While many were in favor of this decision, many were not.  Those who were injured through faulty GM cars have appealed Gerber’s decision to the U.S. District Court in New York because the GM plan would free the “new” GM from liability for people injured by a defective GM product before June 1.

If the appeal isn’t submitted by noon Thursday, GM’s plan will go into full effect.  The government is also backing Gerber’s decision as well as the Treasury who is offering to pay $50 billion to help the ”new” GM if the sale goes through Friday.  This makes the appeal even more difficult.  However, the people against GM’s plan are determined.

Robert Dinnigan’s ten year old daughter is now paralyzed from the neck down due to a car accident in a GM car.  If GM’s plan goes through, any chance of having GM be liable is gone.  Other people like Dinnigan are pushing hard for their appeal to be heard.  Some such as Davide Neier, a New York-based bankruptcy lawyer thinks a compromise would be the best answer.  While he believes that the court will not block the GM sale, he thinks it is possible that the court could determine the amount of consumer liability the ”new” GM should be responsible.  That way, GM can start over, but those hurt by “old” GM will not be left completely out to dry.

Delacerda was arrested after he was released from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

The wreck happened about 1:30 a.m. in the 11400 block of southbound I-35, police said.  Police said a dark-color sport utility vehicle ran through a marked construction zone near Onion Creek Parkway and hit the worker, identified as Fontino Cortes-Cruz, 36.

Cortes-Cruz was part of a crew that was repaving the interstate and had been laying reflective tabs on the highway when he was hit, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Hays County sheriff’s deputies found a burned SUV outside of Kyle about 4 a.m. Austin police said, and shortly afterward, police received a call from South Austin Hospital taht a man with burns on his body had checked into the hospital.

Delacerda, who was released from the burn center on Friday, is charged with felony failure to stop and render aid, which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison upon conviction.

He is in Bexar County Jail with bail set at $100,000.

Lewis was driving west on Fourth Street, at the intersection with Lavaca Street, in the turn-only lane about 11 p.m. when a mounted officer saw him continue straight on Fourth Street instead of turning, an arrest affidavit said.

The officer then stopped Lewis and called for backup, the affidavit said.  Lewis had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16, Austin police said.

Lewis was elected speaker of the House five times and was active in the Legislature for more than 20 years, retiring in 1993 after pleading no contest in 1992 to tow misdemeanor charges alleging he failed to report some stock holdings on hi 1988 and 1989 disclosure statements.

Dr. Alexander Kalk — whose application to practice in Texas has been pending since May 31, according to the Texas Medical Board — faces disciplinary action before the Missouri Board of Healing Arts. A hearing On the allegations against him was postponed last Wednesday so he could negotiate a possible settlement with the board over the six-count complaint, said Tina Steinman, the board’s executive director.

“We’re settling for some type of, discipline,” which could include Kalk’s surrender of his medical license in Missouri or some lesser action, Steinman said.

The Missouri board investigated Kalk, who is about 39 and reported graduating from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and accused him of violating Missouri drug laws by not keeping narcotics and other dangerous drugs secure at his St. Louis-area office. The board’s allegations also include unprofessionalism, incompetence, negligence and unethical behavior.
It accuses him of sending threatening e-mails to a possible contractor; writing checks to employees that later bounced; berating employees and patients; inappropriately examining a female patient with no female nurse present and offering to help remove the patient’s underwear; making a false, police report in 2006; and, for a time, living at his medical office, failing to bathe for a week and wearing the same clothes without washing them for seven days.

Kalk, lists an address in Austin as his current residence on the Texas application.

In December 2006, an investigator with the Missouri Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs visited Kalk’s office, then in Creve Coeur, Mo., and found that he lacked records, locks and security over narcotics and other controlled substances, said Mike Boeger, interim administrator of the narcotics board.
“He basically had no log of what he received or dispensed,” Boeger said. “It was a bad security violation.”

The narcotics board put Kalk on probation for five years in 2008 so he could no longer buy or stock controlled drugs at his practice, Boeger said. He could still prescribe drugs.

“He closed his practice and moved away,” Boeger said.

Also in 2006, Kalk was arrested on a charge of filing a false police report. He was found guilty in 2008 and fined $500 but is appealing, according to the circuit clerk’s office in St. Louis.

The false report was mentioned in the board’s complaint as “an offense which involves moral turpitude.”

The board hopes to resolve the negotiations with Kalk “in a week or two,” Steinman said. Texas Medical Board spokeswoman Jill Wiggins said she could not comment on pending applications.

Austin police say a witness reported a gold pickup on northbound Interstate 35 swerving between lanes and cutting off other drivers.  According to the affidavit, officers saw the truck nearly hit a car and a motorcycle.

Edward Amaro, 43, was arrested after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the affidavit.  He was in the Travis County jail on Tuesday with bail set at $12,000.

Pick a dollar amount between zero and 1 billion. Depending on whom you ask, that’s what State Farm Insurance owes its Texas customers for overcharging on homeowner policies dating to 2003.

The Office of Public Insurance Counsel, the state’s consumer advocate for insurance, says in documents filed this month that Texas’ largest property insurer owes policyholders $785 million plus interest or nearly $1 billion. State Farm has 1.2 million customers in Texas.

