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The Trump administration on Monday named a top White House lawyer as the new head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after the agency's prior acting administrator announced his retirement last month. Uttam Dhillon, who most recently served as deputy White House counsel, was named as the DEA's acting administrator at a time when the agency is devoting much of its attention to grappling with a national opioid epidemic. (Raymond, 7/2)

ASAP Analytical, a family business that operates from an unassuming building on an alley named Neave Street in Covington, sells equipment that helps analysts in forensic labs figure out the content of powder and pills and bricks of suspected drugs that cops seize. ...The surge on the streets of the synthetic opiate fentanyl, in particular, tells Harris that equipment such as ASAP's will continue to grow in demand for a while. (DeMio, 7/2)

Cities, counties and Native American tribes across the nation are filing lawsuits against opioid manufacturers in an effort to recover damages from the widespread opioid epidemic. The suits largely accuse pharmaceutical companies of aggressively pushing painkillers while falsely representing the danger of addiction, turning "patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit," one suit said. (Ryan and Marso, 7/2)

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson announced Monday that her office has filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the makers of the opioid painkiller OxyContin. The suit in Hennepin County District Court alleges that Purdue misled doctors and the public about the dangers of opioid painkillers starting in the mid-1990s. (Collins, 7/2)