Author: completebodyneeds

A tropical system developing in the Bay of Campeche may reach the US Gulf Coast this weekend, threatening heavy rain while potentially skirting major oil and gas hubs. The swirl of showers and winds has a 90% chance of becoming a tropical depression in the coming days, the US National Hurricane Center said on Monday. A depression is the weakest of a class of storms that also includes tropical storms and hurricanes. It won’t be named until its winds reach 39 miles (63 kilometers) per hour and would likely be called Isaias. “We have it becoming a tropical storm in…

This edition of International People Moves details appointments at the insurer Hartford International and the London broker Augment Risk. A summary of these new hires follows here. Hartford Names Smith as International Head of Distribution in UK The Hartford has named Jonathan Smith its international head of Distribution based in the UK. In this role, Smith will lead the company’s international distribution strategy, broker engagement and market development activities, working closely with underwriting teams to help drive profitable growth and strengthen relationships across both the London and international markets. He will report to Tom Allebone-Webb, The Hartford’s head of Strategy…

Insurance agency network SIAA reports it has acquired Canopy Specialty Insurance, a specialty commercial property/casualty managing general agent (MGA) with operations in the U.S. and U.K. The addition of Canopy adds specialized underwriting and product development capabilities to SIAA’s broader distribution and intelligence platform. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “Independent agencies continue to see significant demand for specialty coverage, but solutions for these niche specialty risks have not been easy to come by,” said Matt Masiello, CEO of SIAA. Canopy brings existing programs, carrier relationships and wholesale distribution across its operations. The company focuses on niche commercial specialty…

Britain’s communications regulator opened its first formal investigation into Meta under the Online Safety Act on Tuesday, questioning whether it properly assessed risks posed by its Instagram Instants feature before launching it in May. Instants allows content shared by users on Instagram to disappear after being viewed. Ofcom said its investigation would establish whether Meta carried out a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the risks of illegal content on the feature and any risks posed to children before its launch. George Lusty, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Our online safety laws are clear — significant changes to platforms must…

Specialty insurance broker Amwins has launched illumin Specialty, a managing general agency (MGA) offering primary general liability and excess liability insurance. The MGA will work exclusively with wholesale brokers to focus on coverages for “challenging exposures across segments where market dislocation and technical complexity often complicate placement.” The illumin Specialty team expects to finalize capacity and begin accepting new business in the fourth quarter. Rebecca Gitig, an industry veteran with more than 20 years’ experience underwriting environmental and primary liability, will lead illumin Specialty as it focuses on coverage solutions for “challenging exposures across segments where market dislocation and technical…

A 10th-grade girl and a motorist were killed Monday morning when a car hit a school bus full of high school students in central Florida, causing the bus to swerve and overturn. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference at the scene that video of the crash was available and was being studied by investigators. In the film, a white sedan is seen veering across the center line on Lucerne Park Road in Polk County and hitting the rear wheel of the bus, tearing a bus tire off. That appeared to cause the bus to fishtail and…

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week upheld the constitutionality of the state’s $250,000 damages cap on claims against state agencies, turning aside arguments that the cap that was set in 1978 violates both the right to a jury trial and right to a remedy guaranteed by the state Constitution, even where the injured party may end up with little or nothing. The high court majority affirmed that the legislature has the authority to set a cap on the state’s liability while also acknowledging three consenting opinions that appeal to the legislature to update the damages cap. The high court declined…

Russian attacks on commercial vessels off the Black Sea’s western coast are on the rise, threatening to add strain to already-choked trade flows in the region. “Commercial ships — and innocent crews — are being targeted, with lives already lost at sea,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X on Tuesday. Two general cargo ships were hit by air and naval drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone overnight, Prime Minister Rumen Radev told reporters on Tuesday. A commercial vessel loaded with rapeseed oil was also damaged by a Russian drone strike that killed one…

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Russia should share more information about the death of a plague laboratory worker who died last week, an incident which he said Washington was watching “very closely.” “I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Rubio told reporters in Iceland. “We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour.” A laboratory worker at Siberia’s plague research institute fell ill and died in undisclosed circumstances on Friday, prompting authorities to quarantine dozens of people, and sparking public health fears on social media. (Editor’s note: The plague…

New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a statewide disaster emergency on Monday over a measles outbreak, the first such declaration by a U.S. state since cases began surging in 2025. The state also expanded the pool of health professionals allowed to administer measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines as cases rise in rural communities. “No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” Hochul said in a statement. New York has reported 108 measles cases this year through October 3, including 92 since July 15 in under-immunized rural communities across 18 counties, well above typical annual levels, according to the…