Senate Dems’ plan cuts $14B in budget

Senate Dems’ plan cuts $14B in budget

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama’s allies in the Senate stepped forward with a plan Thursday to cut $14 billion from his budget for the upcoming fiscal year. That’s double the $7 billion cut sought by House Democrats.

But Republicans on the Appropriations Committee said the cuts didn’t go far enough and opposed the idea — along with three appropriations bills for the budget year that begins in October. The panel approved the Democratic proposal on a party-line vote.

The differences between the parties are tiny when compared with the $1.14 trillion overall pot available to lawmakers writing the Cabinet agency budgets passed each year by Congress. But Republicans had staked out a position earlier this week demanding an additional $6 billion cut — a difference between the parties of just one-half of 1 percent.

Johnson & Johnson to lay off about 300

TRENTON, N.J.

Johnson & Johnson said Thursday it will lay off most of the staff at a factory idled over repeated recalls of Tylenol and other popular nonprescription medicines.

The health-care giant said it has decided to make a significant investment in the manufacturing facilities, equipment and laboratories at its plant in Fort Washington, Pa.

The upgrades are part of a comprehensive quality-improvement plan that New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson said it has submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.

About 300 of the 400 positions at the factory will be eliminated while it is out of service for what J&J is calling “a protracted period of time.”

Panel votes against anti-obesity drug

GAITHERSBURG, MD.

A panel of federal health experts dealt a surprising setback Thursday to a highly anticipated anti-obesity pill from Vivus Inc., saying the drug’s side effects outweigh its ability to help patients lose weight.

The Food and Drug Administration panel voted 10-6 against Vivus’ Qnexa, citing uncertainty about the potential risks that could come with long-term use of the drug. The FDA will consider the panel’s ruling and make its own decision on the drug in coming months.

JPMorgan Chase income soars 77%

NEW YORK

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Thursday its second-quarter net income soared 77 percent to $4.8 billion as a slowdown in losses from failed loans helped offset a difficult spring in trading and investment banking.

The strong results offered hope that loan losses at the nation’s big banks may have peaked in the first half of 2010, a critical step before banks can become stronger and boost lending to consumers and small businesses.

JPMorgan Chase, the first of the big banks to report earnings for the April-June period, easily surpassed analysts’ expectations as it earned $1.09 a share, up 28 cents a share from a year earlier.

Associated Press