A doctor who supplied “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine in the months before he fatally overdosed, is to be sentenced in Los Angeles on Wednesday.Salvador Plasencia, 43, one of five people charged over Perry’s death, has admitted to four counts of distribution of ketamine.He faces up to 40 years in prison as well as a fine that could run into millions of dollars. He will also surrender his medical license.At an earlier hearing, Plasencia’s attorney, Karen Goldstein, said her client regretted his actions.”Dr. Plasencia is profoundly remorseful for the treatment decisions he made while providing ketamine to Matthew Perry,” Goldstein said in a statement.”He is fully accepting responsibility…acknowledging his failure to protect Mr. Perry, a patient who was especially vulnerable due to addiction.”Plasencia did not provide Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine but supplied the actor with the drug in the weeks before he was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.Another doctor, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.”I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors.The four other people who have also admitted their part in supplying drugs to the actor will be sentenced over the coming months.They include Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, who could be jailed for up to 65 years.Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.- Addiction struggles -The actor’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of “Friends” fans.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.In his plea deal with prosecutors, Plasencia said he went to Perry’s home to administer ketamine by injection and distributed 20 vials of the drug over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023.Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug.”Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

The US Department of Justice has dismissed eight immigration judges in New York City, the association representing them said Tuesday, amid tensions with the courts as President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on undocumented migrants.According to the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ), which confirmed media reports, the eight judges all worked at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The address houses a court that reviews cases of migrants attempting to regularize their status.For months, masked federal officers have been patrolling the hallways of the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building daily. The officers make arrests of migrants as they leave hearings, but under the watchful eye of the press, which is frequently present.Images of scuffles with police and of immigrant families being separated have gone viral around the world, making 26 Federal Plaza a symbolic site of the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants nationwide. It’s unclear what led to the eight New York judges being dismissed. However, they join approximately 90 judges who were dismissed over the year across the country out of about 600, according to a report by the New York Times.As migrant advocacy groups see them, these dismissals are aimed at replacing the outgoing judges with others who are more aligned with the administration’s immigration policy.The dismissals took place after several dozen people gathered in Manhattan over the weekend to try to prevent a possible raid by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) against street vendors. The New York police made several arrests.As a so-called sanctuary city for migrants, New York City voluntarily limits cooperation between its local authorities and federal immigration services. However, it does not prevent their operations.

San Francisco is suing makers of the ultra-processed food that health experts say has led millions of Americans into obesity during decades of over-consumption, the city said Tuesday.In what officials said was a first-of-a-kind lawsuit, the liberal California city is taking to task some of the largest names in groceries, including Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, Nestle and Kellogg.”These companies created a public health crisis with the engineering and marketing of ultra-processed foods,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said. “They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body.”Ultra-processed food, including candies, chips, sodas and breakfast cereals, are typically made from ingredients that have been broken down, chemically modified and combined with artificial additives.They frequently contain colors, flavor enhancers, sweeteners, thickeners, foaming agents and emulsifiers, and typically cannot be produced in the home.”Americans want to avoid ultra-processed foods, but we are inundated by them. These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused,” Chiu said.- A common cause -With its lawsuit, lodged in San Francisco Superior Court, the Democratic-run city is making common cause with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement that has coalesced around Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy.The movement is a significant part of the fractious coalition that President Donald Trump rode to the White House for his second term in office.Kennedy has frequently taken aim at processed foods, calling them “poison” and blaming them for rising obesity, chronic illness and poor health, especially among young people.The US Centers for Disease Control says 40 percent of Americans are obese, and almost 16 percent have diabetes, a condition that can result from being excessively overweight.The lawsuit lodged Tuesday, which is demanding unspecified damages, claims that around 70 percent of the products sold in US supermarkets are ultra-processed.It says manufacturers employed a similar strategy to that of tobacco companies, pushing a product they knew was harmful with marketing that ignored or obscured the risks.”Just like Big Tobacco, the ultra-processed food industry targeted children to increase their profits,” a statement said.”The companies surrounded children with consistent product messages and inundated them with advertising using cartoon mascots like Tony the Tiger and Fred Flintstone.”Despite having actual knowledge of the harm they had caused, the ultra-processed food industry continued to inundate children with targeted marketing and make increasingly addictive products with little nutritional value.Sarah Gallo of the Consumer Brands Association, an umbrella grouping of many of the companies targeted in the suit, said manufacturers “support Americans in making healthier choices and enhancing product transparency.””There is currently no agreed upon scientific definition of ultra-processed foods and attempting to classify foods as unhealthy simply because they are processed, or demonizing food by ignoring its full nutrient content, misleads consumers and exacerbates health disparities.”Companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards established by the (government) to deliver safe, affordable and convenient products that consumers depend on every day.”