Home Organization and Safety

Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys — including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters — because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead.

The recall being announced Thursday involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August. It is the latest in a wave of recalls that has heightened global concern about the safety of Chinese-made products.

The recall is the first for Fisher-Price Inc. and parent company Mattel Inc. involving lead paint. It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to yank about 10 million Power Wheels from toy stores.

Full report: SFGate.com

Related: List of Recalled Toys
[Read more…]

An 11-year-old schoolgirl who told Internet chat-room visitors that she was planning to kill herself was traced by Attica electronic crime squad officers who informed her parents, it was revealed yesterday.

Working on tipoffs, police traced the messages to the girl’s home and informed her parents that the girl had expressed her intention to commit suicide, citing personal problems. The parents said they had not been aware that their daughter was unhappy.

Full report: ekathimerini.com

[Read more…]

MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the popular social networking website — more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago, North Carolina officials said Tuesday.

North Carolina’s Roy Cooper is one of several attorneys general who recently demanded the News Corp.-owned website provide data on how many registered sex offenders were using the site, along with information about where they live.

Full report: USA Today
[Read more…]

Zoey is a Chihuahua, but when a rattlesnake lunged at her owners’ 1-year-old grandson, she was a real bulldog.

Booker West was splashing his hands in a birdbath in his grandparents’ northern Colorado back yard when the snake slithered up to the toddler, rattled and struck. Five-pound Zoey jumped in the way and took the bites.

Full report: SFGate.com
[Read more…]

Gerber Products Co. recalled all packages of its organic rice and organic oatmeal cereals Friday because of potential clumping, which can pose a choking hazard.

Gerber said it has received complaints of choking but no reports of injury.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

[Read more…]