Author: completebodyneeds

Nearly a dozen counties in Northern California face an elevated risk of power shutoffs this weekend as extreme heat and high winds boost wildfire conditions across the region. PG&E Corp., which serves more than 5.5 million electric customers in northern and central California, said public safety power shutoffs are possible on Saturday for parts of eight inland counties including El Dorado, Lassen and Placer, according to a website posting. That warning expands to three more counties on Sunday. The move comes as the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for large swaths of the utility’s territory with elevated…

The artificial intelligence boom remains a global financial stability danger that risks more damage than past crashes, the Bank for International Settlements chief said. Pablo Hernandez de Cos reiterated a warning delivered by his institution in June, observing that investors’ hopes pinned to the technology have driven “elevated” stock valuations based on “ambitious expectations.” “Should the returns to AI disappoint, a pullback in investment could turn today’s capital expenditure boom into a bust,” he told an event in Mumbai on Thursday. “The consequences of such a correction could be larger than in the past.” Several global policymakers have rung alarm…

A day after Germany blamed Russia for a failed drone attack on cargo planes at its Leipzig-Halle airport, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a tacit admission that the continent was not responding quickly enough to the threat. “We have to step up,” she said last week, alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “And that means being ready to respond to Russia’s recklessness faster and better.” The attack on the airport, a key hub for NATO military support for Ukraine, was part of what Western officials say is the Kremlin’s increasingly brazen campaign of so-called hybrid warfare —…

Japan’s Digital Agency said it suffered unauthorized access to its servers and personal data on about 246,000 people may have leaked. The agency detected access to a large volume of files on its Government Solution Service network using a maintenance account in late June, according to a statement on Friday. A subsequent investigation found that someone had exploited a vulnerability in a virtual private network and possibly stole information on public servants and others who use the system. (Editor’s note: The Digital Agency is an agency of the Japanese government that focuses on strengthening digitalization across local and national governments,…

Insurers Allianz SE and Zurich Insurance Group AG, who had both written policies covering transactions tied to Radiant World, said they have no material exposure to the iron ore trader. Zurich had insured Radiant World against non-payment from counterparties including Glencore Plc, according to a person familiar with the matter. The trading company hasn’t made a claim, and the Swiss insurer’s total exposure is in the low double-digit millions of dollars, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss private information. Allianz Trade, a subsidiary of the German insurer, said separately that it has no material exposure to Radiant World…

Sal Argano got lucky. When the World Trade Center was struck by hijacked jets on Sept. 11, 2001, the New York City firefighter was in Brooklyn, on loan to another station, rather than at his usual post at the small Manhattan firehouse just across an intersection from the twin towers. He rushed downtown to find his firehouse badly damaged but still standing. Six of its members, he’d later learn, were among the 343 New York City firefighters killed in the World Trade Center’s collapse. “If I wasn’t sent out on rotation there would have been a good chance I would…

Where were you on September 11, 2001, when you heard that at 8:46 a.m. a hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) in Manhattan? And that minutes later hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower? What were you doing when you heard that more hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia? And then when they crashed United Airlines Flight 93 into an empty field Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers and crew prevented it from reaching Washington, D.C. At 9:59 a.m. the WTC’s South Tower…

Bank holding company Arrow Financial Corp. announced that Upstate Agency, LLC, a subsidiary of Arrow Bank National Association, has agreed to acquire Skene Valley Agency, Inc., an independent insurance agency in Washington County in upstate New York. Founded in 2002, Skene Valley Agency is based in Granville, with satellite operations in Whitehall and Cambridge. Based in South Glens Falls, Upstate Agency has been offering personal, commercial and group employee benefit insurance for more than 50 years. Financial terms were not disclosed. The sale is targeted to close by the end of the third quarter of 2026. Following the completion of…

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 shocked the nation and left nearly 3,000 dead. In today’s dollars, 9/11 caused $60 billion in insured losses. In the aftermath, the industry responded with state-filed requests to exclude terrorism coverage, which had generally been included before the attacks, from standard commercial property/casualty insurance policies. These requests were quickly approved by a majority of states by early 2002. This overhaul of the insurance industry’s perception of risk prompted a quick government response in order to keep terrorism risk insured – leading to the creation of a federal terrorism backstop initiated late in 2002…

When the planes crashed and the buildings fell on that sunny September morning 25 years ago, the shock waves of dismay and grief went far past downtown New York City, rural western Pennsylvania and just outside Washington, D.C. They radiated through every part of the United States in communities large and small, tearing at Americans’ sense of safety and their place in the world. Hearts were broken across the nation, not just of those who lost their loved ones but among strangers who mourned for them, the Sept. 11 attacks leaving no one unaffected in an unwanted moment of horrifying…