Mattel announced a global recall of 848,000 toys last night, the companys third recent recall because of hazardous levels of lead paint on toys.

The recall includes three toys sold by Fisher-Price and eight Barbie accessories, though no Barbie dolls. Most of the units recalled are Barbie accessories, and 530,000 of the toys were sold in the United States, according to Mattel. The recall echoes Mattels announcements from last month. During the rush of holiday toy-making, three Chinese vendors outsourced the painting of drum sets, trains and playhouses to four subcontractors. The subcontractors, trying to cut costs, used lead-tainted paint instead of paint approved by Mattel.

Mattel said it discovered the problems last month in an investigation of the roughly 35 vendors in China that produce half of its toys each year.

Mattel has stepped up testing of toy production and has nearly concluded its testing of recently made toys, the company said last night. But the chief executive said he could not promise that there would not be more recalls. The company is focusing now on testing older toys, he said in an interview.

“Weve worked very hard on this issue,” said Robert Eckert, Mattels chief executive. “Weve got teams working around the clock. Weve literally spent tens of thousands of man-hours testing toys. We will continue to work as hard as we can because we want to get this issue behind us.”

Chinese vendors have been behind other prominent recalls this year, including pet food, Thomas amp; Friend trains, baby bibs sold at Toys “R” Us and SpongeBob SquarePants journals. But Mattel, long known for its rigorous safety checks, has quickly become the best-known company announcing recalls of Chinese products. Lists of the recalled toys are at mattel.com and cpsc.gov.

Legislators, reacting to the recall last night, said the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission needed increased authority and funding to police toys and other products imported to the United States.

“News of unsafe products infiltrating the American marketplace is becoming all too familiar,” Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “Its clear that our consumer product safety net has a hole in it the size of China.” Markey is a senior member of the panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that oversees the commission.

The commission announced that 773,900 toys in the United States were being recalled. Mattel, standing by its figure of 530,000, said that figure was incorrect. None of the toys involved in last nights recall were produced by the three factories that made the toys recalled in August. Last nights recall involved three vendors: the Holder Plastic Company, the Apex Manufacturing Company and Shun On Factory. According to Mattel, the subcontractors that used the tainted paint were Dong Lian Fa, Yip Sing, Boyi Plastic Products Factory and Jingying Tampo Printing Processing Factory.

Mattel has fired at least four subcontractors in recent weeks, including two involved in last nights recall, and the company is considering ending its business with more. It is unclear how the Chinese government will respond. Last month, Chinese officials revoked the export licenses of two vendors involved in recalls this summer.

Honest Abe will become Colorful Abe with splashes of purple and gray livening up the $5 bill.

The government showed off the new bill Thursday in an Internet news conference — a high-tech unveiling that officials say is entirely appropriate for a 21st century redesign of the bill featuring the Civil War president, Abraham Lincoln.

The changes are similar to those already made, starting in 2003, to the $10, $20 and $50 bills. In those redesigns, pastel colors were added as part of an effort to stay ahead of counterfeiters and their ever-more-sophisticated copying machines.

Originally, the five wasn’t going to be redesigned. But that decision was reversed once counterfeiters began bleaching $5 notes and printing fake $100 bills with the bleached paper to take advantage of the fact that some of the security features were in the same locations on both notes.

To thwart this particular scam, the government is changing the $5 watermark from one of Lincoln to two separate watermarks featuring the numeral 5. The $100 bill has a watermark with the image of Benjamin Franklin.

The security thread embedded in the $5 bill also has been moved to a different location than the one embedded in the $100 bill.

“We wanted this redesigned bill to scream, ‘I am a five. I am a five,”‘ Larry Felix, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We wanted to eliminate any similarity or confusion on the part of the public between the $5 bill and the $100 bill.”

Circulation is planned for the spring so operators of millions of vending machines have plenty of time to make the changes necessary so their devices will accept the new $5 — a denomination used heavily in the machines.

The bureau will start printing the new notes next week at its facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The goal is to have 1.5 billion $5 bills ready to be put into circulation, at a date still to be determined.

The new $5 design also incorporates a number of other state-of-the-art security features.

Perhaps the most striking change is a new large-size 5 printed in the lower right-hand corner of the backside of the bill in high-contrast purple ink. That feature was added to help the visually impaired.

