Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WASHINGTON - The government highway safety agency closed its probe Wednesday into 4.37 million Chrysler minivans prone to sudden rear door openings in side-impact crashes. It said the company's repair program was adequate.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had been investigating whether the latches needed to be strengthened when Chrysler offered last spring to repair them.
The agency had kept its investigation open until it was satisfied the repair program was adequate and would be advertised properly. It is the third-largest ``repair action'' in the agency's history, said Deputy Administrator Philip Recht.
- Associated Press
Drug subsidiary settles fraud cases
NEW YORK - A company whose job is to provide the most cost-effective medicines for 45 million Americans has settled civil charges that it broke consumer fraud laws by improperly promoting drugs made by its parent corporation.
Medco, a division of drug maker Merck & Co., agreed with 17 states - not including Virginia - Wednesday to ``substantially reform'' the way it promotes drugs.
The states charged that Medco pharmacists routinely phoned doctors to convince them to switch patients to Merck drugs without explaining Medco's link to Merck.
Medco admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. It agreed to pay $1.9 million to cover the cost of a yearlong investigation.
- Associated Press
Jury: Abortion foes to pay $8.6 million
DALLAS - A federal jury ordered abortion protesters to pay a doctor and his wife $8.6 million Wednesday for tormenting the couple for about a year.
Dr. Norman Tompkins and his wife, Carolyn, were awarded $3.6 million in punitive damages, $2.3 million for intentional infliction of emotional stress and $2.8 million for invasion of privacy.
Tompkins, 62, said his practice and privacy were destroyed by months of picketing at his office, hospital, church, home and his wife's workplace and by threatening calls and mail.
Three organizations, including Operation Rescue, and 10 individuals must pay the damages.
``We don't have that kind of money,'' said the Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Rescue, who was personally named in the lawsuit. ``They can take everything we have, but the Gospel will not change.''
- Associated Press
Tattoo lacks a `t'; tattoo-ee teed off
NEWARK, N.J. - Dan O'Connor is fighing mad. Not ``fighting.'' ``Fighing.''
The Notre Dame fan went to a tattoo parlor in August for a permanent symbol of his allegiance to the school's Fighting Irish - a $125 drawing of the university's leprechaun mascot.
But when O'Connor took the bandages off his upper arm, his girlfriend began laughing.
The inscription read: ``Fighing Irish.''
``I was irate, and for a minute or two after I cooled down I kind of giggled,'' he said. ``But I can't just live with this. You're not talking about a dented car where you can get another one. ... You're talking about flesh.''
On Monday, the 22-year-old sued the Tattoo Shoppe in Carlstadt seeking unspecified damages.
O'Connor said he was humiliated by the typo. His friends call him ``Fighing.''
- Associated Press
Astrology author Linda Goodman dies
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Linda Goodman, author of ``Sun Signs,'' the book credited with popularizing astrology in the Age of Aquarius, is dead at age 70.
Goodman died Saturday of complications stemming from diabetes, Penrose Hospital officials said.
``Linda Goodman's Sun Signs,'' which examined personality types based on horoscopes, was published in 1968 and became the first book on astrology to make The New York Times best-seller list. It has sold more than 5 million copies.
- Associated Press
by CNB