The Texas Department of Insurance calculates the overcharges at about $251 million, plus nearly $100 million in interest.

State Farm says it owes customers nothing, that it didn’t overcharge them and that its rates have always been fair and competitive. The dispute dates to 2003 when Texas ordered State Farm and other companies to reduce premiums the state considered excessive.

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin will have to decide who is right.

According to Alex Winslow of State Watch, a consumer group active in insurance issues, “There are now real questions about whether State Farm will have to give back every penny they owe or whether the commissioner will let them off and order them to pay only pennies on the dollar. Any decision by Geeslin that is short of the full $1 billion will be ‘a slap in the face’ for State Farm policyholders.”

“State Farm should not be allowed to benefit financially in any way from their overcharges, including investment earnings off those overcharges,” he added.

State Farm said in its filings that it is not responsible for any refunds.

“Our position has never changed. Our rates have always been fair and reasonable,” spokesman Kevin Davis said.

The rate dispute began after a massive overhaul of insurance law by the Legislature in 2003, which put home insurance rates under state control after a tumultuous period of record premium hikes.

The increases were triggered by massive mold and water damage claims across the state.

State Farm was told to cut its rates 12 percent; it responded by suing the state in a case that remains unresolved.

Geeslin is expected to or der some refunds, although probably less than the $1 billion called for by the public insurance counsel.

A figure that large “would make the largest Texas homeowners insurer insolvent,’ and the department’s $350 million proposal would under mine the company’s financial condition for several years State Farm attorney Susan Conway wrote this month.

During the hearing in the case, State Farm attorney said the insurer is still pay ing off a $1 billion loan that it had to take out from its parent company to stave off bankruptcy six years ago when mold claims were at their peak.

The over-the-counter products contain zinc, an ingredient scientists say may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell. The other products affected by the Food and Drug Administration’s announcement are adult and kid-size Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs.

The FDA says about 130 consumers have reported a loss of smell after using Matrixx Initiatives’ Zicam products since 1999. Shares of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company plunged to a 52-week low after the FDA announcement, losing more than half their value.

“Loss of the sense of smell is potentially life-threatening and may be permanent,” said Dr. Charles Lee of FDA’s compliance division. “People without the sense of smell may not be able to detect dangerous life situations, such as gas leaks or something burning in the house.”
Matrixx defended the safety of its products but said it may remove them from the market.

The FDA said Zicam Cold Remedy was never formally approved because it is part of a small group of remedies that is not required to undergo federal review before launching. Known as homeopathic products, the formulations often contain herbs, minerals and flowers.
A warning letter issued to Matrixx on Tuesday asked the company to stop marketing its zinc-based products, but the agency did not issue a formal recall. Instead, regulators said Matrixx would have to submit safety and effectiveness data on the drug.

“The next step, if they wish to continue marketing Zicam intranasal zinc products, is for them to come in and seek FDA approval,” said Deborah Autor, director of FDA’s drug compliance division.

Matrixx has settled hundreds of lawsuits connected with Zicam in recent years, but says on its Web site: “No plaintiff has ever won a court case, because there is no known causal link between the use of Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and impairment of smell.”

Government scientists say they are unaware of any data supporting Zicam’s labeling, which claims the drug reduces cold symptoms, including “sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing, coughing and congestion.”

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Traffic injuries are the ninth-leading cause of death worldwide, and public health experts say that without intervention, they will rise to fifth within 20 years, surpassing AIDS and tuberculosis.

In many countries, the laws needed to protect people are either not there or are too limited in scope,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, as she announced the findings Monday in New York “Even when the legislation is adequate, the problem we have is enforcement.”

The 287-page report is based on data from a 2008 survey of 178 countries, representing 98 percent of the world’s population. It builds on a 2004 report that estimated that 1.27 million people die and that an additional 20 million to 50 million are injured annually in traffic accidents.

Among the new findings: pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcycle riders make up almost half the deaths.

According to the health organization, about 90 percent of traffic injuries occur in developing countries, and the majority of victims are young, suggesting large economic losses for poor countries.

In addition to causing tremendous personal suffering, traffic deaths and injuries can impoverish families and burden already strained health systems, said. Dr. Etienne Krug, director of injury and violence prevention programs at the health organization.

“Very few people realize that this is one of the leading causes of death in the world, and the leading cause of death for young people,” Krug said. “Because it happens one by one, here and there and not in mass events, it gets less attention.”

John Horn, 29, of Kingsland was driving a Dodge pickup west on Texas 71 about a half-mile west of Spicewood at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 6, 2009 when it crossed the center line and struck a Nissan Altima, officials said.

The truck was so much higher off the ground than the car that it drove across the top of it, said Jose Colombo, a trooper who investigaged the wreck.

Russell Rutland, 37, and two of his children, 4-year-old Madison and 9-year-old Hunter, died at the scene.  Two other children, Zachary, 10, and Cole, 5, were taken to Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin where they were treated and released, Colombo said.  They had all been wearing seat belts or were in child safety seats, he said.

Horn was being held in the Burnet County Jail on charges – filed in April and May – of failing to appear, obstruction or retaliation and driving with an invalid license.  He has not been charged in the collision and toxicology results are still pending.

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