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Kroger agrees to pay up to $1.4 billion to settle opioid lawsuits

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

One of the nation’s largest grocery chains is the latest company to agree to settle lawsuits over the U.S. opioid crisis.In a deal announced Friday, the Kroger Co. would pay up to $1.4 billion over 11 years. The amount includes up to $1.2 billion for state and local governments where it operates, $36 million to Native American tribes and about $177 million to cover lawyers’ fees and costs.Kroger currently has stores in 35 states — virtually everywhere save the Northeast, the northern plains and Hawaii. Thirty-three states would be eligible for money in the deal. The company previously announced settlements with New Mexico and West Virginia.Over the past eight years, prescription drug manufacturers, wholesalers, consultants and pharmacies have proposed or finalized opioid settlements totaling more than $50 billion, including at least 12 others worth more than $1 billion. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments later this year on whether one of the larger settlemen...

COVID-19 numbers spike in B.C. but no more cases of new variant are detected

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 numbers, with cases, test positivity, hospitalizations and deaths all up in recent weeks.The BC Centre for Disease Control says in a monthly report that 447 people tested positive in tests funded by the province’s medical services plan in the week ending Sept. 2, more than triple the 133 cases in the week ending Aug. 12. Positivity doubled to about 18 per cent in the same period.The increase in COVID-19 numbers comes after the detection of Canada’s first known case of the BA. 2.86 variant last month in B.C., but the centre says that remains the province’s only known case of the new strain.On Sept. 7, a total of 241 people with COVID-19 were in hospital across the province, with weekly admissions spiking from 95 in the week ending Aug. 12 to 136 two weeks later, before dipping to 119 new cases.The centre says the number of deaths rose from eight in the first week of the reporting period to 15, then dip...

The FAA is considering mandating technology to warn pilots before they land on the wrong runway

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

The Federal Aviation Administration indicated Friday that it is moving toward requiring that planes be equipped with technology designed to prevent close calls around airports.Many new airline jets are equipped with some of this technology, but older ones are not, and neither are many private planes.The FAA asked an internal advisory panel to make recommendations on how to require systems that would alert pilots if they are lined up to land on the wrong runway or a taxiway, or when the runway they have chosen is too short.The FAA said the move is part of its effort to eliminate “serious close calls.” The National Transportation Safety Board has started investigations into seven such incidents since January. Planes typically have GPS-based systems that warn pilots if they are in danger of hitting the ground or an obstacle. Providers such as Honeywell augment those systems with more information during taxi, takeoffs and landings to reduce the risk of close calls or “runway incursions....

Judge orders Louisiana to remove incarcerated youths from the state’s maximum-security adult prison

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered that incarcerated youths be removed from a temporary lockup at a former death row building in Louisiana’s adult maximum-security prison by Sept. 15 after critics argued the youths are kept in unsafe conditions and don’t receive adequate schooling or mental health services. Juvenile detainees and their advocates allege that youths have been held in harmful conditions at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, suffering through dangerous heat waves, extended confinement to their cells, foul water and inadequate schooling. Proponents have argued that the space is needed to house “high-risk” aggressive youths, many of whom have been involved in violent incidents at other detention facilities, and that locking them up at the adult prison keeps the community safe.Attorneys said U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, who ruled from the bench in a Friday morning hearing, found that conditions at Angola were unconstitutional and t...

New murder charges brought against the man accused of killing UVA football players

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Authorities have upgraded murder charges against the man accused of fatally shooting three University of Virginia football players last year.A special grand jury in Charlottesville issued the new aggravated murder indictments against Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. If convicted, the 23-year-old would serve a mandatory life sentence. They are the most serious murder charges available in Virginia after it abolished the death penalty in 2021.Jones was a UVA student in November 2022 and a former member of the football team when police say he opened fire on a charter bus that had brought back students from a field trip.Football players Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were killed, while a fourth member of the team, Mike Hollins, and another student were wounded.Jones had initially been charged with second-degree murder after his arrest.Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley said in a news release that the new indictments were ret...

