Current Events

It’s fast becoming the go-to drug for addicts in search of a stronger high — and it is not even an opioid.

Gabapentin, a purportedly nonaddictive painkiller primarily used to treat shingles and control seizures, has landed on the radar of beleaguered health officials and law enforcement already battling the deadly opioid epidemic that has ripped through the Rust Belt and claimed thousands of lives across the country.

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The family of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was killed earlier this month when she was hit by one of Uber’s self-driving vehicles in Tempe, Ariz., has reached a settlement with the ride-hailing giant,  an attorney for the family said Thursday.

The terms of the settlement, less than two weeks after the fatal crash, were unknown, but appeared to forestall a potential legal showdown in the case.

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UnitedHealth Group Inc has moved to seek damages from the U.S. government after a federal judge dismissed part of a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department claiming the insurer obtained more than $1 billion from Medicare based on inaccurate information.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Monday ordered AbbVie Inc to pay more than $3 million to a man who claimed the company misrepresented the risks of its testosterone replacement drug AndroGel, causing him to suffer a heart attack, though the jury did not find AbbVie strictly liable.

The verdict in federal court in Chicago came down in the second trial over claims by Oregon resident Jesse Mitchell after U.S.
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Ford said Wednesday that it is recalling nearly 1.4 million cars in North America after the company discovered that steering wheels in two vehicle models could come off while driving. The Michigan-based automaker said bolts on the steering wheel may become loose, leading to a loss of control and an “increased risk of a crash.”

Ford said it is aware of two accidents, with one injury, allegedly related to the defect.

The two affected models are the Ford Fusion and the Lincoln MKZ.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N), Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) and Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE) knew of problems with Takata air bag inflators and should have moved faster to recall vehicles, according to company documents cited on Wednesday by owners suing the automakers.
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The open-door helicopter tour in which five people died in a crash landing in the East River off Manhattan on Sunday was operating under safety restrictions reserved for photography flights that are looser than those for commercial air-tour rides.

Federal regulations exempt certain operations, including crop-dusting and aerial firefighting, from some of the safety rules that apply to commercial operators. It includes “aerial photography or survey” operations in that category.

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(Reuters) - Yahoo has been ordered by a federal judge to face much of a lawsuit in the United States claiming that the personal information of all 3 billion users was compromised in a series of data breaches.

In a decision on Friday night, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a bid by Verizon Communications Inc, which bought Yahoo’s Internet business last June, to dismiss many claims, including for negligence and breach of contract.

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The lawyer who filed notice of a lawsuit on behalf of a student shot five times in the massacre at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School says he expects to be filing legal papers for more families of victims soon.

Lawyer Alex Arreaza told USA TODAY that evidence increasingly reveals mistakes by the Broward County Sheriff's Office and school district leading up to the Feb. 14 rampage that killed 17 people. Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student at the Parkland school, has admitted to the shootings, authorities say.

"They failed those kids completely, right from the beginning," Arreaza said.
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Hundreds of families’ dreams of having a baby using frozen eggs or embryos may have been dashed due to a storage tank malfunction at an Ohio fertility center.

The temperature in one of the site’s two liquid nitrogen tanks storing specimens at University Hospitals’ UH Fertility Center in suburban Cleveland rose above acceptable limits overnight Saturday, according to the Plain Dealer.

The liquid nitrogen freezer held about 2,000 egg and embryo specimens, according to James Liu, chairman of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UH Cleveland Medical Center. Some patients had more than one sample stored. Some of the samples were provided in the 1980s.
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As tens of thousands of Americans die from prescription opioid overdoses each year, an exclusive analysis by CNN and researchers at Harvard University found that opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money -- and the more opioids a doctor prescribes, the more money he or she makes.

In 2014 and 2015, opioid manufacturers paid hundreds of doctors across the country six-figure sums for speaking, consulting and other services. Thousands of other doctors were paid over $25,000 during that time.

Physicians who prescribed particularly large amounts of the drugs were the most likely to get paid.

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