Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Ukraine denies report of Russian troop buildup near its borders

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s defense ministry on Monday denied a media report of a Russian military buildup near its border, saying it had not observed an increase in forces or weaponry.

The Washington Post said at the weekend a renewed buildup of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border had raised concern among some officials in the United States and Europe who are tracking what they consider irregular movements of equipment and personnel on Russia’s western flank.

“As of November 1, 2021, an additional transfer of Russian units, weapons and military equipment to the state border of Ukraine was not recorded,” the Ukrainian defense ministry said in a statement.

In Washington, the Pentagon said it was aware of public reports about “unusual activity.”

“We’re certainly monitoring the region closely as we always do so and as we’ve said before, any escalatory or aggressive actions will be of great concern to the United States,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

This spring, Moscow alarmed Kyiv and Western capitals by building up tens of thousands of troops along the border with Ukraine, though it later ordered them back to base.

Relations between Kyiv and Moscow have plummeted since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and a war broke out between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, which Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Sandra Maler)

Migrant caravan limps north through Mexico, despite dengue and exhaustion

By Lizbeth Diaz and Jose Torres

MAPASTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) – A caravan of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers from Central America and the Caribbean resumed its trek through southern Mexico on Monday, despite concerns that half of them could be injured or sick, including some from dengue fever.

Over the past week, the approximately 3,000 migrants, mostly women and children, have trekked over 100 km (60 miles) from the city of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border, struggling through sweltering heat and evening rains.

Kabir Sanchez, a volunteer doctor helping to look after injured caravan members, said he and his colleagues treated dozens of people on Saturday with foot injuries, respiratory problems, infections and pregnant women at risk of miscarrying.

“More than 50% of the people in the caravan are sick,” he told Reuters by telephone.

He said other caravan members had possible cases of coronavirus, but that the government had not provided COVID-19 tests.

The government’s National Migration Institute (INM) did not immediately reply to a request for comment on COVID-19 testing.

The INM did say in a statement that six people in the caravan, including five children, had contracted dengue.

On Sunday night, the caravan members slept outside in the rain having paused their trek during the day due to the health concerns.

Most of the migrants are fleeing poverty, violence and the impact of adverse environmental conditions linked to climate change in their homelands. Many hope to make it to the U.S. border.

Leaders of the caravan last week rejected the Mexican government’s offer of visas that are meant to grant migrants access to healthcare and regular work, arguing it had failed to keep promises to help them in the past.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Jose Torres in Mapastepec; Additional reporting by Daniel Becerril; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Alison Williams)

Factbox – Latest on the worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared his coronavirus vaccination order for emergency responders a success, with no disruption to city services, despite a sickout by some firefighters who officials said were protesting the mandate.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

EUROPE

* Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies endorsed in Rome a global minimum tax aimed at stopping big business from hiding profits in tax havens, and also agreed to get more COVID vaccines to poorer nations.

* Britain will send 20 million vaccine doses to developing countries by the end of this year in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell other world leaders is a much needed step to speed up the post-pandemic economic recovery.

* President Vladimir Putin said Russia may need the army’s help to build field hospitals for COVID-19 patients as the country battles a surge in infections that has led to a nationwide workplace shutdown.

* The Netherlands will impose new coronavirus restrictions this week in a bid to curb a recent surge in infections.

* Latvia has received shipments of emergency medical equipment from the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary and Sweden as it fights the worst surge in new COVID-19 cases in the European Union amid a low take-up of vaccinations.

AMERICAS

* The Biden administration said a planned rule requiring private-sector employers with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or regular testing will be published in the coming days.

* The United States is rolling out Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 this week, but most of the 15 million shots being shipped initially are unlikely to be available before next week.

* U.S. states with the highest adult vaccination rates against COVID-19 are planning a big push to get children inoculated compared to states where hesitancy remains strong, potentially widening the gaps in protection nationwide, public health officials and experts said.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Thailand, Australia and Israel eased international border restrictions significantly Monday for the first time in 18 months, offering a broad test of demand for travel worldwide amid the pandemic.

* New Zealand will extend coronavirus curbs for another week in its largest city of Auckland but ease some after that, with the country logging another day of record new infections.

* A declassified U.S. intelligence report saying it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a laboratory is unscientific and has no credibility, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.

