Lawyers for the founder of French firm PIP whose faulty breast implants sparked a global health scare denied wrongdoing Friday as the court said it would deliver a verdict in December. In closing arguments, the defence called for a lighter sentence than the four-years imprisonment requested by prosecutors. Judge Claude Veillard said the ruling would be made on December 10.

Europe's medicines watchdog said Friday the benefits of acne drug Diane 35, widely used as a contraceptive, outweigh the risk of developing blood clots in the veins. The clot risk was "low", said a European Medicines Agency (EMA) ruling on a French-initiated review of the drug's safety. But it stressed Diane 35 should only be used when alternative acne treatments had failed. mlr/hmn

TORONTO - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, whose tenure has been plagued by controversy and embarrassment, found himself embroiled in a new scandal Friday amid two independent reports he was caught on video appearing to smoke crack cocaine. Leaving his home and again at city hall, Ford refused to answer any questions, but was quick to dismiss one of the reports as yet another smear job, although neither he nor his lawyer called the video fake. "These allegations are ridiculous," Ford said. "It's another story with respect to the Toronto Star going after me and that's all."

As many as one-fifth of American children and teens suffer from a mental disorder such as anxiety or depression and the incidence of such ailments is rising, a study released Thursday said. "A total of 13 percent to 20 percent of children living in the United States experience a mental disorder in a given year," according to the report examining the mental health of adolescents released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).