Lincoln remains on the front of the bill and the Lincoln Memorial is still on the back, but both images have been enhanced and the oval borders around them have been removed. In place of a border around Lincoln’s portrait, the new bill will feature an arc of purple stars. Small yellow “05″ numerals will be printed on both the front and the back.

The center of the bill features light purple which blends into gray near the edges.

Officials hope all the changes will make it harder for counterfeiters to pass fake bills. In the United States last year, there were 3,945 arrests related to counterfeit bills, equaling a loss of $62 million, according to the Secret Service.

The next bill to get a makeover will be the $100. It will feature the most advanced safeguard yet, a new security thread composed of 650,000 tiny lenses that will magnify micro-printing on the bills to give the effect of having the images move in the opposite direction than the bill is being moved.

The government is only about one-third of the way through the redesign of the $100 and hopes to have that process completed by this time next year. Extra effort is going into the $100 makeover since this bill represents more than 70 percent of the $776 billion of currency in circulation, two-thirds of which is held overseas.

(09-20) 09:48 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) —

Gold surged to a 27-year high Thursday as investors sought refuge from a tumbling U.S. dollar, which skidded amid expectations that interest rates will keep falling.

The dollar’s decline supported other commodities too, by making dollar-denominated products including crude oil, corn and copper cheaper to foreign buyers. Energy and agriculture futures rose.

In testimony to Congress Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said turmoil in the credit markets had fostered “significant market stress.” The chairman’s comments provided investors with further insight into the Fed’s move Tuesday to slash its benchmark federal funds rate by a half point to 4.75 percent Д and appeared to raise investor expectations for another cut when the central bank meets in October.

“Global financial losses have far exceeded even the most pessimistic estimates of the credit losses on these loans,” Bernanke said.

While a lower interest rate can stimulate economic activity, the additional liquidity it provides can contribute to inflation because prices tend to rise in a growing economy.

Gold prices topped $745 an ounce, while silver and platinum rallied sharply, in response to the dollar’s decline. The 13-nation euro bought as much as $1.4068 at one point Thursday. The euro’s move over $1.40 Д considered a key psychological threshold Д sparked a buying frenzy in the precious metals market.

December gold climbed $14.30 to $743.80 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. December silver piled on 46 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $13.565 an ounce, while platinum for October delivery rose $18.50 to $1,327 an ounce.

“People possibly feel that there is more to come” in the way of rate cuts, said Jon Nadler, senior analyst with Kitco Bullion Dealers. The Fed’s decision to slash its benchmark rate by a hefty half percentage point on Tuesday shows “they’re willing to sacrifice part of the dollar’s value to keep the boat afloat, economically speaking.”

Copper futures also gained on the Nymex, rising 1.45 cents to $3.59 a pound, and edged higher on the London Metal Exchange. Other industrial metals were mixed in London following the prior day’s hefty gains. Nickel prices slipped after rising more than 10 percent on Wednesday, while zinc and tin also slipped. Lead prices rose.

In the energy market, light sweet crude for October delivery rose 46 cents to $82.39 a barrel on the Nymex, and gasoline futures rose 1.76 cents to $2.111 a gallon.

Oil prices were bolstered by a government report on Wednesday showing a larger-than-expected drop in U.S. stockpiles of crude. However, the report also revealed relatively stagnant demand for petroleum products, which stands about where it did a year ago. The energy market has recently been in no mood for bearish interpretations of the news, said Chip Hodge, managing director of John Hancock Financial Services in Boston.

“Products demand looks ugly,” he said. “People don’t seem to care.”

Meanwhile, agriculture futures jumped, pushed higher by the dollar’s fall and newly raised concerns about corn supply in China.

Corn prices jumped after China on Thursday said it would tighten controls over the use of corn for industrial purposes, including biofuels production. Development of corn processing industries has been “excessively fast,” a government agency said. The National Development and Reform Commission also said it has requested corn exporters cut shipments “in principle” to ensure a balance between domestic supply and demand.

December corn gained 13 cents to $3.7125 a bushel. Wheat for December delivery added 8 cents to $8.53 a bushel, while November soybeans jumped 19 cents to $9.90 a bushel.