Shamas Salon and Spa in Perrysburg will host “Hair for Haiti,” on Jan. 31 from noon to 6 p.m.

All salon services will be offered at 50 percent off with 100 percent of the proceeds donated directly to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund. Gift cards from area businesses will also be available for purchase to assist with relief efforts.

Shamas Salon and Spa is located at 102 W. Indiana Ave. To make an appointment call (419) 872-9908.

AAA of Northwest Ohio will host its 4th annual xTRAVELganza Jan. 31 from noon to 4 p.m.

The event will feature live presentations from more than 20 tour companies and cruise lines and representatives will be on hand to discuss travel options and special savings. Companies represented at the event include Disney, Universal Orlando, Carnival Cruises and Royal Caribbean.

Individuals attending the xTRAVELganza will be entered to win door prizes and those who book their trip at the show will be entered to win up to $500 off their trip.

The xTRAVELganza will be hosted at The Pinnacle, 1771 Indian Wood Circle.

For more information, visit www.AAA.com.

An Ohio county has banned cell phones, laptop computers and other electronic devices over concerns that Twitter-happy jurors could trigger mistrials.

The ban beginning Feb. 1 in Erie County Common Pleas Court in northern Ohio will also include iPods and smart phones such as Blackberries.

The county is prohibiting the devices because of cases around the country where jurors sent electronic messages such as Tweets or texts during trials.

Erie County Sheriff’s Lt. Joe McPeek, head of court security, says there is also a concern about people taking pictures of defendants and posting the images on the Internet.

The ban does not apply to lawyers, police, county employees and reporters.

By Harlan Spector, Cleveland Plain Dealer

New data on Cesarean births in Ohio points to a troubling trend of unnecessary surgeries.

The state’s new hospital-performance Web site, Ohio Hospital Compare, shows that more than one-quarter of first-time mothers considered unlikely to need Cesarean surgery underwent C-sections anyway in 2008. The figures are consistent with a national Cesarean birth rate that has climbed steadily since 1996.

Cesarean surgery is called for when there are problems such as the baby is turned in the wrong direction. But across the nation, almost one in three births are now by C-section, and criticism has grown from health experts and birthing organizations.

Ohio health officials, under a mandate to collect and report hospital quality measures, are trying to put a finger on the problem by looking at C-section rates among women least likely to need one. They excluded mothers who have complicating issues.

Among 117 hospitals they found wide variations in C-section rates for these low-risk women. Experts said at the very least, the data raises questions whether hospitals with high C-section numbers are doing too many surgeries, which heightens health risks to mother and child and lengthens hospitalizations. Seven hospitals in the Cleveland-Akron area had rates exceeding 30 percent, which are among the highest in Ohio.

“We want to look at hospitals (with high rates) to see if all these women need C-sections,” said Dr. Edward Donovan of the Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative. “There’s huge variation that no one quite understands. We have a lot of work to do to figure this out.”

After viewing the state data, a Medical Mutual of Ohio official said the insurer also will look into whether some hospitals are performing unnecessary C-sections. “We’ll show it to people and see if they have explanations and go from there,” said Dr. Robert Rzewnicki, chief medical officer of Medical Mutual.

The state report subjects hospitals to public scrutiny like never before. But it remains unclear why so many women who were low risk had C-sections. Many are thought to be tied to scheduled deliveries, which may be planned as C-section births or turn out that way if induced labor does not progress well.

“I don’t want to say it’s out of convenience, but for most people these were Cesarean sections scheduled in advance,” said Kaliyah Shaheen of the Ohio Department of Health, which collected and published the data. “For the most part, these probably weren’t necessary.”

Dr. Michael Gyves, an obstetrician and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University, disagreed.

Elective Cesareans represent a small percentage, he said. In most cases, the decision is made because of problems that arise during labor. Doctors may call for surgery if labor is not progressing or if the baby’s heart rate falls. But Gyves also said that judging when a baby needs to be delivered surgically is an imperfect discipline, and fear of being sued over a potentially problematic vaginal birth often plays into the decision. Obstetrician-gynecologists shoulder some of the steepest malpractice insurance rates around.

“Overall (the C-section rate) is probably higher than it should be, and it reflects the defensive practice of obstetrics,” Gyves said.

Pam Kolanz, who runs the Greater Cleveland chapter of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, said the variation among hospitals suggests institutional attitudes about vaginal births differ hospital to hospital.

“Women are being approached differently,” she said. “Consumers need to be vigilant in their choice of health providers. The place of birth is very likely to determine whether they’re going to have a Cesarean or not, and the numbers show that.”