Nickelback entertains the haters in new documentary on Alberta rockers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

Nickelback has tasted the hater-ade from the band’s zealous detractors — and is raising a toast to them.A new documentary called “Hate to Love: Nickelback” premieres today at the Toronto International Film Festival. The rockers from Hanna, Alta. have signed off on the film that, in part, grapples with their complicated legacy.On one hand, they’ve delivered numerous top-selling albums over their three-decade career, and on the other, they’re often called one of the most-hated rock acts of all time.It’s a history that bassist Mike Kroeger — brother of frontman Chad Kroeger — says was impossible to ignore as they considered how to tell the story about their formation and worldwide success.And so the band decided to tackle their reputation head-on by acknowledging the hate in the documentary’s title while dedicating a small part of the film to dissecting how they landed such paradoxical popularity.“Hate to Love: Nickelback,” from roc...

A UN envoy has made his first visit to Western Sahara. He pledged to advance the political process

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations doubled down on its pledge to revive stalled negotiations over the disputed Western Sahara during a visit to the region this week in which its top negotiator met with officials on all sides before the release of a highly anticipated U.N. report next month.The visit was Staffan de Mistura’s first to the Western Sahara since he was appointed in 2021 to oversee U.N. efforts to guide negotiations that date back more than three decades.Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in 1975, sparking a conflict with the pro-independence Polisario Front. The region is believed to have considerable offshore oil deposits and mineral resources and is slightly larger than the United Kingdom.The U.N. brokered a 1991 cease-fire and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce and help prepare a referendum on the territory’s future. Disagreements over who is eligible to vote have prevented the referendum from taking place. The Polisario...

Lawsuit blames Peloton for death of NYC man whose bike fell on his neck during workout

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A woman has filed a lawsuit against Peloton over the death of her son, who was killed when his exercise bike fell on his neck during a workout in his New York City apartment.Ryan Furtado, 32, was doing a workout in his Brooklyn apartment that involved getting off his Peloton bike to do floor exercises and then getting back on it when the accident occurred on Jan. 13, 2022, according to the lawsuit filed March 10 in New York state court.Furtado grabbed the bike to hoist himself up, but it “spun around and impacted him on the face and neck,” according to the lawsuit filed by his mother, Johanna Furtado. The impact severed Furtado’s carotid artery, killing him instantly, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that the equipment was sold “in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition.”Johanna Furtado, who is seeking unspecified damages, accuses Peloton of negligence for selling the bike “in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition” and fa...

Former Philadelphia police officer charged with murder after shooting Black man

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

(The Hill) -- The Philadelphia District Attorney charged a former city police officer with murder on Friday over the shooting of a Black man during a traffic stop last month.Then-officer Mark Dial, who is white, shot and killed Eddie Irizarry, who is Black, while he sat in his vehicle after police stopped his car over alleged erratic driving last month, video showed.District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) released the graphic unedited body camera footage of the shooting Friday, which appears to show Dial exiting his police cruiser, approaching Irizarry’s driver’s side window and firing six shots just seconds after approaching the car.Dial and a second police officer then appear to remove Irizarry from his vehicle by his hands and feet and place him in a police cruiser to be transported to a hospital. He was declared dead at an area hospital minutes later.There was “no question” that the district attorney’s office should bring charges, Krasner said at a press conference, adding if the sh...

Private texts, whistleblower memes revealed in Paxton impeachment trial

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:05:36 GMT

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Whistleblower Ryan Vassar resumed testimony in Ken Paxton's impeachment trial Friday morning, recounting the events surrounding his decision to report Paxton to the FBI for alleged ethical and legal violations.Friday morning began with tense cross-examination from Paxton's defense team.Thursday afternoon, Vassar teared up at Paxton's suggestion that he and the whistleblowers were "rogue employees." That assertion was "contrary to the years that I dedicated my life to the state," he said. Defense attorneys on Friday appeared to attempt to discredit those solemn emotions, referencing text messages Vassar sent in a private group chat of whistleblowers.Paxton defense attorney J. Mitchell Little displayed numerous text messages showing Vassar and other former employees demeaning other colleagues, insulting their intelligence and making light of their difficult experience following the FBI complaint.One text from Vassar included an image of "Going Rouge: The Sarah Pali...