Merck & Co. rested its defense Thursday in the first federal Vioxx case. Attorneys will give closing arguments Friday morning, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon told jurors.

Using a big black, red and yellow chart labeled "Merck Knew But No Warning" to emphasize his points, a plaintiff's attorney cross-examined a top scientific executive for the drug company.

An attorney for a woman whose husband died of a heart attack after taking Vioxx for a month told a jury Monday he will prove that the drug was to blame and that its maker hid the dangers.

Merck & Co. Inc. rushed the painkiller Vioxx to market despite knowing its potential health dangers, an attorney said on Monday in opening arguments of the latest lawsuit.

The next big battle over Vioxx takes place in New Orleans, a city mired in its own conflicts with nature, the government and itself.

The Garza family faces off against Merck this week in a Texas border town, in the fourth lawsuit to blame Vioxx, the market-pulled painkiller, for causing heart attacks.

The fourth Vioxx lawsuit against Merck & Co. will be held this month in a rural Texas court and a retrial of the federal case that ended in a hung jury will be held in February in New Orleans.

Round Two of the nation's first federal trial challenging safety of Merck & Co.'s drug Vioxx will be Feb. 6, 2006 in New Orleans.

Montgomery lawyer Jere Beasley has to be smiling this week, and it's not necessarily because a Houston, Texas jury deadlocked, causing a mistrial in the first federal court trial against Merck.

The nation's first federal Vioxx trial ended with a hung jury, but the judge said the case, involving the 2001 death of a Florida man who took the once-popular painkiller for a month, will be retried.