Dr. Tommaso Falcone, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the Cleveland Clinic, acknowledged the problem, and said his task is to change the culture at community hospitals where rates are high. At Clinic-owned Huron, Hillcrest, Marymount, Fairview and Medina hospitals, more than 30 percent of births to low-risk mothers were by C-section, the state report showed.

“Obviously these rates are high, and we’re trying to address this,” Falcone said. “There’s a culture in certain groups, in certain areas where people say, ‘What’s wrong with a high C-section rate, as long as the baby is fine.”’

Erin Denney, a 38-year-old mother of six, would not be counted in the new state measure because her first three children were born by C-section. But Denney said she ran up against cultural resistance when she sought to deliver her later children vaginally.

Her story highlights another reason C-section rates are high. A growing number of hospitals nationwide have banned vaginal births after C-section, due to risk of rupture of the uterus. That risk for women with the most common type of incision is 0.2 percent to 1.5 percent, according to the Mayo Clinic’s online “Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) Guide.”

About one-quarter of obstetrician-gynecologists said in 2009 that they stopped performing vaginal deliveries after C-section because of liability concerns, according to a professional society survey.

The practice is driving the national C-section rate, according to the International Cesarean Awareness Network.

Denney, who lives in Parma Heights, said she had to search hard to find providers that would allow her to give birth naturally.

“They will push you to have a C-section,” she said. “It’s actually safer to VBAC than to have a C-section.”

Efforts under way in Ohio should improve C-section rates, said Shaheen of the state health department. The Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative has worked with hospitals since 2007 to reduce the numbers of planned, pre-term deliveries, which are associated with high C-section rates and increased risk of other health problems.

Ohio prisons are setting up a system to allow inmates to view e-mail messages from friends and family.

State prisons officials say the e-mail system will dramatically reduce the 14.7 million pieces of mail flowing in and out of the prisons and may save money.

The system will debut Feb. 23 at the Madison Correctional Institution in London, expanding to all 31 state prisons a month later.

Inmates will not have Internet access. Friend and family members will register online with a private contractor and pay a fee ranging from $1 to $12 per month. Their e-mails will be printed at prisons and delivered to the inmate, who can make a handwritten response that will be scanned and sent electronically by prison staff.

Ohio would be the 13th state to use the e-mail system.

About 13.7 percent of Ohioans are living in poverty, approaching a 20-year high, according to a new report.

The poverty rate began climbing two years ago because of stagnant and low wages, then it worsened as the state began hemorrhaging jobs amid the recession, according to researchers at the nonprofit Community Research Partners, which released the report Jan. 22.

An estimated 1.5 million people in the state are living below the federal poverty line. For a family of four, that’s a household income of less than $22,050.

Ohio’s poverty rate hit 14.1 percent 20 years ago.

Many of the departing jobs in recent years have been high-paying positions in the manufacturing industry. About one in four Ohio jobs are now in occupations with an average wage below the federal poverty level, the report said.

In addition, nearly a third of Ohioans, 3.4 million people, had incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, a level widely accepted as needed to cover housing, food and other necessities.

The state announced that its unemployment rate climbed to 10.9 percent in December, up from 10.6 percent a month earlier. Ohio has gone nine straight months with double-digit unemployment — the longest stretch since one that ended in early 1983.

“It’s a no-brainer. Job creation has to be a priority,” said Phil Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of community Action Agencies, which commissioned the poverty report.

Other recommendations include improving affordable housing, expanding educational opportunities and stabilizing social safety nets.

The report underscored education. It noted that nearly one in four Ohio adults without a high school diploma were living in poverty in 2008 compared with only one in 12 with some college or an associate’s degree.

Overall, more than half of Ohio’s adult population had no post-secondary education as of 2008.

Born in Manchester, England, Davy Jones became an international heartthrob as one quarter of The Monkees when the show debuted on NBC in 1966.  But Jones had been performing since childhood, garnering a 1963 Tony nomination for his portrayal of The Artful Dodger, a role he originated on Broadway.  These days the sixty-four-year-old, when not working, spends his leisure with his lovely bride and with his beloved horses.
TFP: You’ve been in the show business since you were eleven years old.
DJ: I started in radio in England, yeah, and I did, you know, radio plays and moved onto television.  I went from one job to the next job to the next making very minimal money but at the same time gaining a lot of experience as far as the different techniques: radio, television, stage.
TFP: Has the performer’s life been a good one?