* Indonesia has approved the Sinovac Biotech vaccine for children aged 6-11, its food and drug agency said, following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for younger children.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* The United Arab Emirates has approved for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine for children aged 5-11, the health ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Novavax Inc expects regulators in India, the Philippines and elsewhere to make a decision on its COVID-19 vaccine within “weeks,” its chief executive told Reuters, after the shot received its first emergency use authorization from Indonesia.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Global equity markets rose at the start of a big week for central bank meetings, helped by bets of fiscal stimulus in Japan and undeterred by concerns of future interest rate hikes that have tempered bonds.

(Compiled by Aditya Soni and Federico Maccioni; Edited by Angus MacSwan and Arun Koyyur)

U.S. vaccines for children plan fully operational next week, White House says

By Ahmed Aboulenein and Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States is rolling out Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11 this week, but most of the 15 million shots being shipped initially are unlikely to be available before next week, the White House said on Monday.

Millions of doses specifically formulated for children of that age group will start arriving at distribution centers over the next few days, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said, and the federal government has purchased enough supply for all eligible 28 million children.

“The whole plan is based on Pfizer vaccines,” Zients told reporters at a briefing. “So the bottom line is there’s plenty of supply of the Pfizer vaccine and we look forward to parents having the opportunity to vaccinate their kids.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE coronavirus vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 years, making it the first COVID-19 shot for young children in the United States.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still needs to advise on how the shot should be administered, which will be decided after a group of outside advisers discuss the plan on Tuesday.

Following the CDC’s decision, parents will be able to visit vaccines.gov and filter locations offering the vaccine for the children, Zients said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Alexandra Alper; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Alison Williams)

With prayers and signs, abortion demonstrators converge on U.S. Supreme Court

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court began heard arguments in a major abortion dispute out of Texas, a group of demonstrators who oppose abortion joined together outside the stately white marble neoclassical building to pray for the nine justices, listing each one by name.

Hundreds of people in support and opposition to a restrictive Texas abortion law gathered on Monday outside the courthouse on a mild autumn day in the U.S. capital. The justices heard arguments in challenges by President Joe Biden’s administration and abortion providers to the measure, which imposes a near-total abortion ban – prohibiting it after six weeks of pregnancy – and empowers private citizens enforce it.

Abortion opponents held signs saying, “Let their hearts beat,” and played Christian music. Abortion rights supporters held signs saying “Bans off our bodies” and “Abortion is essential.”

Some of the law’s supporters cast the debate in religious terms.

The Reverend Patrick Mahoney, chief strategy officer for the anti-abortion group Stanton Public Policy Center, said, “Our strength is local. You can go to every community in the country right now and find grandmas in church basements knitting baby booties or doing bake sales. There’s this collective energy bubbling in our movement right now.”

Regarding the law’s private-enforcement mechanism, Mahoney said, “Is that the way I would have gone? Probably not. But it’s saving innocent lives. Overall I think it’s innovative and creative.”

The law puts enforcement in the hands of private citizens, empowering them to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 in successful lawsuits.

Julia Deluce, a coordinator with the group Students for Life, said she was advocating for the rights of “pre-born children,” adding, “They are human. They are part of our species. And they deserve our protection.”

Abortion rights demonstrators voiced alarm over the Texas law, which bans abortion at a point in time when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. Abortion was legalized nationwide in the Supreme Court’s Roe. v. Wade decision. A series of restrictive Republican-backed abortion laws have been passed by states in recent years.

Washington resident Martha Dickey said she has been advocating for abortion rights since the 1970s.

“I found out what happened in Texas and I was really upset,” Dickey said. “… It stops the chance for a woman to be free to decide what happens to her own body.”

Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of the Whole Women’s Health Clinic abortion provider that challenged the Texas law, said, “A ban like this doesn’t change the fact that people need abortions. It just changes the kind of abortions they can have.” She said she hopes the justices understand the impact of their decisions “on real people’s lives.”

(Writing by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

Relentless shortages, high prices hamper U.S. manufacturing

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. manufacturing activity slowed in October, with all industries reporting record-long lead times for raw materials, indicating that stretched supply chains continued to constrain economic activity early in the fourth quarter.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey on Monday also hinted at some moderation in demand amid surging prices, with a measure of new orders dropping to a 16-month low. Still, demand remains strong amid depressed retail inventories, which should keep manufacturing humming.

