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Christmas ornaments made in a factory in China and sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. were produced in sweatshop conditions, a report by a labor advocacy group said.

The National Labor Committee based its allegations on smuggled videotapes, documents and interviews with workers from the Guangzhou Huanya Gift Ltd. Co. in Guangdong province. The group said employees included children who were forced to work 16-hour shifts and were paid below the Chinese minimum wage.

Wal-Mart monitors its suppliers and will investigate the allegations, company spokesman Richard Coyle said in an e-mail.

The New York-based National Labor Committee has investigated labor abuses in Central America, Jordan and other countries in recent years. Wednesday's report on the Christmas ornaments accused Wal-Mart and other retailers in the U.S. of failing to police their production facilities overseas.

"Far from kindling the holiday spirit, the conditions under which the mostly young women workers in China produce goods for Wal-Mart are dehumanizing," the report said.

Wal-Mart says it maintains a strict compliance code with more than 200 people monitoring conditions in factories of its suppliers.

NEW YORK — Yes, 2008 is arriving two weeks early.

The gigantic New Year's Eve numerals that will glow at the stroke of Jan. 1 from high atop Times Square are on up-close display before they're lifted skyward.

Through Wednesday, the four digits can be seen at the Times Square information center, party organizers said.

A new 500-pound, 7-foot-tall numeral 8 traveled by subway to Times Square from the Bronx factory where it was made, and completed the 2-0-0-8 sign that will ring in the new year along with the famous crystal ball.

In keeping with the city's recent efforts to save energy, the 2-0-0-8 sign will use new bulbs that shine brighter and last longer but are more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Charles Seugling's 90-year-old family business, a slaughterhouse in Pequannock, N.J., is hustling to supply a holiday "madhouse" of demand for goat.

Sales may surpass last year's record because of the rare confluence of two religious holidays, he said. Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Festival of Sacrifice, is being observed this year starting Wednesday, just before Christmas on Dec. 25. The calendar proximity happens only about every three decades.

The celebrations are keeping slaughterhouses and butchers busy across New Jersey, whose location and ethnic diversity make it a center for producing goat meat. The state has long-established Greek, Italian and Hispanic populations, and the Muslim community quadrupled in the past two decades.

While less than 1 percent of all meat goats in the U.S. are raised in New Jersey, more than a third are slaughtered there. The animals are shipped from as far away as Texas.

Wire reports