Washington, D.C: Request denied to ban chemical in plastic toys

The government refused Friday to ban a soft plastic in children’s toys, rejecting arguments by environmental and health groups that it can damage children’s livers and kidneys.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 3-0 against a petition filed by a dozen groups in 1998 to remove soft polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, plastic from toys for children 5 and younger.

“Consumers may have a high level of assurance that soft plastic products pose no risk to children,” commissioner Mary Sheila Gall said.

Atlanta: Hand-washing mentors needed, study shows

If the doctor doesn’t wash his hands, the nurses, residents and medical students under his supervision probably won’t wash up either, a study found.

Overall, hospital staff members in the study washed their hands about half of the time after contact with a patient. But the influence of a senior doctor was so great that if he did not wash his hands while making rounds, the staffers with him washed up only about 10 percent of the time.

The study was done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Washington, D.C: Board rejects U.S. offer for former Reagan home

A private foundation that owns former President Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home in Dixon, Ill., on Friday rejected as inadequate a $420,000 offer from the federal government to turn the complex into a national historic site.

The board’s action came a year after President Bush signed a bill to put the home under federal ownership.

Since buying the property for $29,000 shortly before Reagan became president in 1980, the foundation spent more than $10 million on the home and surrounding area, according to Norm Wymbs, whose own family foundation provided much of the money.

Washington, D.C: Report: Senator’s pilot worried about icing

A pilot who died in the crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone near a Minnesota airfield last year wanted to cancel the flight because of possible icing, according to information made public Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The board didn’t draw any conclusions, but the report suggested investigators think ice on the wings may have contributed to the crash near Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport, the plane’s destination.

The King Air A100 crashed about 2 1/2 miles from the airport, killing everyone aboard: Wellstone, D-Minn.; his wife, Sheila; their 33-year-old daughter; and five others.