Surgeons extract needles from toddler

Doctors have successfully removed four sewing needles from the lung and near the heart of a Brazilian toddler, allegedly plunged into him by his stepfather during a month-long series of bizarre rituals.

The surgery lasted nearly five hours and the two-year-old boy was in stable condition after the procedure, said Susy Moreno, a spokeswoman for the hospital in the north-eastern city of Salvador where the boy was in intensive care.