Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Weakened Imelda Aims Foot or More of Rain at Flood-Prone Houston
Sep 18 2019 // Tropical Storm Imelda has lost some of its wind power, but continues to pour rain down on the U.S. Gulf Coast, with 12 to 15 inches already recorded and flood-prone Houston in its path. Imelda is now a tropical depression,...
PG&E Tells Fire Safety Critics Utility is Going Beyond Call of Duty
Sep 18 2019 // PG&E Corp. sought to assure a judge it’s making progress on fire prevention, saying it’s exceeding regulatory requirements to clear vegetation from power lines. Kevin Orsini, a lawyer for the utility, on...
New Hog Slaughterhouse Rules Please Firms, Worry Food Safety Advocates
Sep 18 2019 // U.S. food safety and the health of plant workers will be at risk from new federal rules that allow meat companies to slaughter hogs as fast as they want and shift the role of government inspectors, food and environmental...
Feds Investigating How U.S. Olympic Boards Handled Sex Abuse Claims
Sep 17 2019 // Federal investigators are looking into the way the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and national governing bodies of Olympic sports handled sex-abuse allegations, people with knowledge of the investigations told The...
Catastrophe Modelers: U.S. Insured Losses from Dorian Could Reach $1.5B in U.S.
Sep 17 2019 // Catastrophe modeling firms Karen Clark & Co. and RMS have released insured loss estimates for Hurricane Dorian, ranging from $500 million to $1.5 billion. According to KCC, Dorian reached peak intensity of 185 mph...
Experts Not Worried About Saudi-Like Drone Attack Knocking Out U.S. Oil Production
Sep 17 2019 // The style of attack used against oil plants in Saudi Arabia that knocked out half of the country’s production on Saturday is unlikely to be a risk in the United States, energy and security experts say. “The...
Lawsuits Targeting E-Cigarettes Increase Along with Death, Illness Reports
Sep 17 2019 // Several deaths and potentially hundreds of illnesses have been tied to e-cigarettes, which allow users to inhale nicotine vapor, often flavored, without smoking. Lawsuits have been filed against e-cigarette maker Juul and...
Facing Thousands of Opioid Lawsuits, Purdue Pharma Files for Bankruptcy Protection
Sep 16 2019 // OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday night, succumbing to pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits alleging the company helped fuel the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic. Purdue’s board met...
Insured Losses for Typhoon Faxai Estimated at US$3B-US$7B: AIR Worldwide
Sep 16 2019 // Industry insured losses from Typhoon Faxai, which made landfall in Japan on Sept. 9, will be between 340 billion Japanese yen (US$3 billion) and 740 billion yen (USD 7 billion), estimated Boston-based catastrophe risk...
Dive Boat Owners Seek to Head off Lawsuits After 34 Die in Fire off California Coast
Sep 16 2019 // The owners of the dive boat where 34 people perished in a fire off Southern California filed a lawsuit in early September to head off potentially costly litigation, a move condemned by some observers as disrespectful to...
People & Places
Sep 16 2019 // National Ralph Blust Insurance broker Aon has appointed Jay Demeusy as U.S. vice chairman of its Reinsurance Solutions business. Alongside his new role, Demeusy will continue to chair the newly formed Global Construction...
Business Moves
Sep 16 2019 // National Arch Insurance, Ventus Risk Management Arch Insurance North America has agreed to acquire Ventus Risk Management, a technology and analytics- driven managing general underwriter that specializes in providing...
Today’s E&S Market Is an ‘Overwhelming’ Success
Sep 16 2019 // Business Is Gushing, Underwriters Trying to Keep Up Demand for surplus lines insurance rose dramatically in 2018 and is continuing to expand this year, so much so that some in the sector are feeling a bit overwhelmed. The...
Arch Nemesis of Uber over Driver Pay Sues Before New California Law Inked
Sep 13 2019 // It didn’t take long for attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan to deploy a new weapon in her six-year war with Uber Technologies Inc. over driver pay. Within hours of Uber thumbing its nose at a pending California labor law...
Another Hard Market Harbinger: U.S. Commercial Lines Prices Up 4% in Q2
Sep 12 2019 // In yet another sign of a hardening market, U.S. commercial insurance prices grew at an accelerated rate compared to a year ago, according to Willis Towers Watson’s latest Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing...
Report: $221B in Western U.S. Homes at Extreme Risk of Wildfire Damage
Sep 12 2019 // Nearly 776,000 homes with a reconstruction cost value of more than $221 billion are at extreme risk of wildfire damage, a new report out Thursday shows. The 2019 CoreLogic Wildfire Risk Report examines single-family and...
Reuters: How Court Lets Merck Hide Baldness Drug Propecia’s Risks
Sep 12 2019 // By the time Kelly Pfaff got home from driving her son to school that morning, it was too late. Her husband, John, was supposed to be taking their 4-year-old daughter to school. But the girl and the nanny were still at the...
Dallas Electric Utility to Pay $50K to Settle Federal Disability Discrimination Suit
Sep 11 2019 // A Dallas-based electric utility company will pay $50,000 and furnish other relief to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit, federal officials said. A consent decree in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity...
Judge: Facebook ‘Could Not Be More Wrong’ in Cambridge Analytica Defense
Sep 11 2019 // Facebook Inc. users suing over the social network’s worst-ever privacy scandal gained leverage to pry into its internal records to back up their claims that it failed to safeguard their personal data, exposing the...
Outrage over PG&E’s Plan to Cap California Wildfire Liabilities at $18B
Sep 10 2019 // California utility giant PG&E Corp. has issued its long-awaited plan for emerging from the largest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history: Raise debt, offer equity and cap the wildfire liabilities that led to its collapse...