According to the ISM, “companies and suppliers continue to deal with an unprecedented number of hurdles to meet increasing demand.” The government reported last week that the economy grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter because of widespread shortages tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Stress in U.S. supply chains isn’t abating, lending downside risk to our forecast for GDP growth in the near term and a clear upside risk to the forecast for inflation,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The ISM’s index of national factory activity slipped to a reading of 60.8 last month from 61.1 in September. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in manufacturing, which accounts for 12% of the U.S. economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index would fall to 60.5.

The ISM reported 26 commodities in short supply in October.

The economy is struggling with shortages across industries as global supply chains remain clogged. Supply constraints were worsened by a wave of coronavirus infections driven by the Delta variant over the summer, especially in Southeast Asia. Congestion at ports in China and the United States were also causing delays in getting materials to factories and retailers.

The motor vehicle industry has been the hardest hit. Transportation equipment manufacturers in the ISM survey reported they had diverted chips “to our higher-margin vehicles and stopped or limited the lower-margin vehicle production schedules.”

Other industries are also hurting. According to the ISM survey, manufacturers of computer and electronic products reported “extreme delays” and that “getting anything from China is near impossible.” Food manufacturers said “rolling blackouts in China starting to hurt shipments even more.”

Makers of electrical equipment, appliances and components said though demand continued to be strong, production continued “to be held back by supply chain issues.”

The ISM survey’s measure of supplier deliveries increased to a reading of 75.6 last month from 73.4 in September. A reading above 50% indicates slower deliveries. Economists and businesses expect supply chains could remain tight through 2022.

Longer waits for materials meant high inflation at the factory gate persisted. The survey’s measure of prices paid by manufacturers accelerated to 85.7 from a reading of 81.2 in September. Prices increased for 48 commodities last month, with only prices for wood falling.

These higher costs are being passed on to consumers which, together with surging wage growth, is raising concerns that high inflation could be more persistent rather than transitory as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly argued. The government reported on Friday that wage growth in the third quarter was the strongest on record.

The ISM survey’s forward-looking new orders sub-index dropped to 59.8 last month, the lowest reading since June 2020, from 66.7 in September. With customer inventories remaining depressed, a rebound is likely.

Fourteen out of 18 industries reported growth in new orders, including furniture and related products, primary metals and machinery, as well as computer and electronic products manufacturers. Only the nonmetallic mineral products and plastics and rubber products industries reported a decline in orders.

U.S. stocks were mixed. The dollar slipped against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

GLIMMERS OF HOPE

Subsiding coronavirus cases could, however, encourage more consumption of services and curb demand for goods. Though a measure of unfinished work dipped last month, order backlogs remain significantly high.

Factories hired more workers, with a measure of employment increasing to a reading of 52 from 50.2 in September. Employment rose in the computer and electronic products, fabricated metal products and chemical products industries.

Though manufacturers companies said they were still struggling to find workers, there were signs improvement.

According to the ISM, “an increasing percentage of comments noted improvements regarding employment, compared to less than 5% in September.” It also noted that “an overwhelming majority of panelists indicate their companies are hiring or attempting to hire.”

This, combined with a massive improvement in consumers’ perceptions of the labor market last month, suggest employment gains picked up in October after the economy created the fewest jobs in nine months in September.

Worker shortages, however, remain a constraint. There were 10.4 million unfilled jobs at the end of August. The Labor Department is scheduled to publish its closely watched employment report for October on Friday.

A separate report from the Commerce Department on Monday showed construction spending dropped 0.5% in September amid broad declines in outlays on both private and public projects, which were partly blamed on Hurricane Ida in late August. Construction spending edged up 0.1% in August.

Still, the composition of construction spending was not as weak as the government had assumed in its advance third-quarter GDP estimate last week. That led some economists to anticipate that third-quarter GDP growth could be revised higher to about a 2.2% rate from the published 2.0% pace when the government releases its second estimate later this month.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)

New York prepares for fallout from vaccine mandate resisted by many police, firefighters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York woke up on Monday to its first full workday under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s order that all city workers be vaccinated for COVID-19, with many police officers and firefighters still refusing the shot and one labor leader calling the mandate a recipe for disaster.

De Blasio, a Democrat who announced the mandate less than two weeks ago, has assured the city of 8.8 million people that officials could handle any shortage of police, firefighters or sanitation workers through schedule changes and overtime.

“Another great uptick to report. @FDNY EMS vaccine rates are up to 87%,” Danielle Filson, a press deputy for de Blasio, tweeted on Sunday night.

