California court rules that company made misleading and potentially harmful statements in hundreds of thousands of ads
A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Johnson & Johnson must pay penalties to the state for deceptively marketing pelvic mesh implants for women.
Johnson & Johnson had appealed in 2020 after superior court judge Eddie Sturgeon assessed the $344m in penalties against the US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary, Ethicon.
Continue reading...Lawyer for man charged with stealing a coat rack from the Capitol has vowed to show Trump abused his power to ‘authorize’ attack
Mentions of Donald Trump have been rare at the first few trials for people charged with storming the US Capitol, but that has changed: the latest Capitol riot defendant to go on trial is blaming his actions on the former president and his false claims about a stolen election.
Dustin Byron Thompson, an Ohio man charged with stealing a coat rack from the Capitol, doesn’t deny that he joined the mob on 6 January 2021. But his lawyer vowed Tuesday to show that Trump abused his power to “authorize” the attack.
Continue reading...The manhunt ramped up for Frank R James who had rented a U-Haul found at a scene, keys to which were recovered by the police
Millions of New Yorkers began their commutes to work and school on Wednesday morning as law enforcement officers continued searching for the gunman who shot 10 people on a subway train during yesterday’s morning rush hour.
The manhunt ramped up for 62-year-old Frank R James, who police have identified as a “person of interest” in the mass shooting, but who Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday said was a suspect.
Continue reading...GlaxoSmithKline’s £1.5bn Sierra Oncology deal comes after pressure from Elliott to boost its pipeline
The UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed a £1.5bn deal to buy a US cancer treatment developer, Sierra Oncology, as it tries to fend off pressure from the activist shareholder Elliott Management.
The deal will give Britain’s second-largest pharmaceutical company access to California-based Sierra Oncology’s momelotinib, a drug being tested on anaemic patients with a type of bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis. GSK said the drug had “significant growth potential” and it expected sales to start next year, with one analyst predicting it could generate peak annual sales of about $1.7bn (£1.3bn).
Continue reading...US president says Russian leader ‘trying to wipe out the idea of even being Ukrainian’. Plus, the first youth-led climate case to go to trial
Good morning.
Joe Biden has accused Russia of carrying out genocide in Ukraine, saying that Vladimir Putin is “trying to wipe out the idea of even being Ukrainian”.
What did Biden say? “More evidence is coming out of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine. And we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation. We’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.”
What else is happening? Here’s what we know on day 49 of the invasion.
Do we know anything about the suspect? As of late Tuesday night, officials had no one in police custody, but authorities named Frank James, 62, as a person of interest in connection to the shooting. A $50,000 reward has been offered for information.
Continue reading...Deaths rise even as teen drug use drops overall, with researchers pointing to flood of deadly counterfeit pills
Drug overdose deaths among high school-aged US teens have more than doubled since 2019, driven by a rise in the deadly opioid fentanyl, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, who analyzed mortality rates among 14- to 18-year-olds over the past decade, found that while drug use among this age group is actually falling, fatalities are on the rise, jumping from 492 in 2019 to 954 in 2020, then climbing to 1,146 in 2021.
Continue reading...A press conference updating on the Brooklyn subway shooting that happened this morning in the Sunset Park neighborhood just wrapped up, with officials updating that 16 people were injured in today’s attack, including 10 people who were shot, and five people who are in critical but stable condition.
Officials also noted that other injuries from the incident included smoke inhalation, shrapnel, or panic induced from the incident, but said that the shrapnel was not from an explosive device.
Continue reading...Papini will plead guilty to lying to authorities and mail fraud over 2016 incident that led to three-week search
Sherri Papini, the northern California woman charged last month with faking her kidnapping in 2016, accepted a plea bargain with prosecutors on Tuesday and acknowledged she had made up the story that prompted a frantic search and international headlines.
Her defense attorney William Portanova said his client would plead guilty to charges of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud.
Continue reading...Biden says ‘we’re not letting up until we find the perpetrator’ as manhunt under way for shooter
A gunman wearing a gas mask filled a crowded New York subway car with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds.
A manhunt was under way on Tuesday after the shooter, described as a heavy-built Black male about 5ft 5in tall, wearing a green construction-type vest and hooded grey sweatshirt, fled the scene of the shooting. Officers were searching for a U-Haul truck with an Arizona license plate as of Tuesday afternoon, police told multiple media outlets, and the vehicle was later found.
