Current Events

Federal safety regulators fined General Motors $28,000 on Tuesday, saying it had not provided much of the information requested for an investigation into a recall of about 2.6 million cars with an ignition switch defect that G.M. has linked to 13 deaths.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on March 4 demanded answers to 107 questions related to why G.M. waited until February to start recalling the cars, even though it had been alerted to the problem as early as 2001. The cars contain a faulty ignition switch that is prone to turn off while driving, shutting off the engine and disabling the air bags.

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In one of the biggest damages verdicts ever imposed, a jury in Louisiana has ordered a Japanese drug maker and its American partner to pay a combined $9 billion in punitive damages over a diabetes drug that has been linked to cancer.

Jurors in a district court trial in Lafayette, La., ordered the Japanese company, Takeda Pharmaceutical, to pay $6 billion in punitive damages on Monday after finding that the company had hidden the cancer risks of its drug, Actos.

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WASHINGTON — The questions came faster and harder at Mary T. Barra on Wednesday.

After facing a House subcommittee investigating General Motors’ ignition-switch recall a day earlier, G.M.’s chief executive was bombarded with a more aggressive line of questioning by senators.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday defended its proposal to require generic drugmakers to update the prescribing information on their products if they become aware of new safety information, a move the industry says will open them to product liability lawsuits and raise drug costs.

Speaking at a hearing before a U.S. House of Representatives health subcommittee, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA's top pharmaceuticals official, said the move is needed to "create parity" between branded and generic drug makers regarding labeling changes.

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GM has now recalled nearly 7 million vehicles worldwide this year as it seeks to more aggressively respond to safety issues. GM’s recall related to the ignition-switch defects now totals 2.59 million cars.

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WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators began poring over boxes of internal General Motors documents on Tuesday, seeking to understand the decade-long failure by regulators and the company to act on reports of a defect in Chevrolet Cobalts and other cars. Also, two senators introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to help identify problems earlier.

Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats, introduced a Senate bill that would make the auto companies give the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration copies of insurance claims made against them and lawsuits about fatal crashes in which they were defendants. They would also have to provide copies of internal safety studies related to the car model involved. Mr. Markey, when he was a congressman, wrote similar legislation in 2010, which passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but was not enacted.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Efforts to conceal the extent of dangerous car defects at Toyota Motor Corp. were so pervasive, prosecutors say, that an exasperated employee at one point warned that “someone will go to jail if lies are repeatedly told.”

Yet no one has gone to jail, nor is likely to.

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Cadillac is recalling approximately 63,900 XTS sedans over an issue with the brake booster pump. The company believes that the brake booster pump can create positive pressure inside the wiring harness attached to the pump relay, and this pressure can dislodge a cavity plug in the relay and allow corrosive elements to enter the connector, creating a resistive short. Cadillac believes that this could lead to overheating and melting of plastic components, and may cause a fire in the engine compartment.

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Just the Facts:

• General Motors is recalling 355 vehicles, including the 2014 Buick Regal and Chevrolet Impala because a transmission shift cable adjuster problem could lead to a rollaway risk.
• Also included in the recall are the 2014 Buick LaCrosse, Verano and Enclave, 2014 Chevrolet Malibu, Cruze and Traverse and 2014 GMC Acadia.
• The recall is expected to begin in late March.

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Eric H. Holder Jr., the United States attorney general, talked in impassioned tones on Wednesday about Toyota’s behavior in hiding safety defects from the public, calling it “shameful” and a “blatant disregard” for the law. A $1.2 billion criminal penalty, the largest ever for a carmaker in the United States, was imposed.

Mr. Holder said the department’s four-year investigation of Toyota found that the company concealed information about defects from consumers and government officials, putting lives at risk because of faulty parts that caused sudden, unintended acceleration in several of its models.

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Some widely used over-the-counter cold and flu medicines may be exposing patients to unexpectedly high amounts of one ingredient, revealing a lapse in regulations and perhaps raising safety concerns, a company that develops such drugs reported on Wednesday.

The company, AFT Pharmaceuticals of New Zealand, said that when the nasal decongestant phenylephrine, or PE, was combined with the pain reliever acetaminophen, levels of PE in the blood were two to four times as high as when the same dose of PE was taken alone.

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