Davy Jones

DJ: You know, everything has its ups and downs, and it’s the down times people have problems with.  Fortunately, I have the horses.  I also have daughters and grandchildren, and I enjoy normal stuff.  I have no problem going for a beer with the guys or playing darts or going to the bowling alley.  I have nothing really that I have to prove at this point.  I’ve been to the top of the mountain.
TFP: Ever suffered from stage fright?
DJ: You know, I get stage fright during the day, and I get a little testy.  I don’t rehearse, I don’t spend hours vocalizing, I don’t think about the dialog I’m gonna say.  You know, I’d rather be on the edge.  The unknown is very important to me, and it brings a little bit of spontaneity to my performance.  I like to think it’s the first time I ever sang “Daydream Believer.”  Yeah, I guess I do get a little stage fright.
TFP: You are refurbishing an old church.
DJ: Yes, I am.  I wanna make a memorabilia museum, and I wanna make a theater.  It’s in the middle of nowhere.  Everyone thinks I’m on the witness protection program when I’m there.  I feel comfortable there.
TFP: You have a daughter in a band.
DJ: Yeah, Annabel.  Lady and The Lost Boys.  She’s a great little songwriter, a great little singer, but it’s a tricky business.  You gotta be in the right place at the right time.  That’s what happened with The Monkees.
TFP: Any qualms about a child of yours entering the show business?
DJ: Absolutely not.  When you’re the father of boys you worry, and when you’re the father of girls you pray.  Whatever she wants to do.

Davy Jones will appear Jan. 30 at Tecumseh Center for the Arts.  The show starts at 7:30PM.  Tickets are $32 for adults and $29 for youth and seniors.

ELYRIA, Ohio — President Barack Obama urged Congress on Jan. 22 to enact a new job-creation bill and demanded that it include tax breaks for small business hiring and for people who make their homes more energy efficient.

Obama planned the visit to Ohio as a test of an aggressive populist push on jobs, a top worry for voters. The White House is shifting its message to emphasize the economy heading into November elections, which are expected to be difficult for Democrats.

The changes in Obama’s message come in the face of a potentially disastrous political shift that, on Jan. 19, elected Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts once occupied by the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Barrack Obama

Neither of the Obama-backed proposals was included in jobs legislation passed by the House of Representatives in December. That $174 billion stimulus package is now before the Senate, where it faces a tougher road, in part because it is financed with deficit spending.

Employing us-against-them populist rhetoric on his daylong trip to the important Midwestern state, Obama said in remarks prepared for a town hall audience that he will never stop fighting for an economy that works not just for the fortunate, but for the hardworking as well.

Obama strongly defended unpopular administration actions taken to bail out banks and insurers and rescue automakers from collapse. Such measures have fueled anger across the country about growing government intervention and ballooning deficits to help Wall Street while many throughout the country remain jobless and struggling.

He said that propping up the financial industry was as much about regular Americans as wealthy bankers. “If the financial system had gone down, it would have taken the entire economy and millions more families and businesses with it,” Obama said.

Similarly, allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go under might have satisfied calls to force businesses to reap the consequences of bad decisions. But, Obama said, “hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been hurt, not just at those companies themselves, but at other auto companies and at their suppliers and dealers, here in Ohio, up in Michigan, and all across this country.”

Further seeking to connect with an anti-establishment bent in the electorate, Obama made sure to criticize Washington, too. He said a person can get a “pretty warped view of things” from inside the capital city, criticizing special interest power and emphasizing repeatedly that he badly wanted to escape the confining nature of the White House.

Obama also sought to show he personally understands the economic uncertainty that lingers in many American homes and businesses, despite the improvements caused by the bailouts and last year’s stimulus package.

“Folks have seen jobs you thought would last forever disappear. You’ve seen plants close and businesses shut down,” Obama said. “I’ve heard about how the city government here is bare bones. And how you can’t get to work or go buy groceries like you used to because of cuts in the county transit system.”

He promised to help. Using the words “fight” or “fighting” 14 times in his short remarks, Obama said: “I’ll never stop fighting for you. I’ll take my lumps, too.”

Since he first set foot in Toledo 11 years ago, Joe Rychnovsky has always done things differently than his fellow sportscasters.
“I love it,” Rychnovsky said. “It’s always been my style. Anyone can get on camera and read sports scores. I like the challenge of looking for the story beyond the scores.”
It is that attitude that has led to Rychnovsky’s latest endeavor. The veteran sportscaster will debut his new show, “The Rychnovsky Recap,” at 10:30 p.m. Jan. 24 on FOX Toledo.
“It will be a recap show with the hot sports news of the day and week, but it is going to be more than that,” he said. “My strength has always been my appeal to the nontraditional sports fan and that is what this show will be about.”

Joe Rychnovsky’s new sports program debuts at 10:30 p.m. Jan. 24 on FOX Toledo.

