[naviga:h2]Woman gets $110M in powder lawsuit[/naviga:h2]

ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis jury has awarded a Virginia woman a record-setting $110.5 million in the latest lawsuit alleging that using Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder caused cancer.

The jury ruling Thursday night for 62-year-old Louis Slemp, of Wise, Va., comes after three previous St. Louis juries awarded a total of $197 million to plaintiffs who made similar claims.

Slemp was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. It has since spread to her liver. She blamed her cancer on her use of the company’s talcum-containing products for more than 40 years.

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement that it would appeal and disputed the scientific evidence behind the plaintiffs’ allegations.

[naviga:h2]Hiring rebounds; rate falls to 4.4%[/naviga:h2]

WASHINGTON — Hiring rebounded in April as U.S. employers added 211,000 jobs, a sign the economy’s sluggish growth in the first three months of the year may prove temporary.

The Labor Department says the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent, reaching its lowest level in a decade.

The figures suggest that businesses expect consumer demand to rebound after a lackluster showing in the first quarter, when Americans boosted their spending at the slowest pace in seven years.

Average paychecks grew more slowly, increasing 2.5 percent over the past 12 months. That’s below March’s annual gain. Hourly pay gains are usually closer to 3.5 percent in a strong economy.

[naviga:h2]Students sue over suspension[/naviga:h2]

SAN FRANCISCO — A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.

But a federal lawsuit says the district went too far when it also disciplined students who indicated they “liked” the posts on the Instagram account. The suit — filed Monday in San Francisco on behalf of four students — accuses the Albany Unified School District of violating students’ free speech rights and says the district did not have the authority to suspend the students because the offensive posts were on a private account that had no connection with any official school activity or school account.