Imports

Second of three parts Roxanna Brown never saw the car that hit her. The 36-year-old expert in Southeast Asian art was pulling her motorcycle out of a parking lot in Bangkok when the vehicle knocked her onto a busy road. There she was repeatedly...

Today, Andrés Martinez and Joseph Farah debate the danger of Chinese imports. Yesterday, they discussed the broad question of U.S. engagement with the world's most populous country. Later this week, they'll debate military threats, Olympic boycotts and...

Brightly colored children's bracelets and necklaces line the display case of a Chinese manufacturer in this factory town. Adorned with mini school buses, sandals and other charms, the jewelry sits ready to be sold to foreign and domestic buyers. It also...

Sitting in a windowless conference room surrounded by the remote-control toy Ferraris and Mercedes he sells the world over, factory owner Kuma Gu summed up what it's like to manufacture products for American consumers these days. "A lot of Chinese...

In a year filled with recalls and substandard or tainted consumer products (toys, cribs, children's jewelry, pet food, seafood, toothpaste), the notion that dinnerware was somehow safe seemed naive. Historically, lead has been used in dinnerware's...

WHEN A restaurateur is faced with a sushi chef shortage, what to do? Open a sushi school. Master sushi chef Katsuya Uechi of the Katsuya restaurant empire has teamed with the president of Japanese food importer Mutual Trading Co. to launch a...

Rabbi Shimon Freundlich picked up the phone in Beijing, and a Chinese factory boss launched his pitch. He wanted to join the growing ranks of Chinese exporters who have earned a kosher seal of approval. He promised to follow the rules and to welcome...

Whole Foods Market has long trumpeted its premium chocolate bars for being made the old-fashioned way, in Switzerland. But two years ago it added another manufacturing claim to the product's labels—one that would appeal to millions of Americans who...

Federal regulators urged retailers to pull more Simplicity bassinets from their shelves after Illinois attorney general staffers purchased models that could kill a baby but were excluded from a federal alert issued last week. The most troubling aspect of...

Some companies would be permitted to skirt independent lab testing of children's products in favor of their own in-house certification, thanks in large part to lobbying by the world's biggest toymaker, the Tribune has found. Toymaker Mattel Inc. argued...

PULL up a stool at Lou's, a wine bar that opened six weeks ago, sandwiched between a fluff-and-fold laundromat and a pawn shop near the corner of Melrose and Vine, and Lou Amdur can tell you all about Spanish wines. Rich Garnachas from Priorato and...

FORD MOTOR CO.'s announcement last week that it lost a record $12.75 billion in 2006 will tempt the new Democratic Congress to come to the rescue of Detroit's Big Three automakers. General Motors and DaimlerChrysler are also expected to announce SUV-sized...