Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Texas’ 2011 Drought Costliest in State History, Researchers Say
Mar 22 2012 // Texas agriculture producers lost $7.62 billion to the state’s 2011 drought, which experts said makes it the costliest drought in the state’s history and possibly the most expensive drought ever suffered by any...
U.S. Treasury’s Geithner Put on Spot for Delayed Insurance Report
Mar 21 2012 // A Republican Congresswoman took an opportunity during a hearing on Tuesday to ask U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why the Federal Insurance Office is late with its report on modernizing insurance regulation. The...
U.S. Chamber, European Business Call for Removing Transatlantic Trade Barriers
Mar 21 2012 // The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and BUSINESSEUROPE have issued the following statement in a letter signed by twelve U.S. and European business associations to President Obama and EU Presidents Van Rompuy and Barroso, calling...
U.S. Exempts 11 Countries from Iran Oil Sanctions; China, India Exposed
Mar 21 2012 // The United States exempted Japan and 10 EU nations from financial sanctions because they have significantly cut purchases of Iranian oil, but left Iran’s top customers China and India exposed to the possibility of...
Municipal Defaults – Already 21 in 2012 – Another Blow for Bond Insurers
Mar 20 2012 // A growing number of U.S. cities are choosing to fund essential services like public safety and garbage collection over making payments on their outstanding debt, as rising costs and falling revenue deplete their...
AmWINS Announces Promotion in Philadelphia Office
Mar 20 2012 // AmWINS Group Inc. promoted Matt Szkotak to branch leader of AmWINS Brokerage of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia. Szkotak has been serving as property manager in the Philadelphia office for the past 10 years and will...
Willis Among Targets of Stanford Third Party Class Actions
Mar 20 2012 // Victims of Allen Stanford’s estimated $7 billion Ponzi scheme won a victory when a federal appeals court said they may pursue class-action litigation against third parties they believe aided in the now-convicted...
Court Allows Suspension of Cardinal Health’s Florida Shipping Center
Mar 19 2012 // A U.S. appeals court allowed the government to suspend Cardinal Health Inc.’s license to distribute potentially addictive drugs from a Florida facility, part of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s battle...
2012 Hot Markets: Green Building, Retrofits Offer Growing Opportunity
Mar 19 2012 // This article is part of our Hot Insurance Markets for 2012 special feature. Green homes accounted for 17 percent of the overall residential construction market in 2011. And the trend of going green isn’t expected to...
U.S. Treasury Selling Off $6B in AIG Stock
Mar 19 2012 // The U.S. Treasury Department is selling $6 billion worth of American International Group stock and struck another deal for the insurer to pay down $8.5 billion more in obligations, taking a major step forward in an...
2012 Hot Markets: Healthcare Remains a Healthy Market
Mar 19 2012 // This article is part of our Hot Insurance Markets for 2012 special feature. Healthcare is one of the country’s largest industries. Annual spending on healthcare in the U.S. tops $2.6 trillion, more than 16 percent of...
Travelers Wins Reversal in $500M Asbestos Case
Mar 19 2012 // Travelers Cos. has won the reversal of a court order directing it to pay more than $500 million to satisfy asbestos-related claims stemming from its coverage of policyholder Johns-Manville Corp. In the latest ruling in a...
2012 Hot Markets: New Hope in Housing Market
Mar 19 2012 // This article is part of our Hot Insurance Markets for 2012 special feature. 2012 is delivering a sense of growing optimism for the housing industry – a welcomed relief to a market that has been troubled in recent...
La Niña to Fade but South Should Expect Dry Conditions
Mar 19 2012 // The La Niña weather pattern blamed for a devastating drought in Texas and a bad dry spell in South America should be gone by the end of April, but its impact will persist in large swaths of the southern United States. The...
BP’s $7.8 Billion Deal May Speed Gulf Spill Payments
Mar 19 2012 // The estimated $7.8 billion deal struck by BP Plc with businesses and individuals suing over the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill could speed up payments to thousands of claimants and offers lawyers a potential...
Towers Watson Receives Patents for Risk Modeling Technique
Mar 16 2012 // Towers Watson said it has won two U.S. patents for its financial modeling technique designed to help insurance executives statistically sample and better understand and calculate risk exposures in real time. The global...
SEC, Citgroup May Win Appeal in Mortgage Fraud Case
Mar 16 2012 // A federal appeals court stopped just short of throwing out a judge’s controversial rejection of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s $285 million fraud settlement with Citigroup Inc over mortgage...
Millions in U.S. at Risk from Rising Sea Levels: Report
Mar 15 2012 // Sea level rise due to global warming has doubled the annual risk of coastal flooding of historic proportions across widespread areas of the United States, according to a report from the non-profit research group Climate...
Whistleblowers Reaping Rewards in U.S. Mortgage Suits
Mar 15 2012 // Troubled homeowners are not the only ones set to get a financial lift from the U.S. government’s $25 billion landmark mortgage settlement. Whistleblowers who were instrumental in revealing epidemic mortgage abuses,...
Departing Goldman Sachs Banker Slams ‘Rip-Off’ Culture
Mar 15 2012 // Goldman Sachs faced an unprecedented assault from one of its own on Wednesday after a banker published a withering resignation letter in the New York Times, calling the Wall Street titan a “toxic” place where...
