Missouri AG sues drug companies
Compiled from news services
ST.LOUIS — Missouri AttorneyGeneral Josh Hawley filedsuit against three large pharmaceuticalcompanies onWednesday, saying their “campaignof fraud and deception”led to a startling opioid crisisin the state.
Mr. Hawley, a Republican, filed suit in St. Louis Circuit Court, naming Endo Pharmaceuticals, Purdue Pharma, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Hawley said at a news conference that the suit will seek “hundreds of millions of dollars” in both damages and civil penalties.
Mr. Hawley said the three companies have misrepresented the addictive risks of opioids, often using fraudulent science to back their claims. As a result, thousands of Missourians dealing with chronic pain were given unnecessary opioid prescriptions.
Ex-Texas nurse charged
SANANTONIO — A former Texas nurse who prosecutors say may be responsible for the deaths of up to 60 young children was indicted Wednesday on a murder charge for the second time in recent weeks.
TheBexar County district attorney’s office said in a statementthat Genene Jones wascharged in the September1981 death of 2-year-old RosemaryVega.
Shewas charged with a separatecount of murder last monthin the death of an 11month-oldboy.
Jones, 66, is serving concurrent 99-year and 60-year sentences in state prison for the 1982 killing of another toddler and the sickening of a 4-week-old boy who survived. But she was scheduled to be released in March under a mandatory release law in place when she was convicted.
During Jones’ time working at a San Antonio hospital and elsewhere in Texas, children died of unexplained seizures and other complications.
Muslim teen’s funeral
The northern Virginia Muslim community and grieving high-schoolers gathered on Wednesday to mourn Nabra Hassanen, a 17-year-old killed while she was walking to her mosque with friends on Sunday.
Dranesville Road, which was largely empty when an attacker beat Nabra there early Sunday morning, was packed with people walking along the same sidewalk to attend her funeral. In traditional Muslim garb and Western attire, they walked and drove from every direction to All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS).
The mosque in Sterling, Va., is where Nabra and her friends were returning about 4 a.m. Sunday after going to eat at a nearby McDonald’s before their Ramadan fast that would begin at dawn.
Authorities arrested Darwin Martinez Torres, of Sterling, in connection with her killing after a Fairfax County officer noticed him circling the site Sunday after Nabra had been reported missing shortly after the other teens reached the mosque.
The brutal assault has alarmed the surrounding Muslim community and reverberated nationally with calls for a hate-crime investigation.
Also in the nation ...
An extreme heat wave in the southwestern U.S. made the fight against a series of wildfires more difficult Wednesday, including one that has destroyed at least four homes in an Arizona town known for its wineries, authorities said. ... Tensions among gang members at a state prison in Florida’s Panhandle exploded Wednesday morning, as the inmates took over several dorms, injuring seven correctional officers, officials said.