Figures

13

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced 13 vehicles that earned its Top Safety Pick awards for 2007. Winners include four cars, seven SUVs, and two minivans. Three of the 13 winning vehicles for 2007 are from Honda, including an Acura SUV. Three winners are Subarus. No small vehicles were winners this year. IIHS says its award recognizes vehicles that do the best job of protecting people in front, side, and rear crashes based on ratings in Institute tests.

3 years

The owner of two Kansas City-area medical supply businesses was sentenced to three years in prison without parole for his part in a scheme that bilked Medicare out of millions of dollars. U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner also ordered Godwin Iloka, 39, of Lee’s Summit, to forfeit his home, three vehicles and all the funds in two bank accounts. Iloka owned Xcellent Medical Service in Raytown and Kansas City. The sentence includes two years for Medicare fraud and a consecutive one-year term for a revocation of Iloka’s supervised release in an unrelated federal case.

1,740

Names, Social Security numbers and home addresses of nearly 1,740 former Chicago school employees were mistakenly mailed to other members of the group, prompting concerns the information could be used for identity theft. All Printing & Graphics Inc., which Chicago Public Schools hired to print and mail health-insurance information to the former employees, said it hadn’t realized one document it sent contained personal data belonging to all of them. The printer, based in suburban Broadview, mailed the former employees a spreadsheet used to make mailing labels, thinking it was a list of health care providers, district spokesman Michael Vaughn said. The general manager of All Printing & Graphics cited “human error” and apologized.

4.4 million

A consumer research group called for warning labels on toys with magnets after more than 4 million Mattel play sets were recalled over injuries to several children who swallowed magnets that fell off. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall of magnetic Polly Pocket sets as the holiday gift-buying season began, urged shoppers to avoid buying toy sets with small magnets for children under six. The recall doesn’t include Polly Pocket play sets now on store shelves. The commission received 170 re-ports of the small magnets falling from Polly Pocket dolls and accessories. Three children swallowed more than one magnet and suffered intestinal perforation that required surgery.