Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Online:

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

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

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

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PASSINGS: Martin Richards, Bryce Bayer

Martin Richards

Stage producer and philanthropist

Martin Richards, 80, a prominent stage producer who won an Oscar for producing the 2002 film "Chicago" decades after bringing it to Broadway, died Monday after a battle with cancer, said his publicist, Judy Jacksina.

Plays and musicals he produced over several decades won 36 Tonys. They include the 1978 musical "On the Twentieth Century"; Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" in 1979 and the 2005 revival; Tommy Tune's "Grand Hotel" in 1989; the 1984 "La Cage Aux Folles" and 2004 revival; and "The Will Rogers Follies," which debuted in 1991.

The son of a stockbroker, he was born Morton Richard Klein on March 11, 1932, in New York City and sang on Broadway as a child in the mid-1940s musical "Mexican Hayride." When his voice changed, he continued singing in clubs in the 1950s and had small movie and TV roles before becoming a casting director in the 1960s.

He met Mary Lea Johnson — an heiress to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune — in the early 1970s and married her before the decade was out. Richards was openly gay, and for many years they lived in separate apartments in the same building. By all accounts, their personal and professional partnership was a happy one, according to Playbill.

The handful of films he co-produced included "The Boys From Brazil" (1978), "The Shining" (1980) and "Fort Apache, the Bronx" (1981).

When his wife died in 1990, Richards received a large inheritance. He was known to relish the good life but was also a generous philanthropist. He was a founding board member of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, established a liver and kidney transplant center at the New York University Langone Medical Center and created the New York Center for Children to care for abused children and their families.

Bryce Bayer

'Father of digital imaging'

Bryce Bayer, 83, an Eastman Kodak Co. researcher who has been called "the father of digital imaging" for the invention of a widely used color filter array that bears his name, died Nov. 13 in Bath, Maine. Direct Cremation of Maine announced his death but did not release a cause.

Since his Bayer filter was patented in 1976, it has been incorporated into nearly every digital camera and camera phone, according to Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodak.

"The elegant color technology invented by Bryce Bayer is behind nearly every digital image captured today," Terry Taber, Kodak's chief technology officer, said in a 2009 statement.

The filter allows devices to capture color images with a single sensor and paved the way for the development in the 1970s of the first working digital camera, Steve Sasson, the Kodak engineer responsible for that step forward, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle last week.

"He was solving a fundamental problem before that problem was even upon us," Sasson said.

Bayer's invention is the key reason that digital cameras are compact yet provide sharp-looking pictures, another former colleague, Ken Parulski, told the newspaper.

Bayer, who was born in 1929, also developed processes for storing, improving and printing digital images before retiring from Kodak in the mid-1990s.

— Times staff and wire reports

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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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Nintendo: more than 400,000 Wii Us sold in US

NEW YORK (AP) — Nintendo says it has sold more than 400,000 of its new video game console, the Wii U, in its first week on sale in the U.S.

The Wii U launched on Nov. 18 in the U.S. at a starting price of $ 300. Nintendo says the sales figure, based on internal estimates, is through Nov. 24.

Six years ago, Nintendo Co. sold 475,000 of the original Wii in that console’s first seven days in stores. The original Wii remains available, and Nintendo says it sold more than 300,000 of them last week, along with roughly 250,000 handheld Nintendo 3DS units and about 275,000 of the Nintendo DS.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates that Nintendo will ship 1 million to 1.5 million Wii Us in the U.S. through the end of January.

Gaming 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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Regents OK raise for new UC Berkeley chief

Despite strong opposition from Gov. Jerry Brown, the UC Board of Regents on Tuesday gave the incoming chancellor of UC Berkeley a $50,000 — or 11.4% — pay raise over the current campus head. The extra money will come from private donations, not state funds, the regents said.

Nicholas B. Dirks will be paid $486,000, which officials said is $14,000 less than his current salary as a high-ranking administrator at Columbia University.

Brown, who is a regent, described Dirks as an excellent choice but said he would not vote for the salary given the austerities that the state and the 10-campus UC system still face. The university must look for more efficient ways to teach and operate and "the leaders have to demonstrate that they are also sacrificing," Brown said.

