Extended Stay Hotels Inc.’s examiner filed under seal his report addressing claims that two private-equity firms schemed with the hotel chain’s senior lenders to push out junior debt holders and take over the company by bankrupting it. Ralph Mabey, a former bankruptcy judge, filed his report under seal yesterday in Extended Stay’s case docket. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James M. Peck in Manhattan on March 10 granted Mabey’s request to keep the report under wraps temporarily. ...

Th e Food and Drug Administration on Thursday released a preliminary report on the safety of meat and milk from cloned animals. Their verdict: that these food products are no different from those derived from conventionally bred animals, and are therefore safe to eat. But don't expect your local butcher to be selling hams or rib eyes from cloned animals any time soon. The FDA's report is now available to the public and open for a 90-day comment period. ...

A balloon that was set adrift by a 6-year-old boy from his parents' Colorado home was found empty, CNN affiliate KMGH said, citing a police report. The balloon landed south of Prospect Springs, near Colorado Springs. The boy was not inside the helium aircraft when it landed, KMGH reported. A sibling saw the boy get into the craft Thursday morning. Officials were concerned that the boy may have fallen out of it, an undersheriff said. Margie Martinez of the Weld ...

One person was in custody Monday following a report of an armed intruder on the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, Florida, police said. USF police have asked the Tampa police's bomb team to respond to the campus regarding the belongings of the person in custody, said USF police Lt. Meg Ross. No one was hurt and no shots were fired, she said. "We have someone we think may have been involved, but we have to investigate fully," Ross ...

More than 1 million babies born prematurely die each year before they are a month old, the March of Dimes said Sunday in the first comprehensive global report on premature births. The organization suggested the situation could worsen if the rate of premature births increases. Each year, 12.9 million infants -- or nearly 10 percent of the annual worldwide birth total -- are born before 37 weeks of development in the womb, the organization said. More than 85 percent of ...

Searchers in California say they have found and identified the wreck of a fighter jet that disappeared into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles International Airport nearly 54 years ago. The searchers were looking for another missing plane when they came upon the wreckage of a Lockheed T-33A jet trainer, said Pat Macha, an aircraft archeologist who has identified about 3,700 crash sites and visited more than 800. "It's a funky thing," Macha said Tuesday. "You're looking for one aircraft, ...

A senior American diplomat had high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana, the State Department said Tuesday. The searchers were looking for another missing plane when they came upon the wreckage of a Lockheed T-33A jet trainer, said Pat Macha, an aircraft archeologist who has identified about 3,700 crash sites and visited more than 800. "It's a funky thing," Macha said Tuesday. "You're looking for one aircraft, and you find another." The T-33 disappeared shortly after taking off on ...

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on Tuesday gave a death-row inmate a one-week reprieve after authorities tried for hours to find a vein to administer his lethal injection. "Difficulties in administering the execution protocol necessitate a temporary reprieve," said Strickland's Warrant of Reprieve, filed in court Tuesday afternoon in the case of inmate Romell Broom. Broom's defense attorney, Tim Sweeney, wrote Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer on Tuesday that, "I am advised by my co-counsel, Adele Shank, who is ...

The Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold them for adoption in other countries during the Central American nation's 36-year civil war, a government report has concluded. Many of those children ended up in the United States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said the report's author and lead investigator, Marco Tulio Alvarez. In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad. ...

The "disgusting" blob that Fred DeNegri's wife says she poured out of his Diet Pepsi can was probably a gutted frog or toad, the Food and Drug Administration said. DeNegri was grilling in his backyard tiki bar in Ormond Beach, Florida, when he popped open a can of Diet Pepsi, took a big gulp and started gagging, his wife, Amy, said. He emptied out the can down a sink but something heavy remained inside. His wife took over ...