The Recording Industry Association of America in effort to curb online piracy, sent an instant message to hundreds of thousands of digital music traders with a warning that they could “easily” be identified and face “legal penalties” for swapping copyrighted songs.
The instant message campaign is part of a new anti-piracy “education initiative” launched by the [...]

Prosecutors have reached a $1.4 billion settlement with the nation’s biggest investment firms that bars Citigroup’s chairman and chief executive, Sanford L. Weill, from communicating with his firm’s stock analysts about the companies they cover, unless a lawyer is present.
The settlement by 10 firms and 2 well-known stock analysts resolved accusations that the firms lured [...]

The Bush Administration warned drug companies that they must not offer any financial incentives to doctors, hospitals, insurers or pharmacists to encourage or reward the prescribing of particular drugs. Such payments have “a high potential for fraud and abuse,” according to a government compliance guide for the drug industry, issued by Janet Rehnquist, inspector general [...]

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled for a second time that Verizon Communications Inc. must hand over the identities of two of its Internet subscribers suspected of illegally offering free digital music for downloading.
Unless an appeals court steps in to block the decision pending further review, Verizon will be forced to give up its [...]

China quarantined thousands of Beijing residents who have had contact with suspected carriers of SARS, sealing more than 2,000 health workers and patients inside the Beijing University People’s Hospital complex, in an effort to combat the disease.
Medical personal inside the People’s Hospital reported that more than 70 staff members were suspected of having SARS, forcing [...]

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, is leading an effort that would take asbestos lawsuits out of ordinary courts and establish a national system, which some call a trust fund, to compensate victims. The fund would have between $90 billion and $100 billion, people involved in the effort say.
Skyrocketing asbestos injury lawsuits are [...]

The Bush administration is supporting the Recording Industry Association of America in its effort to force Verizon to disclose the identities of people who are illegally trading digital music files over the Web.
The US Justice Department filed a brief in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia supporting an injunction the RIAA had made [...]

More U.S. children may be adversely affected by environmental lead than previously estimated, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that lead poisoning impacts children’s IQ at lower levels than stipulated in current federal health guidelines.
It is estimated that 2 percent of the 434,000 children younger than 6, [...]

Side effects from prescription drugs impact one in four patients, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“It’s a problem that is common, in many cases the impact could be prevented or reduced, and it has a large impact on patients,” said Tejal Gandhi, an internist at Brigham & Women’s [...]

The U.S. Environment Protection Agency set off a warning bell when it released a preliminary assessment of the health risks associated to a Teflon-related chemical found in consumer products from Teflon pans and Gore-Tex jackets to water-resistant carpets.
The EPA announced that is requiring DuPont and other manufacturers of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, to take a [...]