Washington, D.C.

Men making 12.5 percent less than their fathers 30 years ago

The part of the American dream that says a man's children will be better off than he was, has become a dream, not reality, according to an analysis of Census data released Friday.

A generation ago, American men in their 30s had median annual incomes of about $40,000 compared with men of the same age who now make about $35,000 a year, adjusted for inflation.

That's a 12.5 percent drop between 1974 and 2004, according to data from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project.

To be sure, household incomes rose during the same period, but the main reason is that there are more full-time working women, a new report on the project said.

Switzerland

EU's drug regulator backs Roche's anemia drug Mircera

ZURICH Roche Holding AG said Friday that the European Union's drug regulator is recommending approval for its new anemia drug Mircera, only a week after its counterpart in the U.S. stopped short of giving the drug full approval.

Roche, based in Basel, said the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use is recommending that Roche be allowed to market Mircera for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney disease. The European Commission typically follows the recommendation of the CHMP and typically grants approval within 90 days.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week issued an "approvable" letter for the drug, meaning the regulator believes the drug is worthy of being approved but only after certain conditions are met.

Thousand Oaks-based Amgen Inc.'s Aranesp and Epogen and Johnson & Johnson's Procrit are also approved to treat anemia associated with kidney disease, as well as anemia associated with chemotherapy.

New York

Fired ad exec says Wal-Mart didn't abide by ethics policy

NEW YORK In the latest salvo aimed at her employer, fired Wal-Mart marketing executive Julie Roehm claimed in a court filing that Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott misused the company's ethics policy and accepted trips and received preferential prices on yachts and jewelry from entrepreneur Irwin Jacobs, who owns a boat-building company.

In the documents filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, Roehm who is challenging Wal-Mart's charges of improprieties like accepting gifts from vendors and having an affair with a subordinate, also attacked other senior executives for accepting trips, concert tickets and other gifts from vendors.

From wire reports