A Texas jury today awarded a $27 million verdict against fast food giant McDonald's after finding that lax security at one of the chain's restaurants contributed to the deaths of two Texas teenagers in 2012.

While walking through the McDonald's parking lot near the Texas A&M University campus, Mr. Ward and a friend were viciously attacked by a mob. They then were loaded into Mr. Ward's SUV by their girlfriends. As they raced toward a nearby hospital, Ms. Crisp's friend ran a red light and collided with a pickup truck in a crash that resulted in Ms. Crisp's death.

The teens' families claimed McDonald's should have provided better security at the restaurant, where police were called more than 20 times to break up fights in the year leading up to the deaths, according to trial evidence. Despite the location's history of late-night violence, McDonald's never hired any security personnel and never installed security cameras to help protect customers.

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It was considered one of the biggest legal battles of 2012, and two years later, allegations of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America are making headlines again.

The Irving-based BSA settled a case of alleged sexual abuse on Thursday before it went trial in the Texas Supreme Court. The attorney for an unnamed former Scout from San Antonio who made the allegations, declined to disclose any further details, including the nature of the settlement. Currently in his 20s, the one-time Scout and had accused his former leader of sexually abusing him, according to the Associated Press.

Officials for the Boy Scouts were unavailable for comment, but did tell the AP that abuse within its ranks is “intolerable and unacceptable.”

Acetaminophen, a common pain reliever considered safe for pregnant women, has been linked for the first time to an increased risk of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in children, said a study Monday.

More studies are needed to confirm the findings, but experts said the research points to a new potential cause for the worldwide rise in cases of ADHD, a neuro-behavioral condition which has no known cause and affects as many as five percent of US children.

 
Women who took acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, while pregnant had a 37 percent higher risk of having a child who would be later given a hospital diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder, a particularly severe form of ADHD, said the study in February 24 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Compared to women who did not take acetaminophen while pregnant, women who did also had a 29 percent higher chance of having children who were later prescribed medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and a 13 percent higher chance of exhibiting ADHD-like behaviors by age seven.

Previous research has suggested that acetaminophen can interfere with normal hormone function and may affect the developing fetal brain. The painkiller has also been linked to a slightly increased risk in boys of cryptorchidism, a condition in which the testicles do not descend.

The latest research was based on survey data on more than 64,000 Danish women from 1996 to 2002.
More than half said they took acetaminophen at least once during pregnancy.

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A jury awarded $10.7 million to the family of a man who allegedly was prescribed a fatal combination of painkillers by a doctor with a history of trouble with the state medical board. In 2007, Michael Skorpenske went to Family Medi-Clinic to get pain pills for his chronic back injury. Dr. Maurice Conte prescribed Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. He died two days later. When Conte was hired by the clinic he was under investigation by the medical board for claims that he was prescribing non-therapeutic narcotics for cash. His family claimed the clinic was grossly negligent for hiring Conte even though they were aware of his history.

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