California: Gas prices fall 6 cents

Gas prices dropped 6 cents a gallon nationwide over the past two weeks as oil market jitters about the war in Iraq eased, an industry analyst said Sunday.

Trilby Lundberg attributed the decrease to greater certainty about Middle East oil supplies. Only a few Iraqi oil fields have been set on fire and the blazes were extinguished quickly, Lundberg said in Camarillo.

The average price, including all grades and taxes, was about $1.70 a gallon Friday, according to the Lundberg survey of 8,000 gas stations across the country. That was a decrease of 6.03 cents from March 21, the date of the last Lundberg survey.

Chicago: Vitamin supplements urged to prevent rickets in babies

The American Academy of Pediatrics says all exclusively breast-fed infants should receive vitamin D supplements to prevent rickets, a bone-weakening disease doctors fear may be becoming more common.

Breast-fed infants should receive vitamin supplements beginning at 2 months of age and until they begin taking at least 17 ounces daily of vitamin D-fortified milk, the academy says in a new policy statement.

The academy recommends multivitamin supplements containing 200 international units of vitamin D, available as over-the-counter liquid drops or tablets. Supplements containing only vitamin D generally are too concentrated to be safe for routine use, it says.

Los Angeles: Architecture prize awarded

Joern Utzon, the Danish architect whose Sydney Opera House is among the world’s most recognizable buildings, was named winner Sunday of the 2003 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the profession’s most prestigious award.

The Pritzker jury singled out the Opera House, a sculptural cascade of shells that appear to sail across the harbor of the Australian city, as among the most iconic buildings of the 20th century. Utzon “proves that the marvelous and seemingly impossible in architecture can be achieved,” the jury wrote in its citation.

Utzon, who turns 85 Wednesday, declined to be interviewed.

The prize includes a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.