The News in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

700,000 toys recalled because of lead paint
NEW YORK — The Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Mattel Inc., announced late Tuesday that it is recalling about 700,000 toys that have excessive amounts of lead paint.

The recall covers 675,000 units of various Barbie accessory toys that were manufactured between Sept. 30, 2006, and Aug. 20, 2007. The action also involves 8,900 different toys involving Big World 6-in-I Bongo Band toys from the company’s Fisher-Price brand. Those products were sold nationwide from July 2007 through Aug. 2007.

The announcement marks Mattel’s third major recall of Chinese-made toys because of lead paint in little more than a month.

Felix hits Central America, Henriette slams resorts
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — Felix walloped Central America’s remote Miskito coastline and Henriette slammed into resorts on the tip of Baja California as a record-setting hurricane season got even wilder Tuesday with twin storms making landfall on the same day.

While weakening rapidly, Felix’s rains posed a danger to inland villages lying in flood-prone mountain valleys and to urban shantytowns susceptible to mudslides.

Felix roared ashore before dawn as a Category 5 storm along Nicaragua’s remote northeast corner.

In the Pacific, Henriette’s top winds increased to 85 mph and it made landfall just after 2 p.m. on the southern tip of Baja Callifornia, a resort area popular with Hollywood stars and sports fishermen.

Few tourists or residents had expected much trouble, but they awoke Tuesday to dangerous winds, closed airports and forecasts of a direct hit.

Fifteen-foot waves chewed away beaches, crashed against seawalls at beachfront hotels and bashed catamarans against their moorings.

At 8 p.m. EDT, Henriette’s sustained winds dropped to 75 mph as it moved 40 miles inland, on a path to drench Mexico’s northern deserts and then drop an inch or two of rain on Arizona and New Mexico Thursday night. The Mexican government declared a state of emergency in southern Baja California.

Craig reconsidering decision to resign
BOISE, Idaho —Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening.

“It’s not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign,” said Sidney Smith, Craig’s spokesman in Idaho’s capital.

“We’re still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we’re able to stay in the fight— and stay in the Senate.”

Craig, a Republican who has represented Idaho in Congress for 27 years, has hired a prominent lawyer to investigate the possibility of reversing his plea, his spokesman said.

Craig was a no-show Tuesday as Congress reconvened after a summer break.

Steve Fossett missing after leaving Nevada airstrip
MINDEN, Nev. —Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who has cheated death time and again in his successful pursuit of aviation records, was missing after taking off in a single-engine plane the day before, U.S. officials said.

Searchers in rugged western Nevada had little to go on because Fossett, the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, apparently did not file a flight plan, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said Tuesday.

“They are working on some leads, but they don’t know where he is right now,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

Authorities stressed that they are considering their efforts a rescue mission.

Bush may sign ethics bill soon
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Lawmakers will have to disclose more about their efforts to fund pet projects and raise money from lobbyists under a much-debated bill sent to the White House on Tuesday for President Bush’s signature.

Although Bush earlier had complained that the bill was too weak, he will sign it into law sometime after his return Sunday from a trip to Australia, White House officials said, speaking on background because the president has not formally announced his decision.

He has 10 days, from the bill’s arrival, to do so.

The bill will require lawmakers seeking targeted spending projects, or earmarks, to publicize their plans in advance. Lawmakers and political committees must identify lobbyists who raise $15,000 or more for them within a six-month period by bundling campaign donations from many people.

It will bar lawmakers from taking gifts from lobbyists or their clients. Former senators and high-ranking executive branch officials will have to wait two years before lobbying Congress; ex-House members will have to wait one year.

Senators and candidates for the White House or Senate will have to pay the full share of their use of private planes. House members and candidates will be barred from accepting trips on private airplanes.

Congressman confirmed as new budget director
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Former Rep. Jim Nussle, President Bush’s new budget director, is likely to find himself in the middle of a series of fights with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Foremost among challenges for the Iowa Republican—confirmed by the Senate on a 69-24 vote Tuesday— is a glut of unfinished spending bills. Other budget battles between the administration and congressional Democrats include extending farm subsidies and a popular health insurance program for the poor, and renewing more than 40 expiring tax cuts.

The Oct. 1 beginning of the 2008 budget year is looming, and the Senate has passed just one of 12 bills to fund the agency budgets that Congress is required to pass each year.

Veto threats hang over most of the bills and a long and contentious fall budget season is expected.“

Alaska wants change in oil production tax
JUNEAU, Alaska —Gov. Sarah Palin said Tuesday she wants to lawmakers to restructure the state’s year-old oil production tax, which she has called a failure and tainted by the federal corruption charges against former lawmakers in connection with the tax.

The tax “isn’t working as promised,” Palin said.

Palin will call lawmakers back into session beginning Oct. 18 in Juneau.

Three former Republican members of the Alaska House of Representatives face federal bribery and extortion trials this fall related to last year’s negotiations for the new oil and gas tax and a proposed natural gas pipeline that would have benefited oil field services company VECO Corp. The trial for two of them starts Wednesday.