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I know there a a lot of FReepers smarter than I, so here goes...got this presented to me for help & I for the life of me am stumped 4 [4 - 5x] = 6x + 4 says answer is x= 10/7 can someone show how to solve? Thanks in advance....

A deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was charged with using a computer to seduce a child after authorities said he struck up sexual conversations with an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. Brian J. Doyle, 55, the fourth-ranking official in the department's public affairs office, was expected to appear in court Wednesday afternoon in Maryland and also to be placed on administrative leave. "He said last night that he was going to waive extradition. If he does that, we may have him back by the end of the week," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd...

Merck & Co. sought patent protection for a way to reduce cardiovascular problems in Cox-2 inhibitors, the class of drugs that includes Vioxx, as early as 1998 — a year before the popular pain killer was introduced, newly disclosed documents show. The application suggests that Merck was attempting to reformulate the drugs targeted for arthritis sufferers two years earlier than had been previously disclosed. But while the patent was granted in September 1999 by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Merck officials say no product with those properties was ever introduced. Instead, Merck began marketing Vioxx in the United States soon...

No single person has come to more represent the big questions about drug safety that emerged following the withdrawal of Merck's painkiller Vioxx than the Food and Drug Administration's David Graham. And now that a Texas jury has awarded the widow of one Vioxx patient $253 million, Graham, who works in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, is more critical than ever. Of the drug, and his employer, for whom he doesn't speak. "If the judgment is that there's blood on Merck's (nyse: MRK - news - people ) hands," Graham says, "there's blood on the FDA's hands as well."...

"Geezers" (slang for an old man) are easy to spot: At sporting events, during the playing of the Star Spangled BANNER, Old Geezers remove their caps and stand at attention and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them. Old Geezers remember the Depression, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War 1950-53-55, The Cold War, Vietnam, the jet age and the moon landing the 50 plus Peacekeeping Missions from 1945 to 2005 the Jet Age and the Moon Landing, not to mention Vietnam. If you bump into...

In the latest blow for beleaguered drug maker Merck & Co., a New Jersey judge has ruled that health plans that paid for members' Vioxx prescriptions can sue as a class to recover billions of dollars they spent on the recalled painkiller. Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee in Atlantic City late Friday granted a motion filed by a labor union health plan to allow a nationwide class-action lawsuit to proceed under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, had opposed the motion, which was filed by the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 68 Welfare...

ANGLETON - The first Vioxx lawsuit trial in the country has already gone to a state appeals court - even though the trial itself is not yet half over. Attorneys for pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. filed a motion in the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston today seeking to block the testimony of pathologist Dr. Maria Araneta. "The trial court abused any applicable discretion by allowing trial by ambush," Merck said in its petition. Araneta performed the 2001 autopsy of Robert Ernst. His widow, Carol Ernst, claims he died as a result of taking the once-popular painkiller Vioxx....

ANGLETON, Texas - The pathologist whose 2001 autopsy of a Texas man is central to the nation's first Vioxx-related civil trial told attorneys in a deposition that his death from arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, was probably brought on by a heart attack. "Arrhythmia does not spontaneously occur. Something must trigger it," Dr. Maria Araneta told attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit, according to a transcript of the deposition obtained by The Associated Press. She said Robert Ernst, whose widow, Carol, is the plaintiff in the case, probably had a heart attack because a blood clot blocked blood flow...

ANGLETON, Texas - Merck & Co.'s top epidemiologist faces the potential for a tough week when testimony begins in the nation's first Vioxx-related lawsuit to go to trial. Nancy Santanello, executive director and head of Merck's department of epidemiology, attended opening statements in the case last week and was expected to return to the courtroom Monday. If so, the plaintiff's lawyer, Mark Lanier, aims to make her his first witness. "It's my intention to really go after her," Lanier said Sunday. Lanier tried to get Santanello in the witness chair last week after jurors listened to hours of opening statements...

HOUSTON - For more than eight months, Vioxx eased the pain and stiffness in Robert Ernst's hands. But eight days after Ernst, a 59-year-old personal trainer, clocked 62 miles on a bike, he died in his sleep from arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat.

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) will outline ideas about strengthening Social Security (news - web sites) but will not spell out all the details of a plan to fix the system's financial problems when he delivers his State of the Union address Wednesday night. Bush's strategy to offer a partial outline rather than detailed remedy reflects a split between the two houses of Congress about the president's role in the politically sensitive debate. ..,snip,"It's time to shine a very clear light on the problems facing Social Security and then to talk about ways we can work together...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facing an intensifying fight over his plan to revamp Social Security, President Bush insisted on Saturday that the retirement program was in peril and he had a moral responsibility to fix it. "Saving Social Security is an economic challenge. But it is also a profound moral obligation," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He described the 70-year-old U.S. retirement system as broken and urged that it be changed to allow younger workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into private stock and bond accounts. U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy this week accused Bush of hyping...

DAVISON, Mich. - Oscar on the shelf or not, Michael Moore is not getting much respect at his old high school. Despite his fame and many honors, the filmmaker has been rejected all four times that he has been nominated for Davison High School's Hall of Fame.