Current Events

Toyota said on Friday that it would begin negotiations to settle hundreds of pending federal and state lawsuits over the sudden acceleration of its vehicles.

The decision comes two months after a Toyota Camry’s electronic throttle system was found to be defective by an Oklahoma jury. In that case, the jury found that Toyota had acted with “reckless disregard,” despite reports of problems in the cars, and was liable for a crash in 2005 that killed one woman and injured another.

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The Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald has agreed to settle a 2004 lawsuit against American Airlines and its insurers over Cantor’s business and property losses resulting from the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Cantor lost 658 of its nearly 1,000 New York employees when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the trade center’s north tower, where Cantor headquarters occupied top floors.

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About one third of American adults say they have problems falling asleep. And prescriptions for sleeping medications are on the rise, with about 4 percent of people using the drugs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But sleep experts say people should exercise caution before deciding to take medication to help them sleep.

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Michelin North America is recalling 1.2 million tires in the United States — including some used as original equipment on full-size Ford vans — because the tread might come apart, according to a report from the tire maker posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.

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Four and half years after a deadly rail crash forced Metro to let humans instead of computers drive its subway trains, the transit agency has reached “a milestone” in its effort to return to an automated system in which train operators do little more than make announcements, open and close doors, and keep an eye out for trouble.

Although the resumption of “automatic train operation” throughout the rail network remains a long way off, the work of preparing Metro’s busiest route, the Red Line, for computer-driven trains is “essentially completed,” said Rob Troup, the agency’s deputy general manager for operations. He called it “absolutely a milestone” in a project aimed at making the system more efficient and providing a smoother ride.

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JPMorgan Chase is close to an agreement to pay federal authorities about $2 billion to resolve investigations into whether the bank failed to alert the government to Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, a person familiar with the talks said Thursday.

The deal would include a deferred-prosecution agreement that would give the Justice Department the right to pursue criminal charges against JPMorgan if the bank fails to live up to the settlement, according to the person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly so spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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A small army of 50 federal railroad investigators will spend the next two months conducting a head-to-toe safety review on the Metro-North Railroad in the wake of the line’s devastating Dec. 1 derailment, officials announced today.

Starting Monday, the Federal Railroad Administration will launch “Operation Deep Dive,” it’s first ever intensive passenger railroad safety review that will examin the Dec. 1 incident and three other disturbing Metro-North mishaps that have occurred since May, officials said.

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JPMorgan Chase and federal authorities are nearing settlements over the bank’s ties to Bernard L. Madoff, striking tentative deals that would involve roughly $2 billion in penalties and a rare criminal action. The government will use a sizable portion of the money to compensate Mr. Madoff’s victims.

The settlements, which are coming together on the anniversary of Mr. Madoff’s arrest at his Manhattan penthouse five years ago on Wednesday, would fault the bank for turning a blind eye to his huge Ponzi scheme, according to people briefed on the case who were not authorized to speak publicly.

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The cancer and liver toxicity risks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN)’s diabetes medicine may outweigh any benefit the drug has on the heart, U.S. regulators said.

The pill, potentially the second to reach the market in a new class of diabetes drugs, has cardiovascular benefit including lower blood pressure and weight loss. Food and Drug Administration staff members were wary that the heart benefits were enough to balance an increased risk of bladder cancer and indications of liver damage, according to a report posted today ahead of a Dec. 12 meeting of advisers to the agency.

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(Reuters) - Merck & Co Inc said on Monday that it was prepared to pay $27.7 million to settle lawsuits by hundreds of people who sued the company over allegations that its osteoporosis drug Fosamax caused bones in the jaw to deteriorate.

Lawyers for Merck and plaintiffs disclosed the proposed settlement at a court hearing in New York to resolve 1,140 lawsuits pending in federal and state courts. Any settlement would need to be approved by a judge.

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The U.S. Supreme Court left intact a $142 million award against Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and let two similar suits go forward with claims that the drugmaker defrauded insurers by illegally marketing its Neurontin epilepsy drug.

The justices without comment today rejected Pfizer’s appeal, letting stand three connected federal appeals court decisions. The cases are part of the fallout from a 2004 guilty plea by Pfizer’s Warner-Lambert unit to charges that it promoted Neurontin for unapproved “off-label’” uses.

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