Preparations for first federal Vioxx trial underway in Houston News
Preparations for first federal Vioxx trial underway in Houston

[JURIST] Trial preparations commenced Thursday in federal court in Houston for the first federal civil trial involving the Merck-manufactured Vioxx [JURIST news archive] painkiller. Earlier this month, New Orleans-based US District Judge Eldon Fallon, charged with managing the hundreds of federal civil suits involving the withdrawn prescription drug, decided to move the trial from New Orleans to Houston [JURIST report] in the wake of Hurricane Katrina [JURIST news archive]. The trial is scheduled to begin November 28. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.