Jamie Jones, the young woman who alleges that she was drugged and raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while she was in Iraq, has filed suit in federal court in Houston. Halliburton wants to force Jones’s claims into arbitration per her employment contract, which is outrageous given the inquities of arbitration against the plaintiff. Halliburton’s attorneys argued that the contract…

Medicare, soon to be followed by private health insurers, will no longer pay for medical treatment of preventable injuries caused by medical errors. Medicare lists eight “hospital-caused preventable injuries,” including urinary tract infections from catheters, falls, pressure sores, and embolism. After October 1st, if a Medicare patient develops one of these eight injuries, Medicare won’t pay for treatment. Apparently…

An Alon USA oil refinery in Big Spring exploded this morning. All workers are accounted for, according to CNN. No word yet on the environmental impact and property damage. I-20 is closed. Something tells me explosions like this will become more commonplace. We seem to have had a rash of them lately….

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife sued the makers of heparin Tuesday after their newborn twins were inadvertently given massive doses of the blood thinner at a hospital. The product liability lawsuit, filed in Chicago, seeks more than $50,000 in damages. It claims that Baxter Healthcare Corp., based in Deerfield, Ill., was negligent in packaging different doses of the…

Every day, more and more gas drilling rigs pop up all over north Texas, mainly around Tarrant, Johnson and Parker Counties. And with the increased drilling activity comes a greater risk of injuries, both to workers and to those living around the wells. Today many residents in this area watched as huge flames and a billowing cloud of black…