Author: completebodyneeds

Jonathan Rinderknecht has been wrongly accused of starting the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history, his lawyer told a jury. Rinderknecht was watching New Year’s Eve fireworks on a hillside in the Pacific Palisades and called 911 just after midnight on the morning of Jan. 1, 2025, as a “concerned citizen” to report a brush fire, only to be charged nine months later with arson, defense attorney Steve Haney said at the start of his client’s trial in Los Angeles federal court. “There won’t be any proof that Jonathan Rinderknecht started that fire,” Haney said. The evidence “will show…

Cumulative trauma claims have risen sharply in recent years and they are driving changes in claim characteristics, costs and claim outcomes, a new report shows. The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California’s Emerging Patterns of Cumulative Trauma Claims report out on Wednesday finds CT claims are leading to higher levels of litigation and earlier involvement of medical-legal and interpreter services than non-CT claims. Related: California Comp Written Premiums ‘Relatively Stable’ Compared to Pandemic These differences are influencing both medical and allocated loss adjustment expense (ALAE) costs and shaping overall claim severity trends, according to the WCIRB report. The frequency…

Uber Technologies sued New York City to block enforcement of a new law that it said would unconstitutionally force it to keep drivers it does not want on its platform. In a complaint filed late on Tuesday night, Uber said the law against “wrongful deactivations” would improperly shield drivers who engage in dangerous, threatening or other inappropriate behavior, threatening public safety and causing “immediate and irreparable harm” by undermining the company’s reputation and goodwill. It said the law violates its free-speech and due-process rights under the U.S. Constitution, as well as New York’s state constitution. Uber is seeking a permanent…

A former engineer at Elon Musk’s xAI in California who now heads a think tank focused on AI safety filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired from the SpaceX subsidiary for raising concerns about the risks artificial intelligence poses to humanity. Devin Kim claims in the lawsuit filed in California state court on Tuesday that his efforts to place guardrails on the development of the chatbot Grok made him a target for company leadership. The lawsuit comes ahead of SpaceX’s planned initial public offering, the largest ever, on Friday. Related: Trump Takes Hands-Off Approach to AI Cybersecurity in New Order…

Andersen named leader of Nationwide Agribusiness Distribution and Underwriting Nationwide named Nick Andersen as the new leader of agribusiness distribution and underwriting, following Dirk Pollitt’s retirement. Effective July 1, Andersen will lead Nationwide’s farm, ranch and commercial agribusiness sales and underwriting teams and oversee operational work that influences business performance. Andersen currently serves as vice president of agribusiness claims and strategic transformation and brings more than 25 years of insurance experience to his new role. Ascot Appoints Eppers as Group Chief Investment Officer Ascot Group Limited appointed Joseph Eppers as group chief investment officer and a member of the company’s…

The U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday it is rescinding part of its long-standing civil rights regulations that prohibit conduct that has an unintended “disparate” impact. In April 2025, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies not to enforce laws that prohibit policies and practices with discriminatory impacts that are often unintended. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the department is making clear its regulations “prohibit only intentional discrimination, not conduct or activities that have a disparate impact,” and added USDOT will not take action on disparate-impact liability. Curbing so-called disparate impact liability, which is common in employment-related cases, removes a tool…

Eli Lilly, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical makers, has won a federal court order against leaders of a Tennessee church and Florida and Tennessee-based pharmacy groups, after the drugmaker said the participants had crafted a years-long scheme that bilked Lilly of some $200 million in rebates for its popular weight-loss drug. “Through extensive pre-litigation investigation, Lilly has identified a network of interconnected individuals and entities who, since at least 2020, have been exploiting Lilly’s practice of paying rebates to PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) to systematically defraud Lilly,” reads the pharmaceutical firm’s argument for a temporary restraining order on the…

It was an eventful first quarter, with the Iran conflict co-mingling with market concerns over the private credit exposures held by both European banks and insurers. Unsurprisingly, debt issuance has been affected, with March and much of April seeing a drought after a reasonably lively start to the year, although the on-off-again nature of peace talks has seen activity pick up. Insurers don’t appear to have been particularly affected so far both in their underwriting and investment portfolios, and it will be interesting to see what is said in their first half 2026 results. However, based on FY25 results, they…

A state court judge has denied motions by Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube seeking a new trial after a jury found the companies liable for designing social media platforms that are harmful to young people. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl ruled on the motions on June 9, according to court documents. The companies had sought a new trial in a lawsuit filed by a woman who said she became addicted to Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram at a young age because of their attention-grabbing design. A jury found the companies negligent and imposed $6 million in damages. Kuhl…

The top U.S. derivatives regulator on Wednesday released new draft regulations governing the burgeoning prediction markets industry, seeking to cement federal oversight over companies that have shot to the forefront of politics and sports betting while presenting new possible avenues for fraud. The proposal, if adopted, would set standards for the types of sporting wagers that are acceptable while leaving prediction markets on elections and politics outside a category of activities that garner stricter review, according to a draft made public by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In proposing new regulations, the CFTC aimed to address far-reaching questions about…