A study by the Public Interest Research Group claims says there are toxic chemicals in teethers, bath books, sleep accessories and other products marketed for infants. The chemicals have been linked to premature birth, early onset puberty and reproductive defects.

PIRG advises parents to avoid allowing their children to put certain plastic toys in their mouths and it says don't clean toys with hard dishwashing soap and hot water, which speed up the leaching process.

A rift among lawmakers and dairy farmers from different parts of the country has led to the end of a federal program that may be crucial to upstate farmers if prices continue to drop.

The debate over the program, Milk Income Loss Contract, reached a boiling point last week when a Senate spending bill stalled over objections from western lawmakers. The bill will be taken up again next week.

The taxpayer-funded program offered payments to dairy farmers when prices per hundred weight dropped below a certain level, including 180 million dollars to New York farmers since its start in 2002.

Advocates argue prices are heading down, and warn lower prices without help from the program would drive many small dairy farms out of business. Roughly 80 percent of dairy farms in upstate New York are small operations.

A survey last week of 120 health departments around the country found all but six of them reporting delays or only partial shipments, but officials say the kind of shortage seen last year isn't expected this year.

The acting mayor of Oswego is placing the chief of police on administrative leave after authorities raided his home and garage in search of stolen property.

FBI agents and State Police hauled away an all-terrain vehicle and 3 snowmobiles from the properties owned by Police Chief William Ruggio Tuesday.

Acting Mayor William Dunsmoor says Ruggio needs time to deal with his "current personal circumstances." Captain Michael Dehm will be acting police chief in the interim.

Ruggio was appointed to the job in August by then-Mayor John Gosek, who has since resigned after being accused of trying to arrange to have sex with two underage girls.

The company wants to conduct a test burn of 72 tons a day of shredded tires. The company says the tires could replace ten percent of the oil used to power the mill.

International Paper has received a draft permit from the State Department of Environmental Conservation. The company now faces a 75-day public comment period, a public hearing and a review by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In an effort to reduce expenses for consumers, The New York Public Interest Research Group is calling on the State Insurance Department to compile rate information and post it online.

The Insurance Department divides the state into regions in its limited posting of auto insurance rates. Differences in roads and traffic account for the wide differences in premiums seen between places such as rural Lewis County in northern New York andBrooklyn.

Robert Rhodes is the border officer who recently was acquitted of violating the civil rights of a Chinese tourist at Niagara Falls. Now his attorney says the US Department of Homeland Security is trying to force Rhodes to resign.

Rhodes had been acquitted by a federal jury after a Chinese tourist said he pepper-sprayed her and injured her face. He said he was bringing her under control while trying to see whether she'd been involved in drug smuggling.

A trucker from New York has admitted he was driving drunk when his tractor-trailer hit a police car in New Jersey, killing a man taking a sobriety test.

Shane Gildersleeve of Valatie in Columbia County pleaded guilty Tuesday in Mount Holly, New Jersey to aggravated manslaughter in the death of 34-year-old William Grieb of Hamilton, New Jersey.

The incident happened early in the morning on December 18th in Bordentown, New Jersey. Grieb and a police officer were between their cars when Gildersleeve's 18-wheeler hit the back of the cruiser. The officer jumped to safety, but Grieb was killed instantly.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is hitting the glitter circuit to raise money for her 2006 re-election campaign and pump up the coffers of the political action committee she uses to bankroll her national presence.

The former first lady will be in California over the next several days for a series of celebrity-hosted fundraisers for her Friends of Hillary campaign committee.

Then, it's back to Washington next week where the New York Democrat expects 18 supporters willing to pay 2,500 dollars each to benefit HILLPAC to join her at a U-2 concert at the MCI Center. Other politicians, including Republicans, are also using the Wednesday concert by Bono and bandmates to raise money.

Authorities say 25-year-old Christopher Pinney of Nassau posted photos of children less than two years old in sexually explicit poses to a Yahoo! online group. The company reported him to law enforcement officials.

Two teachers and a guidance counselor are claiming they were fired or denied tenure at a suburban Albany school district for taking maternity leave.

Teachers Brooke Helmes and Megan Carlin and guidance counselor Jennifer Amorosi filed claims against the South Colonie Central School District with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in State Supreme Court.

The women say they had years of excellent evaluations until they took maternity leaves. After they returned to their positions, they say they received poor evaluations and were fired or denied tenure.

That's according to Delaware County Sheriff Thomas Mills. He's been investigating why police and fire officials didn't find the woman's body after the crash.

Investigators say 38-year-old Mary Ellen Martini-Butler died soon after her van went off a roadway Sunday in the town of Walton, but her body wasn't found until the next day by a mechanic.

Amtrak officials said the company would bus passengers between the stations in Syracuse and in Rensselaer, near Albany, until the derailed freight cars were back on track and the tracks in Amsterdam were repaired.

Detective Lieutenant Tom DiMezza of the Amsterdam Police says the CSX train derailed around 8:30am yesterday, tearing up two sets of tracks that run along the river.

A property appraiser has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Eastman Kodak Company and taxpayers in the Rochester suburb of Greece of about 160-thousand dollars.

Fifty-five-year-old Richard Ackerman admitted giving kickbacks to a company owned by former Greece assessor Charles Schwab and a Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation employee in exchange for appraisal contracts.

Tour boat operators saddled with new regulations in the aftermath of the fatal capsizing on Lake George are hoping state inspectors will ease the standards for some vessels next year.

Commercial passenger boats were forced to cut their maximum passenger loads by a fifth after the October second accident killed 20 of the 47 passengers aboard the Ethan Allen.

The change affects about 40 vessels working landlocked waterways from Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks to Chautauqua Lake in western New York. It doesn't affect vessels on US Coast Guard-regulated waterways like the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.

Since the new rules came into effect so late in the season, some tour boat operators say they'll have little immediate effect, but some worry that the reduced passenger limits will take a bite out business when next summer rolls around.

Thomas Golisano says critical comments he made in the past about George Pataki and other Republicans weren't aimed at the governor himself, but the way state government operates.

After yesterday's annual meeting of Paychex, the payroll-processing company he founded 34 years ago, Golisano said he was sure he could overcome his previous run-ins with the Republican Party.

The billionaire owner of the Buffalo Sabres has switched his enrollment from the Independence Party, which he founded, to the GOP. Some top New York Republicans have questioned if Golisano could get the backing of party leaders, considering his past criticisms of Pataki.

The Canal Corporation deal that would have transferred two valuable pieces of riverfront land to a developer for just 10-thousand dollars has been criticized by the State Inspector General's Office.

The Canal Corporation had offered to transfer the land in Waterford, just north of Albany, to developer Victor Gush. The land was valued at up to 1.1 million dollars.

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