Continue reading...Democrat Brian Benjamin pleads not guilty to several charges, as arrest creates political crisis for governor Kathy Hochul
New York’s lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned on Tuesday in the wake of his arrest in a federal corruption investigation, the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said.
The development created a political crisis for Hochul seven months after she selected Benjamin as a partner to make a fresh start in an office rocked by scandal after Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned amid allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.
Continue reading...Business groups warn of supply chain disruptions after Governor Greg Abbott orders checks for people and contraband smuggling
Mexican truck drivers have blockaded bridges at the border with the United States for a second day to protest against an order by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, to increase safety inspections that has snarled traffic at ports of entry and led business groups to warn of supply chain disruptions.
“Yesterday it took me 17 hours to cross into the United States and return,” said Raymundo Galicia, a Mexican driver participating in a protest at the Santa Teresa bridge connecting San Jerónimo, Chihuahua, to Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Continue reading...The standup comic, also known for voicing Iago in Disney’s animated Aladdin, has died after a long illness
Comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried has died at the age of 67.
His family announced his death after a long illness via his Twitter page. Gottfried was known for his standup comedy and for roles in films including Aladdin and Problem Child.
Continue reading...Big-budget fantasy sequel has had six seconds cut, as Warner Bros releases statement to say ‘the spirit of the film remains intact’
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has been edited for release in China to ensure any gay references have been removed.
The fantasy sequel, which has an estimated budget of $200m, contains allusions to a romantic history between the characters of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen respectively. Six seconds of dialogue, including the lines “Because I was in love with you” and “The summer Gellert and I fell in love”, were taken out for the Chinese release on 8 April.
Continue reading...State department cites risk of children and parents being separated as EU warns zero-Covid strategy eroding investor confidence
The US has said it has asked all its non-essential staff and their family members at the Shanghai consulate to leave, in Washington’s latest response to the financial hub’s handling of the worsening Covid outbreak.
The state department ordered the departure “due to the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak” there, according to a spokesperson from its Beijing embassy. “It is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the person said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Covid-19 cases have risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which city’s guidelines call for masking indoors
Philadelphia on Monday became the first major US city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an Omicron sub-variant.
Confirmed Covid-19 cases had risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which the city’s guidelines called for people to wear masks indoors, said Dr Cheryl Bettigole, Philadelphia health commissioner.
Continue reading...Clip prompts amusement online as car stops, then drives across an intersection, leaving police behind
A video recently posted online shows what happens when police try to apprehend an autonomous vehicle – only to find nobody inside.
Police in San Francisco stopped a vehicle operated by Cruise, an autonomous car company backed by General Motors, in a video posted on 1 April. Officers approached the car, which had been driving without headlights, only to find it was empty.
Continue reading...A judge also granted a restraining order to the pair accused of terrorizing students who ‘provoked extreme fear and anxiety’
A pair of YouTubers are facing a lawsuit and a restraining order after allegedly filming themselves disrupting classes at the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles and uploading footage of the staged pranks online.
The University of Southern California sued Ernest Kanevsky and Yuguo Bai over the incidents, USC Annenberg Media reported last week. A judge granted a restraining order banning Kanevsky and Bai, who are not USC students, from campus after university attorneys said the pranks had terrorized “students to the point where they are running out of lecture halls for fear of their lives”.
Continue reading...Announcement comes after singer was released from conservatorship she says required her to stay on birth control
Britney Spears has apparently revealed she is pregnant with her third child, months after she was released from a conservatorship that she said prevented her from marrying and having additional children.
The Toxic singer shared the news in a post on Instagram on Monday, saying she had taken a pregnancy test after her partner, Sam Asghari, had teased her about being “food pregnant”.
Continue reading...President promises to tackle gun violence and vows prosecution for those who use untraceable guns assembled from kits
Joe Biden has announced a crackdown on “ghost guns”, untraceable firearms assembled from kits that have been used in a rising number of shooting crimes.
The US president, who promised to tackle gun violence across America, said the new rule would make it easier for law enforcement officials to track and catch those who use illegal firearms.
Continue reading...Anti-LGBTQ+ measures among more than 156 bills targeting issues of identity, says PEN report
Since Florida passed its controversial “don’t say gay” bill, conservative states across America have been advancing similar bills as they attempt to ban the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms.
Last month, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill. The law prohibits all discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move that advocates say will “erase” LGBTQ+ students and history.
This article was amended on 11 April 2022. An earlier version of the standfirst suggested all 156 bills in question related to LGBTQ+ issues.
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