Current Events

U.S. lawmakers on Monday said they were expanding their investigation of federal biosecurity lapses including problems at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that led to the mishandling of anthrax and bird flu pathogens.

Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee said they sent a letter on Monday to the CDC director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, asking him to explain why the leading U.S. public health agency was unable to detect systemic problems involving the handling of deadly agents dating back to 2010.

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Medical researchers have found new evidence to support government agency concerns that a surgical device commonly used in hysterectomies could inadvertently spread hidden and potentially fatal cancers in women.

A study by doctors at Columbia University, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that nearly 1 in 370 women who undergoes a hysterectomy using a surgical device called a power morcellator is found to have previously undetected uterine cancers.

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Johns Hopkins, one of the world's most prestigious medical institutions, has agreed to pay $190 million to settle claims by thousands of women against a gynecologist who used a tiny camera to surreptitiously make hundreds of videos and photos of patients.

But an attorney for the Baltimore medical center on Monday described Nikita Levy as "a rogue employee'' and said Hopkins should not be blamed for his actions.

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Acura has recently issued a new recall, this time for the ILX and ILX Hybrid, because of a possible fire risk. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a total of 14,078 units of the new ILX and ILX Hybrid will be affected by this recall. Owners of the 2013 – 2014 model year units will have to take their rides back to the dealers because of a problem with the Halogen projector beam headlights, which could overheat and lead to a fire.

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General Motors redesigned even more ignition switches on more models without changing the part number, according to a letter the automaker sent this week to government regulators.

The gist of this latest disclosure is that an undetermined number of the defective ignition switches likely remained in circulation among dealers who may have installed them in cars that didn’t originally have the problem.

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Only three months ago, Mary T. Barra arrived for the first time on Capitol Hill to apologize — publicly, profusely and personally — for General Motors’ long failure to recall millions of small cars.

On Thursday, Ms. Barra returned to Washington again, and this time, she drew the line.

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The car crash that killed Gene Erickson caught the attention of federal regulators. Why did the Saturn Ion he was traveling in, along a rural Texas road, suddenly swerve into a tree? Why did the air bags fail? General Motors told federal authorities that it could not provide answers.

But only a month earlier, a G.M. engineer had concluded in an internal evaluation that the Ion had most likely lost power, disabling its air bags, according to a subsequent internal investigation commissioned by G.M.

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But another major component of the settlement has little to do with troubled mortgages. As part of the deal, Citigroup has also agreed to provide $180 million in financing to build affordable rental housing.

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The two lawsuits filed Monday make Illinois the first state to target firms offering to help consumers repay their student loan debts in exchange for as much as $1,200 upfront. Others are expected as the mortgage crisis subsides, and regulators turn their attention to other financial scams, including outfits trying to help people repay more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt.

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Citigroup Inc. (C) and U.S. authorities will announce a $7 billion agreement as soon as today to end probes of the bank’s sales of mortgage-backed bonds, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The deal, signed over the weekend, requires the firm to pay $4 billion to the Justice Department, about $300 million to state attorneys general and about $200 million to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and to provide $2.5 billion in relief for consumers, the person said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. The settlement includes a statement of facts, outlining the allegations, the person said.

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A federal judge gave preliminary approval Monday to a revised settlement in concussion suits filed by former player against the NFL. That clears the way for ensuing legal steps that will, pending final approval, provide hundreds of millions of dollars in payments over the next 65 years to ex-players suffering from brain impairments.

U.S. District Judge Anita Brody issued her decision in Philadelphia, where more than 240 suits filed by more than 4,500 ex-players have been consolidated in a single class-action case.

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