State issues peanut recall

State issues peanut recall

DALLAS — The bankrupt company at the center of a national salmonella outbreak hasn’t carried out a recall of its products manufactured in Texas, so the state is notifying customers itself, officials there said Friday.

Texas health officials ordered Peanut Corp. of America on Feb. 12 to recall all products ever shipped from a plant in Plainview after inspectors found dead rodents, feces and bird feathers in a crawl space above a production area.

But the Texas Department of State Health Services said the company hasn’t responded to its order, so state workers have begun asking manufacturers, distributors and retailers to keep products from the Plainview plant away from the public.

The company said in a press release on its Web site Friday that the bankruptcy proceedings were hampering its ability to carry out recall orders.

U.S. reaches out to Russia

KRAKOW, Poland — The new Obama administration wants to start fresh with Russia, and the time is near to resume wider NATO cooperation with Moscow despite its invasion of Georgia last summer, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

Gates also expressed satisfaction with small NATO pledges of additional help in the war in Afghanistan, although none approached the U.S. announcement this week of 17,000 new forces for the deteriorating war. Gates suggested that President Barack Obama would save heavier lobbying for a NATO summit in April.

Russia was conspicuously absent from the session, but Moscow’s agenda and its relations with neighbors and the U.S. were at the center of much of the discussion.

U.K. bans anti-gay kin

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The British government has banned Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from entering the United Kingdom.

The Phelpses, whose protests at military members’ funerals in the U.S. have prompted lawsuits and legislation, apparently had planned to fly to the United Kingdom to protest a performance of “The Laramie Project.”

The play about the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay student who was killed in 1998 in Laramie, Wyo., is scheduled to open Friday at Queen Mary’s College in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

The United Kingdom became aware of the Phelpses’ planned protest when a statement on their Web site announced the trip.

The Phelpses have become notorious in the U.S. for carrying provocative banners with the phrase “God Hates Fags.” They have picketed the funerals of U.S. servicemen who died in Iraq and Afghanistan because they believe their deaths were the result of the government’s tolerance of gays.

Octuplets’ granddad speaks

The father of octuplets’ mom Nadya Suleman is the latest to speak out, and he had some harsh words for his daughter.

Speaking on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” Ed Doud questioned the mental state of Suleman and criticized Suleman and the Beverly Hills doctor who provided her with fertility treatment as being “absolutely irresponsible.”

Suleman, 33, gave birth to octuplets even though she already had six children. Many have questioned how Suleman can care for the 14 children when she doesn’t have a job and lives in her mother’s three-bedroom house.

“You know what? She needs help. I say to everybody now — people, we do need help,” he said. “Do not punish my daughter for what she had done and do not punish the babies, because they were given by God.”

Asked about his daughter’s decision to have 14 children, Doud said: “Now I’m no psychiatrist, but I question her mental situation.”

3 troops die in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — A roadside bomb killed three coalition troops Friday during a patrol in Afghanistan’s dangerous south, the U.S. coalition said.

The attack came in Uruzgan province. The coalition did not release any other information, including the troops’ nationalities. U.S., Dutch and Australian troops operate in Uruzgan.

President Barack Obama this week announced the deployment of 17,000 additional U.S. troops to bolster the 38,000 already in the country.

Video-game ban overturned

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a California law that sought to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2005 law violates minors’ rights under the Constitution’s First and 14th amendments. The three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling upholds an earlier ruling in U.S. District Court.

The law would have prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18.

Combined dispatches