Trial

As Michael Jackson's highly anticipated comeback shows approached, promoter AEG was so desperate to become No. 1 in the concert industry that its executives ruthlessly pushed the pop star to perform, caring little about his health, an attorney said Monday. In his opening statement, Brian Panish, who represents Jackson's mother and his three children, told the jury that Anschutz Entertainment Group was willing to do whatever it took to catch up to its competitor, Live Nation. "AEG had a problem, and they wanted to fix it," he said.

He was a smooth-talking swindler who operated Orange County's most notorious and lucrative strip club, the Mustang Topless Theater. Born James Stockwell, he rebranded himself Jimmy Casino and lived the extravagant lifestyle of a character from an Elmore Leonard novel. Expensive cowboy couture. Luxury cars. Enemies who wanted him dead. After years of staying a step ahead of the law and the people whom he owed money, Casino, 48, was ambushed at his Buena Park condo Jan. 2, 1987.

Michael Jackson's death nearly four years ago has been the subject of intense curiosity, endless media speculation and even a dramatic courtroom drama in which the King of Pop's doctor was found guilty of causing his death. But all that may end up being a warm-up act for the legal showdown set to begin Monday . In a wrongful death lawsuit, the singer's mother and three children accuse concert promoter Anschutz Entertainment Group of threatening to end Jackson's career if he failed to deliver on a series of comeback concerts in London and hiring the doctor who was later convicted of giving the singer a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol.

In another major setback for efforts to develop an HIV vaccine, federal researchers have shut down a key clinical trial after an independent panel of safety experts determined that volunteers who got an experimental vaccine appeared to be slightly more likely to contract the human immunodeficiency virus than those who got a placebo. Investigators involved in recruiting volunteers and running the trial at 21 sites across the country were ordered Tuesday morning to stop immunizing volunteers with the genetically engineered HVTN 505 vaccine and to inform the nearly 2,500 people who participated in the study whether they got the vaccine or the placebo.

UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran was ordered Friday to stand trial on felony charges stemming from a laboratory fire that killed staff research assistant Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji more than four years ago. Concluding a preliminary hearing that began late last year, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, believed to be the first such prosecution involving a U.S. academic lab accident....

UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran has been ordered Friday to stand trial on felony charges stemming from a laboratory fire that killed staff research assistant Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji more than four years ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, which is believed to be the first such prosecution involving a U.S. academic lab accident. Harran is charged with willfully violating state occupational health and safety codes and faces up to 4 1/2 years in prison if convicted.

On Monday, the Obama administration announced a new policy to provide legal help to mentally disabled immigrants awaiting deportation trials in federal detention centers. A day later, a federal judge in Los Angeles reached the same conclusion, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security is required to provide free legal assistance to immigrants in detention if they are not capable of representing themselves because of mental illness. Both decisions are welcome and could help bring more fairness to the system.

In another major setback for efforts to develop a vaccine to boost immunity to the human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV, a key clinical trial was ordered shut down this week after an independent panel of safety experts found that participants getting the vaccine appeared to be slightly more likely to contract the virus and no better at suppressing its replication than those who got a placebo. Investigators involved in recruiting volunteers and running the trial at 21 sites across the country, including the AIDS Research Alliance of America in Los Angeles, were ordered to stop immunizing volunteers with the genetically engineered HVTN 505 vaccine and to inform the subjects enrolled in the study whether they got the experimental vaccine or the placebo.

MEXICO CITY -- Guatemala's highest court issued a ruling late Thursday that appears to have broken the complicated legal logjam in the case of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who is facing genocide charges in the slaughter of ethnic Maya during the country's civil war. The decision by the Constitutional Court appears to avert the possibility that prosecutors might have to start the trial from scratch, re-creating a case in which more than 100...

With the Michael Jackson wrongful death civil trial around the corner, attorneys argued Thursday about a number of issues, including whether to unseal the music legend's medical records and preclude certain testimony from expert witnesses. The wrongful death suit filed by Jackson's mother and three children accuses AEG's concert promotions arm of hiring and controlling Dr. Conrad Murray, who administered the fatal dose of propofol to the pop singer. Jackson died in 2009, shortly before he was scheduled to appear in a series of comeback shows in London.