Agency finds flaws in FDA’s ability to trace food

Agency finds flaws in FDA’s ability to trace food

FRESNO, Calif. — An independent watchdog agency has uncovered flaws in a crucial part of the nation’s rapid-response plan — the ability to trace food to the company it came from during an illness outbreak or bioterrorism attack.

Federal auditors found that nearly half of all the food manufacturers they surveyed that are supposed to register with the Food and Drug Administration failed to give the agency accurate contact information.

Congress set up the program after the Sept. 11 attacks to keep food safe from bioterrorism and to allow quick trace-backs when contaminated food reaches consumers.

N. Korea agrees to need to restart nuclear talks

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that it understands the need to resume the stalled international talks on ending its nuclear programs and that it agrees to work with the United States to narrow unspecified “remaining differences.”

The statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry was the first reaction from the communist nation to three days of high-level talks with President Barack Obama’s special envoy. Upon returning from North Korea on Thursday, envoy Stephen Bosworth made similar remarks in Seoul that the two sides reached common understandings on the need to restart the nuclear talks.

Cop shoots, kills suspect in crowded Times Square

NEW YORK — A plainclothes cop chased a scam artist through sidewalks crowded with holiday shoppers and tourists Thursday in the heart of Times Square, killing the suspect near a landmark Broadway hotel after a gunfight that shattered box-office and gift-shop windows, police said.

No one else was injured.

The 25-year-old suspect, Raymond Martinez of the Bronx, and his brother were trying to dupe tourists into buying CDs near Broadway and 44th Street just before noon when he was recognized by a sergeant who runs a task force that monitors aggressive panhandling, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Officials continue talks with hostage-takers

MANILA, Philippines — Officials negotiated for a second day today with government-armed former militiamen who took 57 villagers hostage in the southern Philippines to press their demands that murder and banditry charges against them be dropped.

The abductions Thursday by 15 gunmen raised fresh questions over the government’s long-standing policy of arming civilian volunteers to protect against insurgencies. Just the day before, 100 other militiamen in the south were accused of slaughtering civilians in the country’s worst political massacre.

Hours after the kidnapping, a government negotiator persuaded the gunmen to free the 17 schoolchildren among more than 70 people they initially held. They continued to hold 57 hostages, most of them women.

Exec to plead guilty to stalking ESPN reporter

LOS ANGELES — An Illinois insurance executive agreed to plead guilty to interstate stalking after secretly making nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, according to court documents filed Thursday and first obtained by The Associated Press.

Michael Barrett, 48, of Westmont, Ill., will plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman with the U.S. attorney’s office.

Barrett is suspected of renting hotel rooms adjacent to Andrews’ in three cities last year, altering the peepholes and shooting videos of Andrews in two of the locations — in Columbus, Ohio, in February 2008 and in Nashville, Tenn., seven months later.

Barrett is accused of uploading the videos to the Internet and trying to sell them to the Los Angeles-based celebrity gossip site TMZ this year.

Psychologist: Kidnap suspect is mentally ill

SALT LAKE CITY — A court- appointed forensic psychologist testified Thursday that the man charged with kidnapping Elizabeth Smart isn’t faking mental illness to avoid prosecution.

Dr. Richart DeMier was questioned by defense attorneys on the ninth day of a U.S. District Court hearing to determine if Brian David Mitchell is competent to stand trial for the 2002 abduction.

DeMier said his conclusion was based in part on Mitchell’s belief “that he is divinely ordained to fulfill a special role at the end of the world, putting himself on par with Jesus or God.”

Associated Press