Rychnovsky vows to make his show more than the typical sports fare in Toledo and aims to have something on his show for everyone in the family to watch and enjoy.
“I want to try and have something that will appeal to everybody. I know that the sports fan is probably going to tune in anyway, but I want the soccer mom at home to watch with her kids. I want grandma and grandpa to tune in. I want everybody on board. When sports is done that way and involves everybody, sports becomes a community thing. That is what it’s all about.”
Entertaining citizens of the Glass City is something Rychnovsky takes pride in. The Missouri native had been traveling across the U.S. when he arrived at WTOL in 1999.
“I had been traveling around for a long time, and I have worked all over the country covering sports,” he said. “I was a young guy just getting my start, and traveling around is kind of the nature of the beast.”
It was Toledo where Rychnovsky finally felt at home.
“It has become my hometown,” Rychnovsky said. “I met my wife here, my in-laws are here, and I love this city. Between the museums, the zoo, and the sports attractions, this is such a great place to settle down.”
During those 11 years, Rychnovsky has become a recognizable face to many in Northwest Ohio. Most people instantly recognize the 16-year veteran from his most popular segment, “Joe’s FOX Challenge,” where Rychnovsky is challenged to do tasks by viewers. The tasks have ranged from working to collect donations for the Salvation Army during the holiday season to taking part in boot camp drills with the Marines at the Monroe recruiting office.
“It was something that started at WTOL,” Rychnovsky said. “Our news director there at the time came up with the idea and people loved it.”
When Rychnovsky joined FOX Toledo after WTOL eliminated his position due to budget cuts in 2006, he took the segment with him and still enjoys doing it to this day.
“I love when people come up and yell at me on the street and want me to do stuff. I will do almost anything that gets suggested to me. If you name it, I will come out and do it.”
Rychnovsky has also taken to the airwaves, hosting two shows on Toledo’s ESPN radio affiliate, 106.5 The Ticket. He hosts a show during rush hour on Friday evening and a Sunday morning talk show as well.
“Hosting the radio shows has been an absolute joy,” he said. “Originally, Norm Wamer had asked me to fill in when they were shorthanded at the station, but it kind of evolved from there. Radio is nice because it allows you to talk and expand on subjects, and I love the ability to interact with folks on the radio.”
Rychnovsky promises that his new show will stay true to his style.
“I have always been different and looking for that different angle. I want to offer viewers an alternative. There is nothing that irritates me more than seeing the same stuff. If you tune in to any of the three other news stations in town, you will find the same stories and the same things covered. Everything will look the same. Well, FOX Toledo sports is not going to look the same as long as I am around.”

Toledo Brand Initiative, a public and private partnership to “brand” Toledo, is underway gathering feedback from area residents and businesses.
Public summits are being held to engage local residents to share what is good and bad about Toledo. Through the summits the group hopes to define how the region sees itself and in turn develop a campaign to market Toledo.
“This is a chance for residents, business owners and enthusiasts of the region to help write history and change not just today’s economy but the future economy in the area,” said David Nolan, president and CEO of Destination Toledo. “The brand won’t be created in a vacuum, it will be something that represents the heart and soul of Toledoans.”
The Toledo Brand Initiative is aimed at creating one brand, for one city, Nolan said.
Applied Storytelling, a brand development firm based in Berkeley, Calif., will work with Toledo to facilitate the public forums. Forums will take place:

• Jan. 25 at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library McMaster Center, 325 N. Michigan St., from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.;
• Jan. 26 at Oregon Council Chamber, 5330 Seaman Road, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.;
• Jan. 27 at Olander Park Nederhouser Community Hall, 6930 Sylvania Ave., from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.;
• Jan. 28 at BGSU Bowen-Thompson Student Union, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.;
• Feb. 2 at Maumee City Hall Chamber, 400 Conant St. from  7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“What we’ve really tried is to make it as inclusive as possible. Anyone at any time can share a comment online, and we’re hosting forums for business, the community and civic organizations. We want people to get engaged in the process,” said Eric La Brecque, a principal at Applied Storytelling.
The Toledo Brand Initiative has online surveys for those who cannot attend one of the community forums. Surveys are available at www.toledoregionstory.com. The campaign to brand Toledo began this month with a business summit on Jan.6 at the Toledo Club. The meeting had more than 70 individuals representing 55 companies in the region.
Partners in the Toledo Brand Initiative include BGSU, City of Toledo, Destination Toledo Inc., Downtown Toledo Improvement District, Greater Toledo Urban League, Holiday Inn Splash Bay, Job1USA, Lucas County Commissioners, Toledo Community Foundation, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, Toledo Mud Hens/Walleye, Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce and UT.
On the Web: visit www.toledoregionstory.com and click on links for more information.