Current Events

Feb 27 A federal judge has certified a class-action lawsuit accusing the big U.S. debt collector Midland Funding LLC of violating New York usury laws by charging thousands of struggling borrowers interest rates above 25 percent when trying to collect.

Monday's decision by U.S.
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DETROIT -- Japanese auto supplier Takata, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, pleaded guilty Monday as a corporation in federal court, agreed to a $1 billion plea deal and told a federal judge its behavior over a 15-year period was "deeply inappropriate."

Takata, a 70-year-old supplier of airbags, seatbelts and other safety equipment to nearly every global automaker, made airbags that have been tied to 17 deaths globally. The potentially defective airbags, which can spray shrapnel into the faces of occupants when they activate, are on more than 42 million vehicles worldwide. Its headquarters is in Tokyo but its U.S.
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If anything about driverless cars can be considered an old riddle it is this one: the car is driving itself down a residential street when a woman pushing a baby stroller suddenly enters a crosswalk. Unable to stop, should the car’s computer opt to hit mother and child, or veer off to strike a tree, almost certainly killing its passengers?

That macabre scenario has been fodder for ethicists almost since the prospect that cars might drive themselves first entered the horizon. It also, however, provides a second riddle: Regardless of the choice made by the car’s computer, who pays for the damages?

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Rising infections caused by a type of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics is causing longer hospitalizations and may mean a higher risk of death for children in the United States, according to a new study.

The study, published this week in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, found that 3 out of 5 children admitted to hospitals already had an antibiotic-resistant infection — suggesting these infections are spreading more often in the community.

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One of the city’s top hospitals is gouging patients for copies of their medical records — charging them twice what the law allows, according to a new class-action lawsuit.

The illegal move, which potentially affects thousands of patients, came to light when 72-year-old retiree Vicky Ortiz sought copies of her records from NewYork–Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, her Manhattan Supreme Court suit says.

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What’s the biggest killer in hospitals? Secrecy. That’s the takeaway from the feds — specifically, the Government Accountability Office and the Food and Drug Administration.

Both agencies report that hospitals are failing to disclose when medical devices injure or kill patients by spreading cancer cells throughout their bodies or infecting them with superbugs. Federal regulation requires hospitals and doctors to notify the FDA of these “adverse events” immediately, but that regulation often goes ignored.

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BMW will be issuing a recall for over 19,000 i3 REx (range-extended) cars towards the beginning of April due to concerns about fuel vapors potentially starting fires, according to recent reports.

The issue, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is that the BMW i3 REx’s fuel tank can rub up against the wire protection sleeve of the battery-positive cable (which is ribbed), and that over time the vent line may wear and lead to the formation of a hole, which fuel vapors could then enter the engine compartment through.

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What started out as a good week for the Lotus transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) valve was quickly derailed as manufacturer Boston Scientific voluntarily issued a mass recall of all Lotus devices.

The issue: a problem with premature release of a pin connecting the valve to its delivery system. Operators had encountered the problem this fall in the next-generation Lotus Edge line of devices -- but Boston Scientific claimed to have fixed the issue a month ago.

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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has posted a safety recall notice with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announcing that 69,298 Dodge and Chrysler all-wheel drive vehicles may be at risk.

Dodge, Chrysler Loose Bolt Problem

The problem involves the potential loosening of the front driveshaft bolts, which could lead to the loss of power when driving. Affected cars include Dodge Charger LD with AWD with model year 2014-2017 and MY Chrysler 300 LX with AWD models 2014-2017.

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Mercedes-Benz is recalling roughly 12,500 E-Class vehicles from the 2017 model year to fix a manufacturing problem that could increase the risk of injury during collisions. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explains that the occupant detection control unit in some 2017 E-Class cars may have been improperly installed.

That's a real concern, because the control unit turns the front passenger airbags on and off, depending on whether the front passenger seat is occupied by an adult. If it deactivates the airbags because it thinks that cargo or a child seat have been placed in the front passenger seat, adult passengers could face a dramatically higher risk of injury in a crash.

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Studies drug companies fund after medicines go on sale may be too small to detect rare side effects, a recent German study suggests.

Even if these so-called post-marketing studies do uncover previously undetected adverse events, physicians conducting the trials are often required to keep results confidential, limiting the potential for regulators or patients to learn about safety issues, according to the study in The BMJ.

When drugs are approved based on tests in only a few thousand patients, very little is known about long-term safety or the potential for rare side effects to occur when tens of thousands of people take the medicines, said lead study author Dr. Angela Spelsberg, medical director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center in Aachen, Germany.

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