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Kennedy, in a book scheduled to be released Monday, provides an intimate picture of a dysfunctional family and some of its well-publicized struggles with alcoholism and mental health issues — and what he describes as a blanket of secrecy that papered over their problems...The book, which Kennedy will discuss on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night, is bound to rile other members of the famous family. “I know how some of them are going to react,” Kennedy says in a brief excerpt from the show released by CBS. “They’re angry.” He describes a drunken sailing trip in 2000 that turned out...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a $6.7 million jury award to a musician who lost her arm because of a botched injection of an anti-nausea medication. The court brushed away a plea for limiting lawsuits against drug makers. In a 6-3 decision, the court rejected Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' claim that federal approval of its Phenergan anti-nausea drug should have shielded the company from lawsuits like the one filed by Diana Levine of Vermont.... The decision is the second this term to reject business groups' arguments that federal regulation effectively pre-empts consumer complaints under state law. A Vermont jury agreed with...

Patrick Kennedy's Capitol Hill car crash in the early hours of Thursday morning was the second vehicular mishap suffered by the Rhode Island Democrat in three weeks. Appearing on ABC Radio's Mark Levin Show last night, WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr detailed the earlier accident, which went unnoted outside of the local press in Providence, Rhode Island. "The accident wasn't reported in the newspapers until almost a week after it happened," Carr complained in his own Boston Herald column last week. "The story ended up in the D section of the Providence Journal, under the East Bay Sports Bulletin...

WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed “no alcohol” before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office, but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash. “He was drinking a little bit,” said the woman, who works at the Hawk & Dove and would not give her name. Leaving his office late last night, Kennedy refused to say whether he’d been to the Hawk & Dove the night before. Earlier in the evening, Kennedy issued a statement...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials warned parents and doctors Tuesday not to give drugs that contain promethazine hydrochloride to children younger than 2, citing seven cases of death linked to use of the antihistamine. The Food and Drug Administration said in a safety alert that beyond the deaths, it also has received 22 reports of severe breathing problems associated with use of the allergy drug, all in children younger than 2. The drug, also known as promethazine HCl, is sold by Wyeth under the brand name Phenergan as well as in various generic versions. The warning covers all...