| Product recalls: Toy helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, pendants ...
Soft Air USA Inc. is recalling about 30,000 remote-controlled helicopter toys. The rechargeable battery contained inside the helicopter can catch fire during charging, igniting the helicopter and nearby combustible materials. This poses a burn or fire hazard to consumers. This recall involves the remote-controlled helicopter toy "Fun2Fly Microcopter" with item number 91001. The helicopter comes with a transmitter that controls and recharges the helicopter. The helicopter is made of foam and plastic and measures about 61/2 inches by 21/2 inches. The transmitter measures about 41\u20442 inches by 5 inches. "Fun2Fly" and "Microcopter" are printed on the packaging. The item number is printed above the UPC label. Sporting goods stores and other retailers sold the toy from May through December for about $30.
Sumter County needs more foster homes
When the state snatches a child from a Sumter County home, chances are good that the kid is going for a long ride.
That's because, despite a population of nearly 70,000 people, Sumter County has only two foster homes for practical purposes. And those -- I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn this -- stay full.
(Sumter actually has six foster homes, but four are filled with kids that the foster parents intend to adopt, so they either can't or don't wish to take more children.)
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RAGBRAI liability issue still worries county officials
County officials representing towns along this summer's RAGBRAI route are still worried about liability issues involving bicycle riders, but they hope the Iowa Legislature will address the problem this year.
This summer's seven-day bicycle tour doesn't pass through Crawford County, where the county's board of supervisors passed a resolution in October banning RAGBRAI or "any event of like kind and nature." .
Friday Legends — Rodney Cress
China Grove Junior High track coach Harry Bame stared at his stopwatch one spring afternoon in 1963. The watch was still functioning, but his brain couldn't process what his eyes were telling him. Ninth-grader Rodney Cress had just run 100 yards in 10-flat, something Bame had never witnessed in a junior high track meet. The world's fastest human, Bullet Bob Hayes, lowered the mark for the 100 to 9.1 seconds in 1963, but here was a ninth-grader from Rowan Mills with zero track training, with no clue how to get out of the blocks, running 10-flat. "I'd always run or rode a bicycle everywhere I went, and I guess all that pumping my legs made me fast," Cress said. "I always was faster than the other kids, but I had no idea how fast I was until the day Coach timed me.
Is this retail's nightmare before Christmas?
And stock-market investors appear to think not only that things are bad, but that they are going to get much, much worse. Since the beginning of the year retail share prices have dropped by more than 20%. And as the chart on the right shows, prospective price-earnings ratios – a key measure of the stock-market’s perception of company prospects – have plunged to their lowest level since the early 1990s, according to data from Thomson Financial. Companies such as Woolworths and SCS have seen their share prices drop so low they appear to be offering unprecedented dividend yields of 15% and 20%, respectively. One analyst said: "The yields are so high because everyone is worried that earnings will be slashed and the companies won’t be able to afford dividend payments." In the debt markets, the warning signals are flashing too.
CAN'T BEAT 'EM? CURSE 'EM.
Then in 1963, after Maroons fans petitioned the NFL to get their championship back, Cardinals president Charles "Stormy" Bidwill Jr. (current owner Bill's dad) wrote a letter to sportswriter Red Smith saying, essentially, that his family had no intention of honoring the wishes of some hick town. Four decades passed before the issue was formally brought up again, at the 2003 owners meeting in Philly. There, Rooney, Lurie, Pottsville mayor John D. W. Reiley and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell offered a solution that had then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue's blessing: Let the Cards and the Maroons share the title. .
Cyclo-cross news & racing roundup for October 25
With Italy's Giro di Lombardia bringing the European road season to a close, the cyclo-cross circus is ready to take centre stage this weekend as the action moves from Flanders to the Czech Republic for the second World Cup event in Tabor. Last Sunday heralded the season's first World Cup in Kalmthout, Belgium and from now on the important 'crosses follow one after another at a ferocious pace. After a tremendous effort in Kalmthout, there's no doubt Fidea's Zdenek Stybar will be the man to watch. The young Czech professional, a surprise winner of last weekend's World Cup, expects to have significant boost in motivation this weekend when racing at home. "I lived in Kalmthout for two years so that's a special race for me," said Stybar. "Racing in Tabor is very special too because it's one of the few imes that the Czech people who follow me can actually see me racing.
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