Current Events

>BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc for improperly marketing a cholesterol drug and ordered that some of the $40.1 million it agreed to pay to resolve a U.S. investigation go to the company’s victims.

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The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether Apple Inc. violated securities laws concerning its disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models, according to people familiar with the matter.

The government has requested information from the company, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the probe is private.
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In October 2003, Billy Wayne Woods and his family packed into a luxury $181,000 motorhome for a fun getaway to Florida. Call it a textbook American vacation: their destination was Disney World, and with his wife, Shirley, his son and daughter-in law and two grandchildren in tow, the trip would surely be one to remember. But on the return home for the Alabama family, the vacation took an abrupt turn for disaster.

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(Reuters Health) - For black people, smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day is tied to a higher risk of developing diabetes, a U.S. study suggests.

While previous research has found that smokers and black people both have higher risks of diabetes than nonsmokers and individuals from other racial and ethnic backgrounds, the current study offers fresh evidence that the amount of cigarette use can impact this risk.

Researchers examined data on 2,991 black adults who didn’t have diabetes, including 361 who were current smokers and 502 who were ex-smokers.
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Was Autopilot on when a Tesla Model S smashed into the back of a parked Culver City fire truck on the 405 Freeway on Monday in broad daylight?

That's what the driver told police. Tesla Inc. — which would have such information because it monitors car and driver behavior over wireless networks — has not yet said yes or no.

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General Motors says it has voluntarily begun an internal review of panoramic sunroofs in its vehicles following a Consumer Reports investigation that detailed how hundreds of sunroofs nationwide and across the auto industry have shattered without warning.

“GM has initiated an internal review of our panoramic sunroofs,” the automaker told CR in an email. “We expect to have additional information as we go through that process.” GM also said that the company is committed to the safety of its vehicles and continuously reviews issues that are presented by its customers. Read GM's full response (PDF).
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A Seattle judge said Olympus Corp. failed to properly disclose internal emails that raised safety concerns about a redesigned medical scope as early as 2008, several years before the device was publicly tied to deadly superbug outbreaks.

Citing those “willful discovery violations” by the Japanese device giant, King County Superior Court Judge Steve Rosen ordered a new trial (PDF) Tuesday in a wrongful death case brought by Theresa Bigler. The Seattle-area widow, whose case was the first to go to trial in the nationwide outbreaks, claimed that a tainted Olympus scope caused the infection that led to her husband’s death in 2013. The jury returned a mixed verdict, finding that the device’s design was not unsafe.
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(Reuters) - A federal judge in Philadelphia on Tuesday rejected Wells Fargo & Co’s bid to dismiss that city’s lawsuit accusing the largest U.S. mortgage lender of predatory lending targeting black and Hispanic borrowers.

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City-owned hospitals are letting psychotic killers slip through their grasp, say a pair of recently-filed lawsuits.

Francisco Perez, who has a history of mental illness, drug abuse and violent behavior, threatened to kill his brother in October 2016 while he was a patient at Metropolitan Hospital Center in East Harlem, says a suit in Bronx Supreme Court.

But hospital staff failed to take Perez’s ravings seriously. The day he was released, he allegedly carried through on his threats and stabbed Luis Gonzalez to death.

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Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it had confirmed a second death in an older pickup truck caused by a defective airbag inflator of Takata Corp and urged 2,900 owners in North America to stop driving immediately until they can get replacement parts.

The second largest U.S. automaker said it confirmed in late December that a July 2017 crash death in West Virginia in a 2006 Ford Ranger was caused by a defective Takata inflator. It previously reported a similar death in South Carolina that occurred in December 2015.
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People who bought policies from Centene, a large for-profit health insurance company, filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday claiming the company does not provide adequate access to doctors in 15 states.

“Members have difficulty finding — and in many cases cannot find — medical providers,” who will accept patients covered under policies sold by Centene, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington State.

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