Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will stay in a hospital for observation overnight after being attacked at a campaign rally in Milan, a spokesman said Sunday.

Milan police were questioning a mental illness man in connection with the attack, which left the Berlusconi (73) bleeding profusely from his left upper lip and cheek. The premier underwent a CAT scan at Milan's San Raffaele Hospital, and his personal physician, Alberto Sangrillon, recommended more tests be done, Berlusconi spokesman Paolo Buonaiuti told CNN.

The conservative media-mogul-turned-politician has been dogged by allegations of corruption and is in the middle of a messy divorce from his second wife. He was in Milan, his hometown and political base, to stump for a local political ally.

Milan police said Berlusconi's attacker hit him with a not big, metal souvenir replica of the city's central cathedral - Doumo di Milano, but it was not spontaneously clear whether the man swung at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with the object in his hand or threw it at him.

Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that Berlusconi continued to shake hands with supporters for "a couple of minutes" after being hit.

"He remained calm and leaned out the window as he was being driven to the hospital and waved to the crowd," La Russa said.

Buonaiuti said there was "a lot of confusion" surrounding the assault, but he put some of the blame on Berlusconi's critics.

"What I can tell you is that there has been such a buildup of hatred toward the premier, and this is not good," Buonaiuti said. "This campaign of hatred has been building quite rapidly recently, and I am not surprised that what happened tonight took place."

Berlusconi remains popular between the Italian public, however, with his approbation ratings remaining well over 50 percent. He won a third term in 2008, and his conservative coalition has control of both the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

source: cnn berlusconi bloomberg

Zhu Zhu Pets toys unsafe

A consumer group fights one of the holiday season's must-have toys is unsafe. GoodGuide has named the robotic Zhu Zhu Hamsters as one of the top-selling toys with low ratings. It says it found a higher-than-allowed level of a chemical that can cause health problems. The toy's maker insists that its produce is safe.

Antimony is used in textiles and plastics to keep them from contageous fire, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry. Prolonged exposure can cause lung and heart problems, ulcers and diarrhea, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Good Guide named Zhu Zhu Hamsters one of the top-selling toys with low ratings after finding antimony, which can cause health problems, on the hair and nose of one of the toy hamsters, called Mr. Squiggles. The group assigned the toy, aimed at 3- to 10-year-olds, a rating of 5.2 on a 10-point scale.

But the Zhu Zhu Hamsters’s maker, St. Louis-based Cepia LLC, insisted in a statement that its produce is safe and has passed rigorous testing. The company said it was contacting GoodGuide to share its testing data and fix how the report was founded. Zhu Zhu Hamsters retail for about $10.

The Zhu Zhu Hamsters are popular in Europe as well as in the United States. Their British distributor, Character Options, said the produce, sold there as "Go Go Pets," are "fully compliant" with U.S. and European Union standards.

"I have been in the toy industry for more than 35 years, and being a father of children myself, I would never permit any substandard or unsafe produce to hit the shelves," Russ Hornsby, Cepia's CEO, said in the statement.

O'Rourke said GoodGuide's test results, released Friday, also indicated the possibility that some Zhu Zhu Hamsters contained phthalates, chemicals that were subject to tougher standards in the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act passed last year. cnn