Archive for March 2022

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — Residents of hundreds of Florida Panhandle homes were evacuated as a wildfire destroyed two houses and damaged 12 others in an area that has spent years recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Michael, officials said … Source: Claims Journal

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two foreign divers, either American or Canadian, were killed off Mexico’s resort of Cancun by a dive boat that moved over them, prosecutors said Saturday. The prosecutors’ office in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo … Source: Claims Journal

US Insurers — already hammered by extraordinary losses caused by natural disasters — are also failing to raise premiums at a pace that matches an historic inflation rate, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association said Friday. APCIA said private property … Source: Claims Journal

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma reached a settlement Thursday over its role in the nation’s deadly opioid crisis that includes virtually all U.S. states and thousands of local governments, with the Sackler family members who own the company boosting their cash … Source: Claims Journal

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Precision Castparts Corp. has agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused its metal casting facility in Southeast Portland, Oregon, of polluting nearby homes with toxic metals. The settlement includes millions of … Source: Claims Journal

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The state of Michigan sued the owner and operator of a hydroelectric dam, alleging that its mismanaged drawdown of a lake to do repairs created sediment that has choked a 30-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River, … Source: Claims Journal

SYDNEY (AP) — Around 500,000 people in Sydney and its surrounding areas had by Thursday been told to evacuate or prepare to flee floodwaters as torrential rain lashed an extraordinarily long stretch of the Australian east coast. Rivers were rising … Source: Claims Journal

LONDON —The International Maritime Organization (IMO) will convene a special meeting next week to discuss the risks to seafarers and ships in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UN’s shipping agency said on … Source: Claims Journal

EDGEWATER, Fla. (AP) — Three people were killed in a series of crashes involving 17 vehicles early Thursday along a stretch of Interstate 95 in Florida where visibility was very low due to fog combined with smoke from prescribed burns … Source: Claims Journal

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to predict where flood damage is likely to happen in the continental United States. The findings suggest that recent flood maps from the Federal Emergency Management Agency do not capture the full extent of flood … Source: Claims Journal