| Need To Know. |
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| Landmark Opioid Ruling. |
A district court judge ruled in favor of the State of Oklahoma yesterday, ordering pharmaceutical and consumer goods manufacturer Johnson & Johnson to pay $572M for its role in the opioid crisis. Prosecutors alleged the company - which supplies 60% of the opiates used in prescription painkillers and sells its own pills and patches - helped fuel the epidemic through aggressive and misleading marketing tactics. The ruling marks the first time a drugmaker has been held responsible in court for damages arising from the crisis, which now accounts for close to 50,000 overdose deaths per year in the US. The state had previously filed lawsuits against a range of large manufacturers but struck a number of settlements, including with Purdue Pharma ($270M settlement) in March and Teva Pharma ($85M) in May. J&J was the only company to take the legal battle to court, though two dozen companies face around 2,000 similar lawsuits around the country.
Experts have described the crisis in three waves - a late 90's surge of prescription pain pills, a flood of cheap heroin in the 2000's that users substituted for prescriptions, and the emergence of super-potent illicit fentanyl. |
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| Tropical Storm Dorian. |
| Puerto Rico is bracing for a potential low-level hurricane as Tropical Storm Dorian moves through the Caribbean, passing through Barbados overnight. The storm is expected to grow into a Category 1 hurricane by late today, reaching Puerto Rico by tomorrow morning and making landfall in the Dominican Republic by tomorrow evening (see trajectory). If forecasts hold, Dorian will become just the second Atlantic hurricane of 2019, nearly halfway through the season that runs from June 1st to November 30th. While the rain and wind are not expected to pose a direct threat to the islands - mostly localized flooding concerns - it arrives as Puerto Rico is still dealing with the lingering effects of 2017's devastating Hurricane Maria. In particular, the power grid is still fragile, having not been fully restored until March of this year, and residents reportedly lined up around corners to gather supplies from stores. An ongoing political crisis on the island also raises concerns over the ability of the government to respond to a crisis should the storm worsen. |
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| States Sue Over Flores Agreement. |
19 states filed suit against the Trump administration over recently announced rule changes modifying how long immigrant families could be detained. The lawsuit is being co-led by the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts, citing concerns that states would lose oversight of detention centers under the proposal. The original rules, set forth in the 1997 Reno v. Flores legal decision, prohibit children from being held in immigration detention centers for excessive periods of time (generally about 20 days). The new rules seek to codify minimum standards in holding facilities but would abolish caps on how long children - and by implication families - could be held. Critics maintain migrant smuggling operations take advantage of the guidelines, which create a de facto "catch and release" policy. An estimated 475,000 families have attempted to cross the border since last October, three times the record of any previous full year.
In related news, the administration ended a policy that allowed migrants to remain in the country during medical treatment. |
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| In The Know. |
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| Sports, Entertainment & Culture. |
| > Taylor Swift wins best video at 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, Ariana Grande wins best artist (More) | And here are the best-dressed celebs from the VMA red carpet (More) |
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| > Isabel Toledo, iconic fashion designer who designed Michelle Obama's 2009 inauguration dress, dies at 59 (More) |
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| > US Open began yesterday as Serena Williams topped Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-1 in day's biggest match (More) | See full US Open bracket and preview (More) |
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| Science & Technology. |
| > New calculations place an upper limit on the mass of the muon neutrino, the lightest elementary particle, of six million times less than the mass of an electron (More) |
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| > Leading chipmaker Nvidia partners with VMware, Amazon to provide virtual processing capability for artificial intelligence software on the cloud; will let companies develop AI and machine learning capabilities without buying costly AI-capable chips (More) |
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| > Study links disruption of glial cells, which provide support and protection for neural cells in the brain, to epileptic seizures (More) |
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| Business & Markets. |
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> US stock markets up (S&P 500 +1.1%, Dow +1.1%, Nasdaq +1.3%) after Trump signals China is willing to negotiate end to trade war (More)
> Pharmaceutical giant Amgen to acquire psoriasis drug Otezla from Celgene for $13.4B (More) |
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> Facebook wins appeal against German court’s order to restrict combining user data (More)
With average annual returns of 10.6%, art is one asset class that’s been on everyone’s radar. Masterworks, an exclusive members-only platform, provides direct exposure to the white-hot art market (More) #Ad |
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| Politics & World Affairs. |
| > US, China tentatively set to resume trade negotiations following weekend of retaliatory tariff hikes (More) |
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| > G7 leaders set aside $22M for fire fighting efforts in the Amazon; US skips meeting (More) | President Trump wraps weekend summit with press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron (More) |
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> Indonesia chooses site for new capital, planning to move from Jakarta to a site on the island of Borneo beginning in 2024; home to over 10 million, Jakarta is sinking below sea level at rate of 10-20 cm per year (More)
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| Invest in your best rest. |
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| In Depth. |
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| I'mma Let You Finish, But... |
| Billboard | Gil Kaufman. It's been 10 years since Kanye West bum-rushed the stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards to snatch the mic from a 19-year-old Taylor Swift. Here are the first-hand accounts you haven't heard yet. (Read) |
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| No One Just Goes Hiking in Afghanistan. |
Washington Post | Missy Ryan. Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman were kidnapped and imprisoned in the Pakistani hinterlands for five years, managing to have three children while in captivity. But once home, a much more complicated - and shocking - story began to emerge. (Read)
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"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."
- W.E.B. Du Bois |
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