Current Events

NEW YORK (AP) -- Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost two-thirds of its employees in the Sept. 11 attacks, revealed a $135 million settlement with American Airlines and insurance carriers on Tuesday to a judge who said it will end the final airplane-focused case resulting from claims of wrongful death and personal injuries.

Click here to read more.

Matthew Onyshko went from college football player to educator to firefighter to, at age 32, terminally ill neurological patient.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, he and his wife alleged that concussions sustained on the gridiron led to his crippling ailment -- and that the NCAA should have tried to prevent the injuries.

"I don't know that I've ever seen a case as sad as his situation," said Jason Luckasevic, Mr. Onyshko's attorney, who was also a pioneer in the concussion lawsuits against the NFL. The Onyshkos "have two daughters ages 4 and 1, and Matt is just a complete shadow of himself.

Click here to read more.

Eleven former employees of Long Beach Medical Center have filed a class-action lawsuit against the shuttered hospital for vacation time and other benefits they say are owed them.

The hospital has laid off about 670 of its 1,200 employees since the badly flooded hospital closed last October after superstorm Sandy.

Click here to read more.

Smokers can’t use New York law to force tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. (MO)’s Philip Morris USA unit to pay for tests they claim would provide early detection of lung cancer, the state’s highest court ruled.

The New York Court of Appeals today said that the state doesn’t recognize a right to medical monitoring for smokers who aren’t yet sick. The suit was filed in 2006 by four smokers seeking court-ordered low-dose computed tomography, or CT, screening tests for Marlboro smokers over the age of 50 throughout the state.

Click here to read more.

Top Democrats pushed back Tuesday against a federal judge’s ruling that the NSA’s phone-records collection program violates privacy rights, asking for higher courts to quickly get involved and bring legal certainty to the murky world of intelligence gathering.

Click here to read more.

A federal safety agency announced Monday that two German automakers had issued voluntary vehicle recalls in November.

BMW is recalling more than 76,000 sedans and SUVs to fix an issue with the passenger-side airbags, while Volkswagen is recalling about 66,000 vehicles to fix a pair of issues, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

Click here to read more.

For the first time since the revelation of the National Security Agency’s vast dragnet of all Americans’ telephone records, a federal court has ruled that such surveillance is “significantly likely” to be unconstitutional.

In a scathing 68-page opinion peppered with exclamations of incredulity, United States District Judge Richard Leon, of the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, found that the seven-year-old phone-data collection program — which was established under the Patriot Act and has been repeatedly reauthorized by a secret intelligence court — “almost certainly” violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.

Click here to read more.

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.

Click here to read more.

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.

Click here to read more.

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.

Click here to read more.

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.

Click here to read more.