Sgt. Trevor Vise shares some last-minute affection with son Tanner, 4, after a deployment ceremony for two radar teams based at Fort Sill, Okla. Vise's unit last deployed to Iraq in 2005 and has been back in the United States for almost two years.

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NEW YORK — A rifle manufacturer asked arms dealers nationwide to make extra safety inspections after discovering it had accidentally shipped four guns loaded with live ammunition.

Henry Repeating Arms, a maker of lever-action rifles like ones used in the 1860s and 1870s, said a thorough round of inventory checks revealed no other loaded weapons.

"We would never want anybody to get hurt," the company's president, Anthony Imperato, said this week.

As a rule, firearms are distributed unloaded to prevent potentially deadly accidents. Imperato said the company's mistake was related to one of its quality control measures.

Every gun made by Henry Arms is test-fired before it is sold, a common practice in the industry. The rifles are then supposed to be checked to make sure no rounds remain, but Imperato said an error allowed a few guns to be distributed still loaded for the test-firing procedure.

NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council speaker have cast themselves as public officials dedicated to creating transparent government.

That image may have been soiled this week as Speaker Christine Quinn scrambled to explain how millions of dollars have been allocated to fake organizations in the city budget every year.

Quinn and her office said Thursday that the council has appropriated some $17.4 million since 2001 to groups that did not exist as a way to set aside money that could be doled out later in the year. The number has grown over the years — last year $4.5 million was hidden this way in a budget of more than $50 billion.

Quinn, a likely Democratic mayoral candidate next year, said the practice of setting aside what she called "reserve funds" dates back at least 20 years and spans the terms of several council speakers. The use of bogus organizations dates to 2001, she told reporters Thursday after the story was first reported in the New York Post.

CENTRAL ISLIP — A court has issued what could be at least a local first: an order of protection for a duck.

A Suffolk County judge approved the measure Thursday, telling a man accused of shooting a family's pet duck to stay away from the bird and her owners.

Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Chief Roy Gross says he can't recall a previous court case involving cruelty to a duck.

Owner Janet Lippincott says a group of young people bounded over her backyard fence and swarmed the yellow-billed Peking duck with pellet guns on March 17. The bird, named Circles, has recovered after a bullet pierced her voice box.

The 21-year-old suspect pleaded not guilty Thursday to felony animal-cruelty charges.

ATLANTA — Lawmakers in drought-parched Georgia voted Friday to ask mapmakers to redraw their state's northern boundary in hopes of tapping the Tennessee River, in a vote that potentially escalates a conflict with their neighbor.

If negotiations fail, the bill would authorize Georgia's top attorney to file a lawsuit to try forcing a boundary change.

The House and Senate both approved the measure on the legislative session's final day. It now goes to Gov. Sonny Perdue, who has not said whether he supports it.

Congress in 1796 designated that Tennessee's southern borders stretch along the 35th parallel, but surveyors in 1818 were a bit off the mark. They now know that the border was placed about 1.1 miles south of where it should be.

The resolution asserts that the flawed survey mistakenly placed Georgia's northern line just short of the Tennessee River, which has about 15 times greater flow than the one burgeoning Atlanta depends on for water.

HOMESTEAD — A 20-year-old with a weapons cache that included AK-47s was arrested Friday in South Florida on federal charges of threatening to re-enact the Virginia Tech massacre, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Local authorities arrested Calin Chi Wong at his home last week after finding 13 firearms and more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, some that could pierce armor, and bullets that could take down aircraft or military machinery.

But the suspect's brother told The Associated Press that Wong "doesn't even know how to use a gun."

Wong bonded out of jail on those charges but was arrested again Friday after the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated threats Wong made March 25 on the Internet chat site under the screen name "thehumanabc," according to an affidavit.

Wong told authorities he had made more than 20 threats to people over the Internet in the past year, officials said. He threatened one person, saying that he would be "putting a bomb on him" and that he "wanted to use kamikaze on him," according to the affidavit.

LANSING — A woman stole a boa constrictor from a pet store by slipping the snake down her pants, the owner said.

The animal was stolen Thursday afternoon from Preuss Animal House in Lansing.

"I am far less concerned for the person than for the snake," owner Rick Preuss said. The 20-inch snake was worth $174.

Jayzun Boget, assistant manager of Preuss' reptile department, called the heist "audacious."

WICHITA — A former prison guard romantically involved with one of the two inmates she helped escape pleaded guilty Friday to a federal firearms charge.

"She also feels like one of the world's greatest fools," her mother, Laurie Ann Nutter, said. "She realizes now there wasn't anything real in the relationship. She feels so extremely foolish, she is angry about it."

Nutter spoke to The Associated Press before Amber Lynn Goff, 24, pleaded guilty to a federal firearms charge in exchange for reduced charges and a recommendation by prosecutors for a five-year prison term and three years' probation.

As part of the plea deal, three other federal firearms charges are to be dropped at sentencing.

A sentencing hearing is set for June.