NEW YORK (AP) – Authorities say a 3-year-old broke free of his mother’s hand and wandered out of a McDonald’s in Queens, then got on a subway and traveled four stops before transit workers noticed him and called police.

Christian Marquez was reunited with his mother about a half-hour after he disappeared Tuesday from the fast-food restaurant.

He walked into the No. 7 line station at Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, somehow got past the turnstile and stepped onto a westbound train. The 10-minute trip covered about 4 miles.

Marlena Torres realized her son was missing just before 2 p.m. and asked police eating at the McDonald’s to help her. Meanwhile, transit workers saw the child in the train, called police and stopped the subway.

Christian was unharmed.

Official denies staff quit answering

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – A Colorado county clerk is denying claims that his staff stopped answering phones because of budget cuts.

Some El Paso County officials had complained that the staff of the county Clerk and Recorder’s office stopped answering calls and that recorded messages referred all callers to their offices.

However, County Clerk Bob Balink told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the accusations were not true. He said no one had been told to stop answering calls.

Balink said budget problems forced him to cut 26 positions late last year, leaving all his offices scrambling to keep up with calls. But he said everyone is still expected to answer phones.

Wedgie works to subdue suspect

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – It took a wedgie and a headlock to pin down a man suspected of breaking into a car.

Yvonne Morris, a technician at the Brickyard Animal Hospital, says she chased a man who broke into a co-worker’s car, but he kept squirming away from her.

Morris eventually grabbed the man’s boxer shorts and pulled. Salt Lake City police say she then she put a headlock on the man until help could arrive.

The man was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail.

on suspicion of vehicle burglary, possession of stolen property and outstanding warrants.