The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it was banning the manufacture and sale of ephedra, an herbal weight-loss supplement, because of its unreasonable risk of illness or injury.
HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced at a news conference that the FDA has issued a consumer alert on the safety of dietary supplements containing ephedra […]

Union County Judge Alfred Beglin has ruled against the certification of a national class action lawsuit against Kia Motors America.
“In certain class action cases, you can pretty much find uniformity from state to state. You can’t here,” Beglin said in his oral opinion.
The ruling limits the case to a proposed class of New Jersey […]

The Recording Industry Association of America cannot force Internet service providers to identify subscribers, who may be swapping copyrighted music online, a federal appeals court ruled. The ruling is a major setback for the recording industry’s anti-piracy campaign.
The appeals court overturned a decision in a federal district court that allowed the RIAA to force ISPs […]

Pregnant women, nursing mothers and women thinking about getting pregnant should not eat more than 12 ounces of tuna and other fish per week, says a draft advisory from the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the past, the FDA had warned pregnant women against eating big fish (shark, swordfish, king mackerel […]

CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the New York Stock Exchange and seven “specialist” firms, alleging that the Exchange looked the other way as the specialists cheated investors of millions of dollars through improper trading.
The California Public Employees Retirement System, which invests $60 billion in pension money for 1.4 […]

President Bush signed the first national anti-spam bill into law today, restricting junk commercial e-mail and setting jail time and multimillion dollar fines for violators.
“Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, are annoying to consumers and costly to our economy,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said after Bush signed the bill. “This will help address the problems associated […]

Canadians may legally download copyright music from the Internet, but not upload it, the Canadian copyright board ruled. A person may legally record music for personal use, but is prohibited to sell, rent or distribute such recording, the board said.
“It does not matter whether the source of the recording is a pre-owned track, a borrowed […]

A Mississippi jury cleared Bayer, the German drug company, of liability in a $156,000 lawsuit filed by an 83-year-old man claiming muscle weakness from taking the anti-cholesterol drug Baycol. The lawsuit, filed by Billy G. Slaughter of Laurel, said Baycol “drug carried an unreasonably dangerous risk for severe muscle injury and death,” reported The Clarion […]

Upon arrival to the United States, almost all foreign visitors traveling on visas will soon have their “pictures and fingerprints registered in the world’s largest biometric database before being allowed in the country,” Wired News reported. Visitors traveling on visas will also need to verify their departure in order to keep their individual travel record […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Every day, consumers across the country who buy automobiles are bilked of hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars apiece by fraudulent auto sales representatives perpetuating one of the most pervasive scams in this country, according to a new report by Public Citizen.
The report, Rip-Off Nation: Auto Dealers’ Swindling of America, outlines […]