Current Events

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday announced a final settlement with the oil giant BP of $20.8 billion for its role in the disastrous 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, raising the total from the initial $18.7 billion settlement announced in July.

At either amount, it is the largest environmental settlement — and the largest civil settlement with any single entity — in the nation’s history.

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A keyless ignition is that push button in your car that starts the engine instead of turning a key. It’s a feature that’s standard equipment on many new vehicles, but consumer safety advocates say keyless ignitions could pose a danger if you walk away with the fob and forget to turn off the car.

Noah Kushlefsky is an attorney who has represented several families whose loved ones have died from carbon monoxide poisoning after the key fob was removed and the car was left running. "When you're disassociated from the car by removal of the mechanical key, it's an easy step to forget" Kushlefsky said. "It's a senseless situation that should never occur and should never have occurred."

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The Food and Drug Administration, hoping to prevent future outbreaks of deadly bacterial infections at U.S. hospitals, on Monday ordered makers of specialized medical scopes to undertake new studies of how the devices are cleaned.

The agency ordered a trio of manufacturers to conduct real-world evaluations on how well health care workers are cleaning and disinfecting the devices and what more might be done to prevent the spread of life-threatening infections.

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Doctors have discovered a potential problem involving implanted heart valves that hundreds of thousands of people have received - they don't always open and close properly, possibly because a blood clot has formed that could raise the risk of stroke.

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West Virginia may be the first U.S. state to sue Volkswagen AG for deceiving car buyers after the Environmental Protection Agency said last month that the company had installed software to hide that its diesel engines exceeded pollution standards.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey seeks restitution for Volkswagen customers, who he says paid as much as $6,855 extra for cars with the clean diesel engines, plus $5,000 in civil penalties per violation of West Virginia’s consumer protection law.

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​Nissan is recalling 218,019 Versa subcompacts in the U.S. because road salt can corrode the metal springs in front, causing them to break.

If they coil springs fail, they can collapse and puncture the front tires. That scenario could cause the drivers of 2007 to 2012 Versas to lose control, resulting in a crash, Nissan tells the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a filing.

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Volkswagen AG is facing a new round of legal challenges after admitting it cheated on emissions tests for years, with French, German and Swiss lawyers taking action against Europe’s biggest carmaker.

The Paris prosecutor opened a probe into VW for deceit and putting people’s health at risk, while a German law firm, Tilp, filed a lawsuit with local authorities that will seek compensation for VW shareholders for the stock price drop since Sept. 20. A Swiss lawyer, Jacques Roulet, filed a criminal complaint alleging fraud against the carmaker as the country prepared to ban 130,000 vehicles on Oct. 5.

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As claims against Volkswagen AG for selling “clean diesel” cars that cheated their way past emissions tests pile up across the U.S., the key question for lawyers is which court will wind up hearing them.

Lawyers for car-owners are already jockeying for their preferred venue in hopes that whichever judge winds up with the case will name them as lead counsel, a role that could be worth millions in legal fees.

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Volkswagen AG’s ability to cheat on emissions screening for seven years is putting pressure on U.S. regulators to change the assessments by adding more road tests to complement laboratory analysis.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency vowed last week to do more spot-checks on data generated from indoor labs. The agency says those road tests won’t replace the lab tests, which are still needed for scientific and legal accuracy. Environmental groups called the EPA’s approach flawed.

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DETROIT — Federal regulators said on Tuesday that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles had significantly underreported to regulators the number of death and injury claims linked to possible defects in its cars.

Fiat Chrysler’s admission of the underreporting, discovered in an internal review tied to the company’s recent $105 million settlement over its handling of recalls, could result in new penalties.

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Volkswagen said that in October it will propose a fix to the diesel cars it rigged with manipulative software to fool regulators into believing the vehicles were compliant with emissions regulations.

The automaker said that "in the near future" it will begin notifying owners of the 11 million vehicles affected by the software, which causes the cars to emit harmful pollutants at rates of up to 40 times U.S. standards.

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