Current Events

General Motors in 2006 sent dealers a technical service bulletin warning that because of an ignition problem, a heavy key chain hanging from the ignition could turn off the engine on six models. But only two of those models were covered in last week’s recall of 778,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada for the problem that the automaker now says could keep air bags from deploying in a crash.

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Madoff Talking 'To Help His Victims Recover Assets He Stole,' Complaint Says.
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Toyota Motor is recalling about 295,000 Lexus and Toyota brand vehicles worldwide due to issues with various safety systems like stability control and anti-lock brakes.

The automaker said an electrical component in the brake actuator, which regulates fluid pressure in each wheel cylinder, could "experience increased resistance," according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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Nutriom LLC of Lacey, WA, is recalling approximately 226,710 pounds of processed egg products that may be contaminated with Salmonella, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Saturday.

The following products were shipped to co-packers for incorporation into consumer-size packages:

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(Reuters) - German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim said on Thursday it is facing more than 2,000 lawsuits in the United States over claims its blockbuster drug Pradaxa, the first in a new class of stroke prevention pills, caused severe and fatal bleeding.

The unlisted company confirmed the number of cases reported on Thursday by German newspaper Handelsblatt, adding the risk of side effects was known and had to be weighed against the drug's life saving potential.

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General Motors is recalling about 619,000 small cars in the United States because either a heavy key ring or a “jarring event” such as running off the road could cause the ignition to shut off and possibly prevent the air bags from deploying in a crash, the automaker said in a report posted today on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website. The vehicles affected by the recall are the 2007 Pontiac G5 and the 2005-7 Chevrolet Cobalt.

In addition to the vehicles being recalled in the United States, another 153,000 in Canada and 6,100 in Mexico are being recalled.

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., walked into U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning to file a lawsuit against President Barack Obama and various administration officials in his bid to kill the National Security Agency’s dragnet collection of American phone records.

Plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are Paul and the political advocacy group FreedomWorks, which claims about 6 million members.

Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s former Republican attorney general, will serve as lead counsel for the lawsuit, which is the fourth major legal challenge against the NSA phone program.

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Here's how Toyota Motor Corp. plans to finally put the sudden-acceleration issue to rest: Pull out the checkbook.

The automaker is reportedly close to paying a $1-billion fine to settle a four-year federal criminal investigation into whether it properly reported safety complaints to regulators. Meanwhile, Toyota's lawyers are in settlement talks over hundreds of civil lawsuits alleging wrongful deaths or injuries, potentially adding hundreds of millions to the tab.

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Merck & Co. (MRK) may pay $100 million to settle thousands of lawsuits over the safety of its NuvaRing contraceptive, a New Jersey judge held, as long as enough women agree to participate in the accord.

The settlement may resolve as many as 3,800 cases in federal and state courts in New Jersey and Missouri, Judge Brian Martinotti in Hackensack said yesterday at a hearing. More than 200 women sued Merck in New Jersey accusing the drugmaker of selling NuvaRing while knowing it posed a higher risk of heart attack-inducing blood clots than competing products.

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The makers of the blood-thinning drug Pradaxa were so worried that an internal research paper would damage drug sales that some employees not only pressured the author to revise it, but suggested it should be quashed altogether, according to newly unsealed legal documents.

The documents were made public last week by a federal judge in Illinois who is overseeing thousands of lawsuits filed by patients and their families, who say that Pradaxa’s manufacturer, the German company Boehringer Ingelheim, failed to properly warn them about the risks of taking the drug.

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Sometimes you do everything right and it still goes wrong.

Michael Pirron runs a technology consulting company in Richmond, Va. For some time, he fretted about his parents, about what would happen if, like most older Americans, they needed expensive care as the years passed. They were still young-ish and comparatively healthy, but his father’s mother had lived to be 105.

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