Trump Taps Bhattacharya For National Institutes Of Health

By Lauren Berg

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a physician who opposed the use of lockdowns and mask mandates to contain the spread of COVID-19, to lead the National Institutes of Health.

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NIH Beats 4th Circ. Bid To Unmask COVID Researcher

By Yeji Jesse Lee

National Institutes of Health on Tuesday defeated a circuit court appeal by a whistleblower organization which had sought to uncover the identity of a Wuhan University researcher who submitted sequencing data to an open-access NIH archive.

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HCA Hospital Sale On Hold Amid Antitrust Concerns

By Gianna Ferrarin

An Indiana healthcare system has withdrawn its application with the state health department for a planned purchase of a hospital from HCA Healthcare following concerns from the Federal Trade Commission, saying it needs more time to rework the application.

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Insys Founder Kapoor Dropped From Del. Opioid Harm Suit

By Jeff Montgomery

A Delaware state court has dropped Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John N. Kapoor from a 6-year-old lawsuit that originally sought damages from Insys, Kapoor and several Delaware opioid prescribers and suppliers, ruling that the state lacked jurisdiction to pursue him for alleged harm to three state residents, two of them pain management patients.

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Tort Report: Fla. Jury Delivers $141.5M Trucking Crash Verdict

By Y. Peter Kang

A pending Pennsylvania Supreme Court case over Uber's so-called click-through arbitration agreements and a $141.5 million trucking crash verdict out of Florida lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Mexico Floats Retaliation Against New Trump Tariffs

By Alex Lawson

Hours after President-elect Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum signaled that her government would respond with levies of its own Tuesday, imploring Trump to take a more diplomatic approach.

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Pa. Nursing Home Eying Sale Seeks Fraud Sentencing Delay

By Matthew Santoni

The parent company for a troubled Western Pennsylvania nursing home asked a federal court to postpone a sentencing for defrauding state and federal healthcare programs so the company can keep trying to sell the facility, or at least relocate its residents over a longer period of time.

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Truepill's $7.5M Patent Data Theft Settlement Gets Initial OK

By Hailey Konnath

A California federal judge Tuesday preliminarily backed a $7.5 million deal resolving a proposed class action alleging that online pharmacy PostMeds Inc., which does business as Truepill, failed to protect the sensitive information of millions of patients from a data breach.

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Court Asked To Halt DEA's Pot Rescheduling Hearing

By Jonathan Capriel

The Drug Enforcement Administration's plan to hold administrative hearings on a proposal to reclassify marijuana must be stopped, a psychedelics researcher argued, telling a Washington federal judge that the DEA is not giving a voice to small entity researchers and tribal stakeholders.

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CGL Carrier Seeks $1.2M In Inter-Insurer Injury Dispute

By Jennifer Mandato

A general liability insurer told a Michigan federal court that a professional liability insurer owes $1.2 million toward a $1.5 million settlement reached in an underlying lawsuit involving their mutual insured, a cardiovascular practice located in a Detroit hospital, arguing that the professional liability policy covered the claim.

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CMS Cancels Call Center Solicitation With Disputed Labor Clause

By Daniel Wilson

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services called off its unusual resolicitation of a still-active $6.6 billion contract for contact center services on Tuesday, following litigation from contractor Maximus over a contentious labor harmony agreement in the solicitation.

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Officials Must Face Claims From Pot Farm Raid, Grower Says

By Jonathan Capriel

A farmer whose Oklahoma property was razed by state drug enforcers, allegedly causing the destruction of crops and agriculture equipment worth millions of dollars, is pushing back on efforts by law enforcement to escape his suit, saying they shouldn't get qualified immunity.

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Adult Day Care Tries To Duck Suit Over Autistic Man's Death

By Carolina Bolado

An adult day care center urged a Florida court on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit over the death of an autistic man who was left alone in a hot transport van for hours, arguing that the man's sister does not qualify as his survivor for a wrongful death claim.

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Health Policy Predictions For Trump's Second Administration

As President-elect Donald Trump's nominations for health policy and enforcement heads work their way through the confirmation process, healthcare organizations can look at nominee backgrounds, campaign statements and actions from Trump's previous presidency to predict incoming priorities, say attorneys at McDermott.

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Series

Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

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Bonus Spotlight

Bonus Season Heats Up As More Firms Match Milbank's Scale

By Xiumei Dong

The 2024 associate bonus season is heating up, with more law firms matching Milbank LLP's year-end and special bonuses and U.K. firms extending the same offering to their U.S.-based attorneys, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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King & Spalding Partner Selected As Trump's Trade Rep

By Hailey Konnath

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that King & Spalding LLP international trade partner Jamieson L. Greer was his pick for U.S. trade representative, noting that Greer played a "key role" in imposing tariffs on China during Trump's first term.

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Texas Atty Sanctioned For Citing Bogus Cases After Using AI

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas lawyer pursuing a wrongful termination lawsuit against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has been sanctioned for submitting a brief that included citations to nonexistent cases generated by an artificial intelligence tool, a Texas federal judge ordered this week.

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Google Search Judge Says AI Will Affect Remedy Phase

By Matthew Perlman

The judge overseeing the government's search monopolization case against Google suggested Tuesday in D.C. federal court that artificial intelligence is shifting the market and will likely play a role in the remedies the court imposes on Google for allegedly violating antitrust law.

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Affinity Bar Groups Decry Colo. No-Poach Restrictions

By Thy Vo

Several attorney groups told Colorado's justices that barring lawyers from recruiting colleagues before officially leaving a firm would take away professional autonomy and harm lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds the most, filing briefs in support of a lawyer's challenge to her contract with a personal injury firm. 

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Fulton County DA Seeks To Reinstate Trump Election Charges

By Emily Johnson

The Fulton County District Attorney's Office told the Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday that six criminal charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others should be reinstated as they have an "abundance" of information to prepare their defense against allegations of trying to subvert the results of the November 2020 election.

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Giuliani's New Atty Faults Previous Counsel As NY Trial Nears

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge declined Tuesday to delay a January trial over whether Rudy Giuliani must turn over his Florida condo and World Series rings to fund a $148 million defamation judgment, after the former New York City mayor's new lawyer criticized outgoing counsel.

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Ex-Faegre Drinker Atty Files Disability Bias Suit

By Andrea Keckley

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP was hit with a disability discrimination lawsuit on Monday by a Denver attorney who says she was pushed out after seeking accommodations for hip problems.

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NJ Equal Pay Law Date Will Guide Atty's Discrimination Suit

By Irene Spezzamonte

Discovery and damages in a former Reed Smith LLP labor and employment attorney's suit claiming gender discrimination will be limited to the effective date of New Jersey equal pay law, a state judge ruled, saying the law doesn't apply retroactively.

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Fla. Bar Alleges Atty Delayed Trial Over His Broken Tooth

By Dorothy Atkins

The Florida Bar has launched a complaint against a criminal attorney in the Florida Supreme Court, accusing him of violating state bar rules by refusing to proceed with a jury trial because he had a broken tooth.

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