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mentary School psychologist.
• Sherlach, who said he had other obligations the day of the speech, explained he also didn't want to be part of the heated rift over gun control that politics and dueling news conferences seem to inflame.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Michael Lee knew he was still in bad shape when he left the hospital five days after emergency heart surgery. But he was so eager to escape the constant prodding and the roommate's loud TV that he tuned out the nurses' care instructions.
• "I was really tired of Jerry Springer," the New York man says ruefully. "I was so anxious to get out that it sort of overrode everything else that was going on around me."
• He's far from alone: Missing out on critical information about what to do at home to get better is one of the main risks for preventable rehospitalizations.
• "There couldn't be a worse time, a less receptive time, to offer people information than the 11 minutes before they leave the building," said readmissions expert Dr. Eric Coleman of the University of Colorado in Denver.
• Hospital readmissions are miserable for patients, and a huge cost -- more than $17 billion a year in avoidable Medicare bills alone -- for a nation struggling with the price of health care.
• ___

• HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) -- The East Coast woke up under a blanket of snow this weekend and collectively documented the experience on the myriad social and mobile inventions of the past decade. Facebook, Twitter and other technologies make it increasingly difficult to stay isolated --even if you're stuck home alone.
• "The funny thing is that I actually checked my Instagram feed before I even looked out my own window," says Eric Witz, who lives in Medford, Mass.
• On Saturday, Witz posted a photo of his car stuck under a "6-foot-high snow drift". "I always have my phone on me. So checking these things is something I do instinctively when I wake up," he says. "That probably makes me a sad social media cliché, but it's the truth."

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