TERESOPOLIS, Brazil

At least 381 dead as rains create pre-dawn mudslides

It was a scene of muddy destruction in mountain towns north of Rio, where at least 381 people were killed when torrential rains unleashed mudslides in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, burying people alive as they slept.

In the remote Campo Grande neighborhood of Teresopolis, now accessible only by a perilous five-mile hike through mud-slicked jungle, family members pulled the lifeless bodies of loved ones from the muck.

A young boy cried out as his father’s body was found: “I want to see my dad! I want to see my dad!”

Flooding and mudslides are common in Brazil when the summer rains come, but this week’s slides were among the worst in recent memory. The disasters unduly punish the poor, who often live in rickety shacks perched perilously on steep hillsides with little or no foundations. But even the rich did not escape the damage in Teresopolis, where large homes were washed away.

WASHINGTON

FDA to limit ingredient in prescription painkillers

Federal health regulators are limiting a key ingredient found in Vicodin, Percocet and other prescription painkillers that have been linked to thousands of cases of liver damage each year.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it will cap the amount of acetaminophen in the drugs at 325 milligrams per capsule. Current products on the market contain doses of up to 700 milligrams.

Acetaminophen is a ubiquitous pain reliever found in Tylenol, Nyquil and thousands of other medicines used to treat headaches, fever and sore throats.

The ingredient is also used at larger doses in prescription combination drugs that mix it with narcotic drugs like oxycodone.

Those products are not dangerous by themselves but can cause toxic overdoses when patients combine them with a second acetaminophen-containing drug like Tylenol.

WASHINGTON

GOP’s Hutchison to retire next year from U.S. Senate

Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican who was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas and has held the seat for nearly two decades, announced Thursday she will retire next year when her current term ends.

In a letter addressed to her Texas constituents and also sent to members in the media, Hutchison said she would not seek re-election in 2012.

She had previously signaled she might retire but changed her mind several times in the last few years. In 2010, she challenged Gov. Rick Perry in the GOP primary for governor, but lost.

In her letter, the state’s senior senator said she had intended to leave office sooner but was persuaded to stay on to “avoid disadvantage to our state.”

“The last two years have been particularly difficult, especially for my family, but I felt it would be wrong to leave the Senate during such a critical period,” Hutchison said.