Current Events

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said it will pay $2.37 billion to resolve U.S. lawsuits accusing the company of hiding its Actos diabetes medicine’s cancer risks.

Takeda will put the money into a settlement fund if 95 percent of those with claims against Asia’s largest drugmaker agree to join the accord, Takeda officials said in a statement.

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WASHINGTON — In the sharpest comments of his young tenure as the nation’s top auto safety regulator, Mark R. Rosekind promised on Tuesday to take aggressive action on vehicle recalls that move too slowly and continue to endanger lives.

Mr. Rosekind, who took over as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in December, took particular aim at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, saying that its efforts to fix more than a million Jeep sport utility vehicles with potentially dangerous gas tanks had fallen far short of expectations.

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Takata Corp., the auto-parts supplier at the center of a U.S. investigation into exploding air bags, has confirmed a sixth death as well as 105 injuries in documents submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee, Senator Bill Nelson said Monday.

That’s up from five deaths and 64 injuries in previous updates, the Florida Democrat said in a speech in the Senate. Some of the injuries tied to the air bags are serious, including quadriplegia, blindness, a broken sternum and fractures, Nelson said.

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Raw, wild-caught shrimp from U.S., Argentina had lowest bacteria levels of all samples tested.

A new Consumer Reports (CR) study released Friday found that 60 percent of 342 samples of frozen shrimp it tested contained Salmonella, Vibrio, Listeria, or E. coli, and 2 percent tested positive for the superbug MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

For its new report, “How Safe is Your Shrimp?,” CR researchers bought 284 raw and 58 cooked shrimp samples for testing last March in 27 cities across the country from retailers such as Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Costco, Fry’s Marketplace, Hy-Vee and Sprouts Farmers Market. CR didn’t test fresh, never-frozen shrimp since U.S. consumers don’t buy much of that.

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The New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, filed lawsuits against two popular indoor tanning salon chains on Thursday, accusing them if playing downs hazards associated with indoor tanning and promoting the practice as a healthful activity.

Ford is recalling 389,585 late-model Ford Fiestas, Fusions and Lincoln MKZ sedans because of faulty latches that can allow the doors to fly open while the car is being driven.

Ford says the problem was limited to certain models built at its plant in Mexico. It says a part called the pawl spring tab can break, which results in doors that can't be latched. The unlatching problem can occur while the car is being driven.

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BMW of North America will recall about 91,800 Mini Coopers because of a faulty sensor in front seats produced in part by a German unit of Johnson Controls Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of automotive interiors.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the sensor might not detect a passenger in the front seat and the air bag would not deploy in a crash. Johnson Controls produced the complete seats, but not the sensors, according to Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for the Glendale-based company.

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The alert hit HEB Grocery in San Antonio late Monday: Blue Bell Creameries, a Southwestern favorite and the country’s third-largest ice cream brand, was recalling all its frozen desserts over concerns of contamination by the potentially deadly bacteria listeria.

HEB, which runs 300 stores across southern Texas, immediately placed a lock on its cash registers to prevent sales of Blue Bell ice creams. Within an hour, workers had banished all Blue Bell products from store shelves.

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BMW of North America LLC will recall about 91,800 Mini Coopers in the U.S. to fix a flaw with the passenger seat mat that may prevent the air bag from deploying, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall, posted on NHTSA’s website Saturday, affects about 59,270 Mini Cooper and Cooper S models manufactured from January 2005 to November 2006, and about 32,530 Mini Cooper convertibles and Cooper S convertibles produced between January 2005 and July 2008.

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Volkswagen has issued a revised recall for its Chrysler-built Routan minivan, after the Detroit automaker's initial repair failed to effectively remedy an ignition-switch defect.

Chrysler made an equivalent revision last month, promising to replace the entire ignition-switch module rather than just an elastomer detent ring. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had opened an investigation into the first fix after owners of repaired vehicles continued to report inadvertent key movement from 'run' to the 'accessory' position.

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A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday blocked most lawsuits against General Motors over a defective ignition switch that is tied to at least 84 deaths, sparing the automaker billions in claims and handing it a momentous victory as it tries to move past its gravest safety crisis.

Judge Robert E. Gerber of the United State Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan ruled that the liability shield included in the 2009 agreement that lifted G.M. from bankruptcy should be allowed to remain in place, even though the company has acknowledged that many employees knew about the defective switch at the time but failed to alert owners of the cars that they might have a potential claim against the company.

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