drought worst in 900 years

JERUSALEM

A recent, 14-year dry spell in the Middle East was the worst drought in the past 900 years, according to a new NASA study released this week.

NASA’s researchers examined records of rings of trees in several Mediterranean countries to determine patterns of dry and wet years across a span of 900 years. They concluded that the years from 1998 to 2012 were drier than any other period and that the drought likely was caused by humans.

Trudeau questions awareness in US

TORONTO

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canadians would appreciate it if Americans paid more attention to what’s going on around the globe.

Trudeau said in a “60 Minutes” interview to be aired Sunday that “it might be nice if they paid a little more attention to the world.”

Trudeau, elected in October, made the remarks after being asked what Canadians don’t like about the U.S.

“Having a little more of an awareness of what’s going on in the rest of the world, I think is, is what many Canadians would hope for Americans,” he said in a transcript released to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Man charged after comatose son dies

SAYLORSBURG, Pa.

A man who put his infant son in a vegetative coma by shaking him as a 2-month-old in 1991 has been charged with homicide after the son died last year at age 23.

Forty-six-year-old Christopher Barber served five to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison for injuring Christopher Kostenbader in Saylorsburg. Barber most recently was living in Plainfield, Ill.

Kostenbader was on life support until he died last year.

Associated Press