The Week
One sign that even the feds don't think new surpluses are around the corner: Treasury also said it's considering whether to again issue 30-year bonds.
More Fallout From The Vioxx Mess
The head of Merck & Co. resigned last week in the wake of allegations that the drugmaker continued to aggressively hawk Vioxx even after discovering serious heart risks linked to it. Raymond Gilmartin, 64, abruptly quit on the same day that congressional investigators released documents showing that Merck told its sales teams to keep mum on Vioxx's possible dangers during pitches to doctors and to deflect specific queries about risks by focusing on the arthritis Rx's upside. Vioxx was pulled from shelves in September, after a clinical trial found that patients who took it were more likely to have heart attacks and strokes than those on a placebo.
The action blackened Merck's rep and cost the company billions in sales, stock value, and legal fees.
Oil for Food, A Recipe for Trouble
Republicans have been screaming for months that Paul Volcker, who's leading the United Nation's independent inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal, was too cozy with Secretary General Kofi Annan to weigh in objectively. Last week, they may have gotten some ammunition. Robert Parton, one of the inquiry's lead investigators, turned over a raft of documents to a House panel investigating what went wrong. The program was designed to help Iraqi residents but ended up padding the pockets of several key players. Parton says he didn't have a choice, because Congress subpoenaed him; the U.N. calls that a smokescreen, noting that Parton had diplomatic immunity and had signed a confidentiality agreement. Either way, the documents could be explosive.
Parton and another investigator resigned from Volcker's commission last month, reportedly because they thought Annan was being given a free pass.
Those Funny Little Plants
An environmental group last week called on Congress to fork over $150 million more in fiscal year 2006 to the National Park Service, saying that it's woefully underfunded and has had to divert what limited cash it has to battle a threat from drug traffickers growing marijuana in hidden swaths of federal parkland. The National Parks Conservation Association, in a new report, says rangers found more than 44,000 marijuana plants growing in federal parks last year, with an estimated street value of $176 million. The No. 1 hot spot for pot: Sequoia National Park, home of the mighty redwoods in California. "Our national parks should be a refuge for visitors and a safe haven for wildlife and other treasures, "NPCA's Tom Kiernan said in a statement, "but that is not always the case. "NPCA says limited funding and antidrug efforts have forced parks to neglect things like fixing up historic sites.
Talk about enjoying the great outdoors!
Sis, Boom, Bah, Longhorn Style
Once upon a time, high school cheerleaders were all about pompoms and synchronized jumping jacks. But cheerleading has come a long way since the days of chirpy robots all in a row. Today, sideline routines are often flashy combos of slick gymnastics and hip-hop. The crowds love 'em, but Texas lawmakers are another story. The Texas statehouse--in a made-for-TV- movie moment--last week OK'd a measure, 85 to 55, that bars sexy cheers and authorizes the Texas Education Agency to punish schools that allow undefined "overtly sexually suggestive" routines. "It's ridiculous," says Democratic state Rep. Senfronia Thompson. "We have pertinent issues down here to deal with . . . and here we are wasting our time with 'One, two, three, four, we can't shake it anymore.' " She says that there was no "outcry" but that bill sponsor Rep. Al Edwards, also a Democrat, was upset by cheerleaders, as he put it, "shaking their behinds, breaking it down."
What are they supposed to do--just stand there?
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