Chinese-made toys and jewelry recalled

Chinese-made toys
and jewelry recalled

WASHINGTON — Toys and children’s necklaces made in China were recalled Wednesday, including five more items from the popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line, because they contain dangerous levels of lead.

RC2 Corp.’s “Knights of the Sword” series toys and some of its Thomas and Friends items, along with floor puppet theaters and gardening tools and chairs for children, were among the more than 601,000 toys and children’s jewelry announced in the recall by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The recalled toys contain high levels of lead in their surface paint, and the necklaces and jewelry sets contain excessive lead in some of their metal parts.

Under current regulations, children’s products found to have more than 0.06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall. The government warned parents to make sure children are not playing or using any of the recalled products.

Storms strengthening

MIAMI — A growing tropical depression raised the possibility of a storm watch for Mexico’s gulf coast Wednesday, while Tropical Storm Karen strengthened to near hurricane status in the open Atlantic.

The 13th depression of the season could strengthen into a named storm over the next day in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, National Hurricane Center meteorologists said.

A tropical storm watch was likely for part of Mexico’s gulf coast by late Wednesday, the center said.

At 5 p.m. EDT, the depression was centered about 225 miles east-southeast of Tampico, Mexico, and about 190 miles east of Tuxpan, Mexico. It was nearly stationary, and a slow, erratic motion was expected during the next 12 to 24 hours. Top sustained winds were near 35 mph.

Meanwhile, Karen was centered about 1,175 miles east of the Windward Islands, with top sustained wind near 70 mph, forecasters said. It was just 4 mph shy of being upgraded to a hurricane, but posed no immediate threat to land.

School is evacuated
after pupils become ill

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — A Catholic school was evacuated after one pupil passed out and about a dozen others were sickened during a church service Wednesday, authorities said.

Four seventh-graders were taken to hospitals, but doctors could not determine the cause of their headaches and nausea.

St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic School shut down classes shortly after 9 a.m. when the pupils started getting sick at a morning church service, said Bloomfield Hills Public Safety Director Rick Matott. While authorities searched the nearby church for the cause of the illness, some pupils inside the school complained of feeling sick, Matott said.

Pupils and staff were evacuated across the street to Oakland Community College. School officials began contacting parents to pick up their children, while fire officials scoured the school and church with carbon monoxide detectors.

Nuns excommunicated

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be possessed by the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced Wednesday.

The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns of the decision Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.

The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese’s 165-year history.

Investigators find gaps in
northern border security

WASHINGTON — A smuggler could easily carry radioactive material or other contraband across the northern border into the United States, government investigators have found.

The Government Accountability Office sent out investigators to test how easily they could transfer large red duffel bags at unguarded and unmonitored spots along the more than 5,000 miles of U.S.-Canada border.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, described in a 13-page report to be delivered to Congress today how easily they were able to penetrate the border at several spots. A copy of the report was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

“Our work shows that a determined cross-border violator would likely be able to bring radioactive materials or other contraband undetected into the United States by crossing the U.S.-Canada border at any of the locations we investigated,” the GAO report concluded.

Associated Press