The $50,000 increase, even though it won't come from public coffers, "does not fit within the spirit of servant leadership that I think will be required over the next few years," the governor said.

Brown also cited voters' recent approval of his Proposition 30 tax increase, which spared UC from deep budget cuts. During the campaign for the measure, the governor said, he promised voters that he would "use their funds judiciously and with prudence."

Brown, who rarely attended regents meetings before the election, has since become a dramatic presence and voice against UC status quo. Since last summer, he has criticized raises for Cal State executives and suggested that all public colleges promote less expensive insiders instead of shopping for high-priced "hired guns" from across the country.

Besides noting that Dirks will take a pay cut from being Columbia's executive vice president and dean of its arts and sciences faculty, UC leaders said his UC Berkeley salary will be much lower than that of leaders at many other prestigious public and private universities.

"I try to get the very best person I can in this job to navigate the university through some very complicated times," UC system President Mark G. Yudof said.

Yudof said he and Brown do not see "exactly eye to eye" on Dirks' pay, but Yudof said he and the governor agree on nearly all other issues, including efforts to keep tuition from rising.

The regents first debated the issue privately Tuesday in a telephone conference call linking those in Oakland, Sacramento and Los Angeles. After the call went public, three regents voted against the pay increase — Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Charlene Zettel — and 11 others voted for it. All 14 voted to appoint Dirks.

State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), a frequent UC critic, issued a statement suggesting that Dirks follow the example of Timothy P. White, who recently asked for a 10% pay cut from the salary paid his Cal State predecessor. Yee said he would reintroduce legislation to limit executive pay raises in public higher education.

When he starts at the 36,000-student UC Berkeley on June 1, Dirks will receive free campus housing, along with $121,700 in relocation fees paid out in installments over four years and other benefits.

An anthropologist and historian who is an expert on India and its British colonial era, he will succeed Robert J. Birgeneau, who has been Berkeley chancellor for eight years. Dirks' wife, Columbia history professor Janaki Bakhle, is expected to receive a faculty job at UC Berkeley, but officials said her hiring and any possible salary must be reviewed by faculty panels.

After his confirmation, Dirks, who is the son of a former UC Santa Cruz administrator, said he was grateful to lead "one of the greatest universities in the world" and said he would work to boost student financial aid and encourage interdisciplinary research and studies.

He thanked Brown and California voters for passing Proposition 30, which raises the state sales tax a quarter-cent over four years and the income tax on high earners over seven years. Dirks, 61, promised that he would carefully "steward the tax dollars that are being paid by the citizens of this great state."

The regents unanimously approved an annual $245,600 salary and housing for Jane Close Conoley, who will become acting chancellor at UC Riverside next month until a permanent one is hired. That salary is below the $325,000 pay of the current Riverside campus chief, White, who is leaving to become chancellor of the Cal State system. Conoley is now dean of UC Santa Barbara's Gervitz Graduate School of Education.

larry.gordon@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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Exclusive: Egyptian investor seeks to put stamp on Telecom Italia

DUBAI (Reuters) – Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris aims to shake up debt-laden Telecom Italia and steer it towards expansion in Brazil if shareholders warm up to his proposal for a 3 billion euro ($ 3.9 billion) cash infusion.

The billionaire tycoon, who got to know Italy well when he owned the third-biggest mobile operator Wind, has put on the table a capital increase that could make him one of the biggest shareholders in Telecom Italia.

Details on the structure of the proposed transaction are scarce, but Sawiris told Reuters that he proposed that the capital increase be open to all shareholders, not just himself, and that it should be conducted around the current market price of 0.70 euros per share.

That is likely to draw the ire of other Telecom Italia shareholders, including Spain’s Telefonica and the three Italian financial institutions who together own 22.4 percent via an unlisted holding company called Telco.

They value Telecom Italia at 1.50 euros per share in their accounts, and Marco Fossati, whose family’s Findim Group SA owns 5 percent of the Italian operator, on Monday said 1.50 was the “correct price” for any capital increase.

Sawiris, going against a trend of retreating investment in crisis-hit southern Europe, said he might also bring in some of his old Wind associates to put Telecom Italia back on the path to growth.