The percentage of inoculated police officers and firefighters is below that of other city employees, and union leaders say de Blasio will be to blame if emergency services are left in disarray in the largest U.S city.

“We need everyone we can to keep the city running and keep it safe. We’re trying to avoid what is going to be an inevitable disaster by design on Monday morning,” Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, told a news conference on Friday.

Union leaders say their members were given only nine days to comply with the mayor’s vaccination deadline and that workers who have already been ill with COVID-19 should be granted an exemption. That includes some 70% of firefighters, Ansbro said.

The dispute is the latest nationwide over vaccine mandates that have been increasingly imposed by political leaders, including President Joe Biden, to help stem the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. Police officers and firefighters in Chicago and Los Angeles have also pushed back hard.

New York City health officials say that while research has yet to determine the degree and length of immunity from COVID-19 following an infection and illness, experts agree that vaccines can afford additional protection.

De Blasio has forecast that vaccination rates for city workers would continue to rise significantly.

The mayor said similar deadlines for other New York state and city workers prompted a rush for last-minute shots as reality set in that paychecks were about to stop coming.

Legal challenges by police and fire unions in New York City and elsewhere have so far been unsuccessful, with state and federal courts reluctant to overturn vaccine mandates.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely and Trevor Clifford in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Peter Cooney)

La Palma observatory gets smart to fight the dust

By Marco Trujillo and Borja Suarez

LA PALMA, Spain (Reuters) – Viewed from La Palma’s highest point where enormous telescopes dot the rocky landscape, the Cumbre Vieja volcano looks like a distant puff of smoke breaking through a blanket of white cloud to create a sense of serene isolation.

But dust from the eruption, which has been wreaking havoc on the Spanish Canary island for more than 40 days, can clog up machinery, scratch lenses and cause electrical interference at the state-of-the-art observatory, hampering scientific work.

Most of the instruments are encased within huge domes that shut when there is risk of ashfall, but two so-called MAGIC telescopes, designed to detect gamma-ray bursts in distant galaxies via glittering mirror panels, have no such protection.

“We had to improvise a little,” said Victor Acciari, the center’s technical coordinator, gesturing to a screen of black bin bags taped over the mechanisms that can spin the 60 tonne structure to focus on any part of the cosmos in 20 seconds.

“We had to cover the most delicate parts, especially the gearboxes and the parts covered in grease,” said the 46-year-old astrophysicist and electrical engineer.

Minimal light pollution around La Palma, the westernmost of the Canaries and among the least populated, makes it an ideal site for astronomical observation.

Situated around 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the eruption site and 1,300 meters higher up, the observatory has found other ways to remain useful on nights when the ash cloud prevents the telescopes from operating.

“There are a number of instruments that can be helpful in monitoring the eruption,” said the observatory’s administrator, Juan Carlos Perez Arencibia.

Besides a fixed camera trained on the plume of ash emanating from the crater that helps Spanish authorities model the cloud’s behavior, the center recently adapted its fiber-optic network to measure seismic activity.

“It is a new situation for all of us living on the island,” Perez said.

“We are trying, even with our scientific work, to provide information to our international friends and colleagues on how they can help.”

Experts say it is impossible to predict how long the eruption, which has forced thousands to evacuate and destroyed over 2,000 homes, will last.

“Some telescopes will need repairs to their domes…but it’s relatively simple maintenance. Operations will restart quickly,” Perez said.

(Writing by Nathan Allen, editing by Ed Osmond)

U.S. Supreme Court leans toward allowing challenge to Texas abortion law

By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared to lean toward allowing a challenge by abortion providers to a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure and lets private citizens enforce it, but seemed skeptical about whether President Joe Biden’s administration can do so.

The court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, heard three hours of oral arguments in separate challenges by abortion providers and the Democratic president’s administration to the Republican-backed measure considered the toughest abortion law in the United States.

Some justices signaled that existing Supreme Court precedent could accommodate the lawsuit brought by abortion providers despite the law’s novel design that makes it difficult for federal courts to block its enforcement. Instead of having state officials enforce a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy – a time when many women do not realize they are pregnant – the law lets individual citizens enforce it through lawsuits against providers.

U.S. abortion rights are hanging in the balance as the justices review the Texas law before hearing arguments on Dec. 1 over the legality of a Mississippi measure prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

As the Texas challenges are being heard on an expedited basis, a decision potentially blocking the law could come quickly. In the challenge by abortion providers, the court on Sept. 1 declined to halt the law, with five of its six conservative justices in the majority. There were signs on Monday that some conservative justices were reconsidering their positions.

