Engineered rice approved for humans

The U.S. Department of Agriculture declared safe for human consumption Friday an experimental variety of genetically engineered rice found to have contaminated the U.S. rice supply this summer.

The move by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to deregulate the special long-grain rice, LL601, was seen as a legal boon to its creator, Bayer CropScience, of Research Triangle Park, N.C. The company applied for approval shortly after the widespread contamination was disclosed in August. It faces a class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of farmers in Arkansas and Missouri.

The rice was designed to resist Bayer's Liberty weedkiller. Once the contamination became public, countries around the world blocked rice imports from the United States.

Most critics agree the new rice is safe to eat. The bacterial gene in LL601 is also in several approved varieties of engineered corn, canola and cotton.

Miami

Armed man arrested at newspaper office

A cartoonist carrying a toy gun that looked real surrendered to police at The Miami Herald's building Friday, more than two hours after arriving and demanding to see an editor of the newspaper's Spanish-language sister paper, police said.

Jose Varela, 50, carried a knife and a black plastic toy gun that resembled a semiautomatic weapon, police said. He was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm. He was being held on $22,500 bond, jail officials said.

Varela had problems with El Nuevo Herald, where he worked as a freelancer, including its position on Cuban émigrés, said Police Chief John Timoney.

Varela told a reporter for The Miami Herald during the incident that he was "the new director of the newspaper."

Red Lake, Minn.

Search continues for missing boys

Dozens of trained searchers took to the woods, lakes and air Friday to continue looking for two young brothers who vanished Wednesday from the remote Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.

Alicia White — the mother of Tristan Anthony White, 4, and Avery Lee Stately, 2 — appealed for anyone who knows or has seen anything to come forward.

FBI Special Agent Paul McCabe said authorities are trying to determine whether the boys wandered off or foul play was involved. "We don't have any information that would lead us either way," he said.

The FBI offered a $20,000 reward for information about the boys' location.

Los Angeles

Court seeks source in military case

A federal court plans to investigate whether government officials illegally supplied grand jury information in a U.S. military secrets case to a Washington Times reporter.

Court papers show the investigation seeks to uncover a possible source and content of "improper communications" with reporter William Gertz for a story he wrote in May.

The order, entered Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in Orange County, comes at the request of a defense attorney for Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, one of five family members indicted in an alleged scheme to send sensitive information about Navy warships to China. The request was joined by the other defendants.

The defense argued Gertz received information about a then-pending indictment of Chiu and the others on additional charges in violation of grand-jury secrecy rules.

Washington

An Ohio-based company is recalling 46,941 pounds of turkey and ham products that officials fear could cause listeriosis, a potentially fatal disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday.

HoneyBaked Foods is voluntarily recalling the meat, which includes cooked, glazed and sliced ham and turkey, USDA said. The meat, processed between Sept. 5 and Nov. 13, may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, which can bring about high fever, headaches, neck stiffness and nausea, USDA said.

The meat was sold at the company's retail stores and kiosks near Toledo, Ohio, and to customers across the country over the Internet and through the company's catalog. Consumers can clarify whether a product purchased via catalog or online is affected by calling 800-461-3998.

Seattle Times news services