“This proposal will provide a more stable financial structure for Telecom Italia going forward, more growth in Latin America and Brazil, and improved management through the infusion of people who have an excellent knowledge of the Italian market,” Sawiris told Reuters.

Sawiris initially approached Telefonica and the other shareholders in Telco about the possibility of carrying out a capital increase at the holding company level. He was rebuffed, so decided to approach the Italian group directly.

“We are willing to participate in the capital increase, but shareholders have the choice not to get diluted and join in putting the money,” he said.

“If they do not want to, we will come and replace them. But they will benefit from a higher stock price and a more stable company and a company that will grow.”

It remains to be seen whether his vision for the group will be shared by Telecom Italia’s management and core shareholders.

Telefonica, insurer Assicurazioni Generali, and banks Mediobanca and Intesa Sanpaolo had the Sawiris’ offer dropped onto them as a bombshell two weeks ago, insiders have said.

“Sawiris is not a man to go in without being sure he can drive the strategy,” one source familiar with the thinking of the core shareholders said.

Sawiris told Reuters he was also opposed to a current plan to spin off Telecom Italia’s fixed-line network, which is backed by some core investors as a way to raise badly needed cash, and by the Italian government as a means to speed up broadband investment.

“I believe this is a catastrophe,” Sawiris said. “If Telecom Italia does that, they will lose the only differentiator they have left in the telecom market in Italy.”

Telecom Italia is now in talks with an Italian state-backed investment fund over such a spin-off. Under the plan, the fund would take a minority stake in the new company in exchange for Telecom Italia effectively becoming a wholesaler of broadband capacity to other companies.

Proponents of the spin-off argue the move would help Telecom Italia reduce debt while accelerating the modernization of the woeful Internet infrastructure in Europe’s fourth-largest economy.

STRATEGY CROSSROAD

Telecom Italia’s board will meet on December 6 to discuss the network spin-off and whether to bid for Vivendi’s GVT, a broadband specialist in Brazil, to complement its TIM Brasil mobile business unit in the fast-growing market.

GVT’s owner, Vivendi, is seeking up to 7 billion euros for GVT, which provides fixed telephone, broadband, and TV services in 120 Brazilian cities. Preliminary bids are due in December, sources have told Reuters.

Sawiris is waiting in the wings, though he says he has not had any direct contact from Telecom Italia since sending a letter of interest two weeks ago.

However, advisers from both sides – Lazard for Sawiris and Rothschild for Telecom Italia – have been communicating, according to people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, sources close to the telecom group’s shareholders have complained of a lack of detail in the Sawiris proposal.

Nuno Matias, a telecoms analyst at Espirito Santo bank, said while Sawiris’s arguments about seeking growth in Brazil via the GVT takeover were persuasive, the tycoon could face an uphill battle getting the board and shareholders onside.

“Sawiris isn’t alone; there are controlling shareholders of Telecom Italia, and they have their own interests,” he said.

“If Telecom Italia strengthens in Brazil then it sets up a conflict with Telefonica.”

Sawiris pointed out that he tried talking to Telefonica.

“I met with them, but my feeling is that they are conflicted. They are happy where they are today holding Telecom Italia as a hostage and preventing it from growing into Latin America.”

Telefonica and Telecom Italia are the number one and number two players in Brazilian mobile, respectively, and also compete in Argentina. The conflict means that Telefonica cannot take part in board deliberations at Telecom Italia over the Latin American units.

Telefonica’s Chief Financial Officer Angel Vila said last week that the group wanted to remain a long-term shareholder in Telecom Italia, and opposed a capital increase.

Telecom Italia has made debt-cutting a priority since late 2008. Cost cuts and asset sales have trimmed net debt more than 4 billion euros to 29.5 billion at the end of September.

Morgan Stanley predicted its net debt was likely to stand at 27.8 billion euros at year-end, or 2.7 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), above sector averages and in the warning zone for rating agencies.

Sawiris, who sold Wind to Vimpelcom last year, wants to re-enter Italy by investing in the incumbent operator, betting on low valuations and turnaround potential in old-world telecoms.

“I’ve worked in Italy for five years and what I’ve learned that very few investors have the insight on what is the real story in Italy,” Sawiris said.

($ 1 = 0.7713 euros)

(Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Editing by Will Waterman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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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