University Hospital

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Militants laid siege to a hospital and bombed a women's university bus in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta in a wave of violence that killed at least 19 people and underscored the challenge facing new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as he begins to tackle militancy in the troubled South Asian nation. Gunmen had seized parts of the Bolan Medical Complex in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, and for several hours exchanged gunfire with police and special forces commandos surrounding the building, local police said.

Flashing wide smiles, young baseball players from Isehara, Japan, revealed what they have discovered since arriving in their town's sister city of La Mirada last Sunday. Their American counterparts--boys 10, 11 and 12 years old--have their own bedrooms in large houses, chew sunflower seeds during games and speak openly to their parents without being spoken to first.

Many women who used estrogen alone as hormone replacement therapy after menopause had a lower risk of developing breast cancer up to five years after they stopped taking it, a study has found. The research, published Tuesday, adds another twist to the evolving story on whether hormone replacement therapy helps some women beyond treating menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and poor sleep quality. The report is a follow-up analysis of the landmark Women's Health Initiative, a clinical trial of tens of thousands of women begun in 1993 that sought to clarify the risks and benefits of two hormone replacement therapy regimens in postmenopausal women: estrogen plus progestin, which most women must take, and estrogen alone, taken by women who have had hysterectomies.

A 26-year-old woman underwent what doctors said was the world's first heart-liver-kidney transplant Sunday. Cindy Martin of Archbald was listed in critical condition Sunday night, considered normal after a transplant operation, said Lisa Rossi, a spokeswoman for University-Presbyterian Hospital. The operation began at 7:35 p.m. Saturday and ended at 5 p.m. Sunday, Rossi said.

Reporting from Tempe, Ariz. Cory Hahn wasn't on the field with his Arizona State teammates, but he was there in spirit. The Sun Devils' game against Delaware on Friday night was their first since Hahn suffered a serious neck injury in a baserunning collision last week, an incident that has left the former Santa Ana Mater Dei High star hospitalized. Hahn, however, remained a presence at Packard Stadium. He was announced as the starting designated hitter before the game.

It was a miserable day to be pregnant. Hot, humid, late in July, 1987. Afternoon thunderheads teased the mountains to the east of the city, and even skinny people sweated. Had it not been for motherhood, Darci Pierce and Cindy Ray might never have met on a broiling blacktop parking lot outside an obstetrics clinic. On this day, particularly, it was no place for a mother to be.

Joel Carlson, 75, Nelson Mandela's former lawyer in South Africa and a former assistant district attorney in New York, died of leukemia Nov. 25 at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. Carlson, a white South African, met Mandela while the two were law school students at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa in the early 1950s. In 1954, Carlson quit his job as a court clerk and took up the defense of several leading black activists.

Working conditions for physicians in training at university hospitals have improved significantly through the implementation of a maximum 84-hour workweek for many physicians and a 12-hour limit on scheduled emergency room shifts, according to a new University of California report. The state's academic medical centers "have been working very hard on this over the last several years," said Dr. Cornelius L. Hopper, UC vice president for health affairs.

A detective testified Wednesday in the trial of accused mass murderer Kevin Cooper that Joshua Ryen, the young survivor of the 1983 Chino Hills massacre, told him three Mexican males committed the killings. But the investigator said he did not take 9-year-old Joshua's comments seriously because he had become convinced days earlier that Cooper, a black prison escapee, was responsible for the killings.

A jalapeno a day, keeps the ulcer at bay? Not exactly the stuff of medical folk wisdom. But if recent studies are right, doctors may one day prescribe chili peppers for patients with peptic ulcers, painful erosions in the lining of the gut. Don't bite into a red-hot pepper yet. Experts caution that even if the results are proved, ulcer sufferers who are susceptible to heartburn may find the unpleasant side effects outweigh the benefits.