ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Despite a veto threat from President Clinton, the Senate approved 59-40 a scaled-back bill Thursday to discourage big damage awards in cases involving defective products.
The bill is the product of a 20-year effort by large and small businesses - including insurers and tobacco companies - to limit their exposure in product-liability lawsuits.
The bill would limit punitive damages to:
Twice the sum of the compensatory damages (for financial loss as well as pain and suffering) or $250,000, whichever is more, in cases involving big businesses;
Or, twice the compensatory damages or $250,000, whichever is less, in small-business cases.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune
$1.5 million fine set in immigrant hires
Federal immigration authorities Thursday announced the largest fine ever levied against a company for hiring illegal immigrants - $1.5 million against a New York cleaning business - as part of an effort to pressure employers to comply with immigration laws.
An attorney for Colin Service Systems Inc., based in White Plains, N.Y., said the company had never knowingly hired illegal workers.
- The New York Times
Nitric oxide found vital in bloodstream
Scientists have long known the hemoglobin in the blood shuttles two vital gases to and from lungs and other tissues. Now, they've learned it ferries a third gas as well - nitric oxide, which seems to be important in the respiratory cycle.
``At first, no one quite believed us,'' said Dr. Jonathan Stamler, a pulmonologist and cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. ``The finding is rather surprising.''
Dr. Jonathan Stamler, a pulmonologist and cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., has found that a form of nitric oxide - discovered in blood vessel walls in 1987, andlong corridor of blood vessels in the body.
- Newsday
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB