Author: completebodyneeds

The cost of a surplus-lines homeowners’ policy in Florida is now about the same as admitted-market HO policies, reflecting the growing trend for excess and surplus firms across the state and beyond, recent reports show. The Florida Surplus Lines Service Office, which tracks numbers for the E&S market, reported this week that the average premium for a Florida HO-3 policy in the surplus lines market had fallen below $3,500 for April, marking a new low. “It highlights how the surplus lines market continues to respond to homeowner needs and provide meaningful coverage options for Floridians,” Mark Shealy, FSLSO executive director…

Google has settled with Black employees who alleged systemic racial disparities in hiring, pay, and advancement in a lawsuit filed in 2022. April Curley, a former Google employee, had sued the tech giant for racial discrimination, saying it engages in a “pattern and practice” of unfair treatment for its Black workers. The suit claimed the company steered them into lower-level and lower-paid jobs and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they speak out. Other former Google workers also joined the suit, which later received class action status. “This case is about accountability, plain and simple,” said civil rights…

Tesla has been authorized to test its supervised self-driving software on one car on the roads of Belgian region of Flanders as part of a the general authorization process, a spokesperson for regional minister Annick De Ridder said on Wednesday. The U.S. company could start testing its software on a car as soon as it get a license plate and an insurance, which could be on Wednesday or Friday, as Thursday is a holiday in Belgium, he said De Ridder last week said Flanders region is looking into whether it can quickly authorize the technology after the Dutch regulator provisionally…

The parents of a man who died of an accidental drug overdose last year sued OpenAI and its founder and CEO Sam Altman in a California court on Tuesday, alleging the man was coached to take a dangerous combination of substances by ChatGPT. Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott say their son, Sam Nelson, 19, was using a chatbot for guidance on combining different drugs. They say it encouraged him to take the prescription drug Xanax to treat nausea caused by kratom, an herbal product with opioid-like effects. Related: Family of FSU Mass Shooting Victim Sues OpenAI The combination of those…

Alabama’s attorney general announced a civil investigation Monday into the Southern Poverty Law Center’s fundraising practices in the wake of a federal indictment against the organization. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said he has sent a subpoena to the center seeking information about its donations and payments to informants. He said he is seeking to determine if the organization violated state laws related to charitable organizations or deceptive trade practices. “We look forward to learning more about the inner workings of an organization that we have long believed was rotten, but until recently, has been impervious,” Marshall said in a…

Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit. Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as well as…

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote a memo last spring laying out how to kill the disaster agency. At the time, Cameron Hamilton was FEMA’s interim chief — a role that didn’t last long. When called before Congress, he endorsed keeping the agency, not ending it as outlined in his own memo, titled “Abolishing FEMA.” That publicly put him at odds with his two bosses, Trump and Kristi Noem, then Homeland Security secretary. Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, was pushed out of the administration within a day. Now, Hamilton is on the verge of…

Typhoon activity in the Northwest Pacific Ocean is expected to be the highest this year since 2015, according to commercial forecaster Tropical Storm Risk. The projection for 2026 is 25% above the historical average, driven by an emerging El Niño and stronger-than-normal westerly winds, the London-based group said in its first outlook for the season published this week. It forecast 18 typhoons forming, of which 11 will be intense, higher than the 10-year average of 14.2 and 8.4, respectively. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is also predicting an above-normal number of tropical storms in the Northwest Pacific this…

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has given the green light to a racketeering lawsuit by Uber Technologies, Inc. and Federal Express Corp. alleging that a Philadelphia law firm and a group of medical providers conspired to create false medical records and inflate injury claims related to motor vehicle accidents involving their drivers. Justice Mark Kearney of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania found that the two transportation firms provided ample facts and enough detailed allegations at this stage to allow the court to infer a plausible basis for their varied racketeering claims. Consequently. he denied a motion to dismiss…

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division is warning employers about scams to steal money. Oregon OSHA said it has learned of several recent cases of fraudulent activity involving two types of scams. One scam involves people calling employers with a recent Oregon OSHA inspection opened. Callers claim to represent a consulting firm, telling employers they will ensure the inspection results in no violations if the employers send money. The other scam involves people calling employers and claiming to represent Oregon OSHA. They tell employers they can settle an enforcement penalty at a reduced amount and to just send them…