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IntroductionVentilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among neonates requiring life-saving mechanical ventilation in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), particularly those who are born prematurely and/or with very-low-birth-weight (VLBW), or critically ill. Despite its clinical significance, neonatal VAP lacks standardised diagnostic criteria, resulting in variability in incidence reporting, over or under diagnosis and inappropriate antimicrobial use which further exacerbates the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Current diagnostic criteria and prevention strategies, often adapted from paediatric populations and adults, fail to address the unique anatomical and clinical characteristics of neonates. Building on a pilot investigation across Canadian NICUs, the goal of this study is to establish standardised, neonatal-specific VAP diagnostic criteria and prevention strategies to improve diagnostic accuracy, promote antimicrobial stewardship and enhance clinical outcomes.Methods and analysisBeginning in 2025, a 4-year, multicentre, prospectively-designed retrospective cohort study will be conducted across tertiary NICUs in Canada. All VLBW (birth weight <1500 g) neonates admitted to participating NICUs will be included. Our first aim is to use the Canadian Neonatal Network (CNN) platform, integrated with advanced data screening tools, to collect standardised demographic, clinical, ventilatory and microbiological data to assess VAP incidence and outcomes based on existing definitions. Next, we will develop a neonatal-specific VAP diagnostic criteria, by combining statistical analyses, including univariate analysis, multivariable logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analyses, with expert consensus building through the Delphi method. Concurrently, we will focus on implementing evidence-based VAP prevention strategies and evaluate outcome measures, such as VAP incidence, adherence to prevention bundles and antimicrobial stewardship practices.Ethics and disseminationThis study has received ethics approval from the University of Alberta Health Research Ethics Board-Health Panel (Pro00149177). Findings will be disseminated through open-access publications, conference presentations and online platforms to promote widespread adoption.Trial registration numberNCT07109791.

In 1983 Karla Faye Tucker helped kill two people in Houston, Texas, with a pickax. Last week, in an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK, she imagined that next Tuesday, when she is scheduled to walk into an execution chamber for a lethal injection, \"I'll be thinking about the families I've hurt, my family, my husband and ultimately Jesus coming and escorting me home. And I'll be thinking: what can I do to glorify the Lord in my life and in my death?\" But her execution is by no means certain.

The book, published by Faber and Faber, had to be the best-kept literary secret in living memory. Why hadn't the trumpets been blazing away for months? Perhaps in part to protect [Ted Hughes], who had been a reviled figure among feminists since 1963, when [Sylvia Plath] left milk and bread in the bedroom of her daughter and infant son, and laid her head in a gas oven. Hughes had abandoned Plath and the children for another woman. And while he went on to a distinguished career, Plath's death, a month after the publication of her autobiographical novel, \"The Bell Jar,\" made her a celebrated martyr. Several times Hughes's name has been chiseled off Plath's gravestone in Yorkshire, and some feminists still call him a murderer.

In September 2004, local media reported that well-known comedian Fu Biao spent more than $36,000 for a liver from an executed prisoner in Shandong province. And starting in June 2005, reports surfaced on the Internet of retinas and kidneys taken from executed gang members without their consent in Henan province near Beijing. Some experts estimate that well over 90% of all organs transplanted in China come from executed prisoners, given the limited supply of organs from other sources. China has no system of voluntary donor cards. Furthermore, experts say, because China defines death as a cessation in heart activity rather than brain- stem activity, there's little opportunity to recover organs from other sources. Rules adopted in 1984 state that executed prisoners' organs can be used if the prisoner's relatives are unwilling to take the corpse or if the prisoner or his family agrees. But relatively little is known about how such organs are distributed, how organ decisions are made and which patients get preference.

Some experts estimate that well over 90 percent of all organs transplanted in China come from executed prisoners, given the limited supply of other organs. China has no system of voluntary donor cards. Furthermore, experts say, because China defines death as a cessation in heart rather than brain-stem activity, there is little opportunity to recover organs from other sources.

At the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, bursts of radiation could mean those workers will have to be quickly rotated out, and some could rapidly reach their annual exposure limit, complicating efforts to contain the nuclear crisis. Disaster officials could face a grim choice: scale back their containment efforts or allow workers to face radiation levels that could significantly increase their risk of cancer.

AT THE HEART OF MODERN MEXICO'S most riveting political drama—a tale of drugs, brotherhood and murder—was Mario Ruiz Massieu. Once Mexico's top anti-narcotics official, he had lived for the past four years under house arrest in Palisades Park, N.J. The Mexican government was fighting for his extradition on charges that he grew rich on drug profits and hid evidence linking the murder of his own brother to Raúl Salinas, the brother of the then President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former Mexican anti-narcotics official, committed suicide two days before he was to be arraigned on allegations that he had laundered over $9 million in drug money. Ths suicide has derailed a US drug probe.

THE SYRIAN ARMY colonel just disappeared. He was being watched by U.S. intelligence for his role as an expert in biological and chemical warfare when he vanished last February. \"Is the colonel working for bin Laden in a secret lab somewhere? Who knows,\" a U.S. intelligence official told NEWSWEEK. Investigators suspect the missing colonel traveled to Germany after becoming a Muslim extremist.