Latest USA Headlines

All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.

U.S. Treasury Expects $12.4 Billion Profit from Investment in AIG

Sep 10 2012 // The U.S. Treasury said on Monday it expects to raise $18 billion from its sale of American International Group shares, representing a profit of $12.4 billion to date on the Treasury and Federal Reserve’s investment...

Transocean, U.S. Talking $1.5 Billion Gulf Oil Spill Settlement

Sep 10 2012 // Transocean Ltd. is in discussions with the U.S. Justice Department to pay $1.5 billion to resolve civil and criminal claims from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Swiss-based company said on...

Judge Lets Claim Against U.S. Over Stanford Ponzi Scheme Go Ahead

Sep 10 2012 // A lawsuit claiming U.S. securities regulators were negligent in failing to respond earlier to Allen Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scheme can go forward for now, a federal judge ruled in Florida on Friday.U.S. District...

Court: Severance Pay Not Subject to Employment Tax

Sep 10 2012 // In a tax decision that could have wide business implications, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that employment taxes should not have been imposed on severance pay in an involuntary layoff.The 6th Circuit Court of...

Report: Wildfires Pose Risk to Three-Quarter-Million Western U.S. Homes

Sep 10 2012 // More than three-quarters of a million homes in the Western U.S. have a high risk of wildfire damage, according to a report released by Santa Ana, Calif.-based CoreLogic.CoreLogic’s Wildfire Hazard Risk Report...

Reinsurance Rendezvous Focuses on Euro Zone, Interest Rates, Capital

Sep 10 2012 // For once there’s no natural catastrophe hanging over the annual Reinsurance Rendezvous in Monte Carlo (the 56th edition). Tropical storm Leslie missed Bermuda and Hurricane Michael is safely out in the Atlantic. But...

Court Rules Employers Must Reassign Disabled Workers to Vacant Jobs

Sep 10 2012 // A federal appeals court has revived an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit against United Airlines Inc., and said U.S. law generally requires employers to reassign disabled workers to vacant jobs for which they...

Treasury Launches $18 Billion AIG Stock Offering

Sep 10 2012 // The U.S. Treasury Department said it will sell most of its stake in insurer American International Group Inc., making the government a minority investor for the first time since it rescued the company in the depths of the...

Dodd-Frank Provisions Still Hold Concern for Insurers

Sep 10 2012 // The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression. It represented a significant change in the...

U.S. Construction Firms Facing Double-Digit Increases for Liability Insurance: Marsh

Sep 10 2012 // The commercial general liability market for the U.S. construction industry continues to firm with underwriters seeking rate increases of up to 15 percent, according to a report published by Marsh. Construction firms with...

Business Moves – East

Sep 10 2012 // USI, TD InsuranceUSI Insurance Services, a brokerage and financial service firm based in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., has agreed to acquire TD Insurance Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of TD Bank, N.A. The terms of the deal were not...

Aon Benfield August Cat Report Focuses on Isaac; Insurance Cover Disparity

Sep 7 2012 // Aon Benfield’s latest edition of its Global Catastrophe Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during August, notes that Hurricane Isaac was “the first land falling...

BP Executives Sought to Blame ‘Blue Collar Rig Workers’ for Gulf Oil Spill: U.S.

Sep 7 2012 // BP executives wanted to concentrate blame for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster on “blue collar rig workers” in order to save themselves, U.S. government lawyers wrote in a court document that until...

Commentary: World Economy Entering Into Financial Hurricane Season

Sep 7 2012 // The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from mid-August to October, with a strong peak in storm activity around the middle of September. A less familiar but even more destructive pattern of disturbances is the financial...

U.S. Weather Forecaster Downgrades El Nino Impact

Sep 7 2012 // The U.S. government forecaster has issued its most definitive report since first raising the El Niño alert three months ago, forecasting a weak phenomenon that will last until the Northern Hemisphere spring.The latest...

AIG Sells AIA Shares at Surpise Premium, Raises $2 Billion

Sep 7 2012 // American International Group Inc. said it raised $2.02 billion through the sale of a partial stake in its former Asian unit AIA Group Ltd, placing the shares at a surprise premium although analysts were disappointed at the...

Group Cleaning Kentucky Superfund Site Sues Past Users

Sep 6 2012 // Companies, municipalities and universities in Kentucky that contributed to what was once one of the largest hazardous waste facilities in the United States should have to pay for its cleanup, the group managing what is now...

Aon Benfield Report Highlights Growth of Insurance-linked Securities

Sep 6 2012 // Catastrophe bond issuance for the last 12 months – June 2011 to June 2012 – rose to $6.43 billion – an increase of more than $2 billion over the same period in 2011, according to a report issued by Aon Benfield...

Drought, Low Export Demand Sap Midwest Economy

Sep 5 2012 // An August survey suggests that the continuing drought and lessening export demand for U.S. products are among the drains on the economy in nine Midwest and Plains states, according to a report released Tuesday.The...

Prospects Fade for Early Settlement by BP with U.S. Over Gulf Oil Disaster

Sep 5 2012 // Hopes BP can settle early out of court on liability for its 2010 U.S. Gulf oil spill looked forlorn on Wednesday after U.S. prosecutors laid out a legal case for gross negligence on which tens of billions of dollars...