However, in the Biden administration’s challenge, conservative justices seemed skeptical about federal power to sue Texas over the law.

At issue is whether federal courts can hear lawsuits aimed at striking down the Texas law and whether the U.S. government even can sue to try to block it. If the justices keep federal courts out of the process by virtue of the law’s unique design, it could be replicated in other states and curtail abortion access in other parts of the country.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked clinic lawyer Marc Hearron about whether under the law’s structure the constitutional claims on the right to abortion could ever be “fully aired.” Under the Texas law, abortion providers can bring up that constitutional issue as a defense only after they have been sued.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed interest in an outcome raised by liberal Justice Elena Kagan in which state court clerks would be barred from allowing lawsuits brought by private individuals seeking to enforce the law to proceed while litigation over the legality of the measure unfolds.

Kavanaugh wondered whether the court should close a loophole that he said the Texas law “exploited” in its precedents concerning when state officials can be barred from enforcing unconstitutional laws.

Kavanaugh also pondered if states could pass similar laws that could infringe other constitutional rights including gun rights. A state, for example, could allow for $1 million in damages against anyone who sells an AR-15 rifle, he said.

His tone was more skeptical during the argument over the Biden administration’s September lawsuit aimed at stopping the Texas measure, describing it as “different and irregular and unusual.”

Kagan said the law was written by “some geniuses” to evade the broad legal principle that “states are not to nullify federal constitutional rights.”

Like Kavanaugh, Kagan warned of the consequences of states passing laws that infringe upon rights, including same-sex marriage and religious liberty. If the Texas law remains, “we would live in a very different world to the world we live in today,” she said.

Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito raised the question of whether anyone would have standing to sue under the Texas law without having a direct injury. Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, defending the law, said “outrage” based on abortion opposition would be grounds to bring a lawsuit.

In the Biden administration’s challenge, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar on the “limiting principle” for the federal government suing states, noting that a different administration could also try to directly challenge states over their laws. Other conservative justices expressed similar doubts.

The Texas and Mississippi laws are among a series of Republican-backed abortion restrictions pursued at the state level in recent years. Lower courts blocked the Mississippi law.

LANDMARK RULING

Abortion opponents hope the Supreme Court will roll back abortion rights or even overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy and legalized the procedure nationwide.

The Texas measure enables private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature made it more difficult to directly sue the state. Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits under the law. Biden’s administration has called it a “bounty.”

The Texas law has an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.

The law’s design has deterred most abortions in Texas, which is the second most populous U.S. state, behind only California, with about 29 million people.

The Texas dispute reached the Supreme Court with unusual speed. The justices agreed to take up the matter on Oct. 22, bypassing lower courts that are considering the challenges.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

Pharmacy chain operator Giant Eagle settles Ohio opioid lawsuits mid-trial

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -Regional pharmacy chain operator Giant Eagle Inc. on Friday said it had agreed to settle lawsuits accusing it of fueling the opioid epidemic in several Ohio communities, including two counties that had taken it and three larger rivals to trial.

The settlement came during the fourth week of a trial in federal court in Cleveland over claims by the Ohio counties of Lake and Trumbull against Giant Eagle, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, CVS Health Corp and Walmart Inc.

The settlement resolves claims against Giant Eagle in 10 lawsuits by those counties and others in Ohio, the company and the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in a joint statement. It operates grocery stores and pharmacies in five states including Ohio.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“While Giant Eagle denies it was a cause of the opioid crisis, it recognizes the severity of the crisis, its impact on the public and the hard work of the public officials working to address the harms,” the company said.

The case underway in Ohio is first trial the pharmacy chains have faced in nationwide litigation over an opioid abuse epidemic that U.S. government data shows led to nearly 500,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2019.

More than 3,300 cases have been brought largely by state and local governments against pharmacies, drugmakers and drug distributors.

The Ohio counties claim the pharmacies failed to prevent excessive amounts of opioid pills from flooding their communities or identify “red flags” of misuse. The companies deny wrongdoing.

The three largest U.S. drug distributors – McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp – and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson in July proposed paying up to $26 billion to settle cases against them.

A bankruptcy judge in August approved a settlement by OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and its wealthy Sackler family owners that the company values at more than $10 billion.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Diane Craft and Steve Orlofsky)