A man was charged week with selling a stolen gun to Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former member of the Army National Guard who used it to kill one person and wound two others at Old Dominion University, federal authorities said. The charges came a day after the attack by Jalloh, who had previously spent eight years in prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State group. Authorities say Jalloh yelled “Allahu akbar” before opening fire in a classroom at the Virginia school and being killed by ROTC students. The shooting happened in a class attended by active duty servicemembers and…
Author: Awais
US data center development has slowed because the power grid is reaching its limit to accommodate more large facilities, according to research from energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Developers added data centers that would consume about 25 gigawatts of electricity to their project pipelines in the fourth quarter of 2025, roughly half as much as they added in the third quarter. Projected capital spending by the biggest developers will decelerate in 2026 compared with the previous year for the first time since 2023, the WoodMac report states. “Both utilities and grid operators are essentially putting the brakes on and making it…
We’ve learned that US primary insurance giant State Farm has registered a new company structure in Bermuda under the Merna Re naming convention that has applied to all of its catastrophe bonds, suggesting the insurer may be set to return to the capital markets for more reinsurance.State Farm has been sponsoring catastrophe bonds as a way to secure multi-year, fully-collateralized reinsurance backed by capital market investors since at least the year 2000. Of the now 24 series of cat bond notes we’ve featured in our Deal Directory over the years that State Farm has sponsored, 23 have been issued by…
Starbucks may be neglecting the financial and reputational risks that stem from labor disputes, two proxy advisory firms are warning shareholders. The warnings come more than a year after contract talks between the company and its U.S. union, formed by baristas at its coffee shops, broke down. On Friday, the union and Starbucks both said they are in talks to resume bargaining in the coming weeks. The union said it sent a new complete proposal to the company on February 9. “There are ongoing controversies related to labor disputes, and it is not clear there is sufficient board oversight of…
It’s open enrollment season for Medicare Advantage, when people currently enrolled in private managed-care plans can either sign up for a new one or switch to original Medicare through March 31. But there’s a catch: If people want to move to original Medicare and buy a supplemental Medigap insurance plan to cover some out-of-pocket costs, they may not be able to. Medigap insurers can generally refuse coverage to applicants whose medical history or current health problems might make them expensive to cover, a process called medical underwriting. “We really want people to factor that in,” said Kata Kertesz, managing policy…
Palantir-powered system will deploy capacity in real time across up to $1.6 billion in specialty premiums
The massive sewage pipe that ruptured and leaked millions of gallons of raw waste into the Potomac River returned to operation Saturday after the completion of emergency repairs. DC Water, the utility that runs Washington’s water and sewage systems, reported that it had completed testing to determine whether the 72-inch diameter pipe could handle the flow. The Potomac Interceptor ruptured on Jan. 19, sending 250 million gallons of untreated sewage into the river just north of the nation’s capital over the first five days. The utility worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to repair the leak and…
In the town of Le Bourget outside Paris, Sofiane Milous, a candidate in France’s municipal elections, is vowing to reverse plans for a data center he says will intensify heat islands, worsen noise pollution and create few local jobs. The former judo champion, running on a green ticket, said the race to build artificial intelligence data centers was no answer to the industrial decline of working‑class towns like his, where manufacturer Alstom shut a plant three decades ago. “We lost an industry that gave us a livelihood, even if it polluted, and now we face this new ‘industry 4.0’ that…
The insurer filed suit on March 13 in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, naming ten defendants across three Tampa-area clinics – Relief and Rehab, Inc. f/k/a Del Sol Care & Rehab Center, Inc., Renew Health Center LLC f/k/a Baycare Health Center, LLC, and Tampa Bay Therapy Care, Inc. – referred to collectively in court papers as the “Fossi Clinics.”
Uber and Hyundai Motor-backed autonomous vehicle firm Motional launched a commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas on Friday, the latest in a string of similar tie-ups as the ride-hailing platform doubles down on its self-driving taxi strategy. Related: Amazon’s Zoox to Launch Command Hub in Arizona, Expand Testing Uber has already partnered with major players in the space, including Baidu, Amazon’s Zoox, Nissan and British startup Wayve, and said it will invest more than $100 million to develop autonomous vehicle charging hubs as the sector races to commercialize driverless mobility at scale. Uber’s tie-up with Motional will allow Las Vegas…
Following through on an old threat, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a vital waterway that normally carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes. As oil markets worry about a global energy crisis, the United States has said it may consider escorting vessels through the strait, which could prove very hard to secure – something Yemen’s Houthis proved in disrupting Red Sea shipping last year. (Editor’s note: This article was published by Reuters on Friday, March 13.) About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural…
A new Iowa law bans local nondiscrimination protections on the basis of gender identity after the state became the first in the U.S. to rollback its civil rights code last year. The preemption law took effect Tuesday, as soon as Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it. It prevents cities and counties from having civil rights protections that go beyond the categories identified in state code. Many cities across the state have gender identity protections on their books, including liberal populous centers, Des Moines and Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. Last month, Ames, which is home to Iowa…
LOS ANGELES — Mia Angulo, who is pregnant and due in May, is living in a tent with her boyfriend in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Lingering pain from a car crash two months ago, on top of an already hardscrabble life, has Angulo worried about her pregnancy. So, she was relieved when a mobile street medicine van from St. John’s Community Health pulled up near her encampment last month. “Thank God that we have them,” she said. St. John’s, which operates 28 clinics, mostly in L.A. County, is part of the nation’s network of nonprofit community clinics…
Hannover Re continued to grow the volumes of its activities as a key insurance-linked securities (ILS) market facilitator in 2025, with securitised reinsurance volumes expanding and collateral furnished for fronted ILS arrangements growing as well.Hannover Re has become one of the most important facilitators in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market over recent years. It’s role ranges from acting as sponsor of securitized risk transfer transactions for its own retrocession and for clients, as a risk-sharing partner aligned with third-party investors through its K-Cessions quota share sidecar, as a facilitator that helps cedants access capacity from the capital markets, and as…