NATION

NATION

GM workers will have
to wait on buyout details

DETROIT — Hourly workers at General Motors Corp. eager to learn details of the upcoming round of buyout offers will have to keep waiting. The United Auto Workers is tied up in contract issues with Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. and likely won’t begin bargaining with GM on the offers until it has contracts in place with the other two automakers, sources close to the negotiations say.

The buyouts likely will be similar to those offered in 2006, when more than 34,000 hourly workers left GM in exchange for packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000. GM likely won’t roll out the buyouts until early next year, the sources said.

Oil futures reach record
close of $90.46 a barrel

NEW YORK — Oil futures jumped to a new record close of $90.46 a barrel Thursday on news that OPEC production increases aren’t coming as fast as expected and that the cartel won’t announce new output quotas when it meets next month.

Prices rose in early trading on growing concerns about conflict in the Middle East and declining supplies of crude in the U.S. They got a further boost after Dow Jones Newswires reported that Oil Movements, a company that tracks oil tanker traffic, said crude shipments from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members will grow more slowly than anticipated through early November.

Mattel recalls more
‘Go Diego Go!’ toys

WASHINGTON — Mattel Inc. recalled an additional 38,000 “Go Diego Go!” toys Thursday as part of a larger recall of 665,000 lead-contaminated children’s products, the government said.

The nation’s largest toy maker issued two major recalls in August for lead-tainted toys and toys with small, powerful magnets that can cause intestinal perforations if swallowed. At the time of the worldwide recall of 18.6 million toys, Mattel chief executive Bob Eckert predicted more recalls as a result of stepped-up oversight and testing. Thursday’s recall involved orange and yellow Go Diego Go! Animal Rescue Boats, manufactured in China and imported by Fisher-Price.

From Vindicator wire reports