A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston this week to payroll tax avoidance and workers’ compensation insurance fraud, prosecutors reported. According to the U.S. attorney’soffice, Henry Lam, of Lowell, used cash payments to employees to hide his firm’s true payroll, avoid collecting and paying taxes, and lowering his workers’ compensation costs. Between 2016 and 2023, Lam owned and operated HL Temporary Services – a temporary employment agency in Lowell that served companies in Massachusetts. The clients paid HL Temporary Services for the temporary employees’ work on an hourly basis. Lam cashed these client’s checks at check cashing…
Author: Awais
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the University of California for what it says is discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students at its University of California Los Angeles campus. The suit says the environment on the UCLA campus is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Earlier this year, we sued UCLA for subjecting its Jewish and Israeli employees to an antisemitic hostile work environment,” stated Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Now, the Department of Justice calls UCLA to account for its toleration of the…
Four Southern California drivers were arraigned in an alleged staged collision scheme tied to coordinated insurance fraud. The collisions reportedly endangered an innocent driver. The defendants are: Jhoiner Rodriguez Celis, 31, of Anaheim; Melissa Cervantes De La Torre, 30, of Upland; Nailer Mendez Diaz, 35, of Anaheim; and Plata Sampayo, 28, of Upland. Their arraignment follows an investigation by the Inland Empire Automobile Insurance Fraud Task Force, which includes the California Department of Insurance, California Highway Patrol, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, and the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. The investigation began after the Upland Police Department contacted…
Florida, like most states, has seen more than a decade of annual decreases in workers’ compensation average rates. But costs may no longer be falling, thanks in part to higher wages and escalating medical payments, a new study from the Workers Compensation Research Institute shows. After declining significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic then stabilizing for three years after that, medical payments per claim in Florida rose 4% in 2025 for claims with more than seven days of lost work time (at 12 months maturity), the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research group reported. The increase was likely due to a new fee schedule…
Palm Beach can count on its billionaires to keep picking up the tab for schools, firefighters and parks if Florida slashes property taxes. Many other local governments will have a tougher time making up the difference. After more than a year of teasing the idea, Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday floated a plan that could eventually eliminate property taxes for more than 90% of Florida residents who own their homes, shifting the bulk of the tax burden onto the state’s wealthiest homeowners. The Republican governor’s proposal would initially increase the state’s homestead exemption, which shields a portion of the value…
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Thursday it has opened a preliminary probe into 114,922 Rivian vehicles over an issue with the rear toe link. The issue relates to the company’s R1S and R1T electric vehicles. The agency’s office of defects investigation received two vehicle owner questionnaires reporting that the left rear toe link separates while driving, causing vehicles to swerve across multiple lanes of traffic, NHTSA said. One incident resulted in a collision with an adjacent vehicle and roadside barrier, NHTSA said. In an emailed statement, Rivian said its internal data indicates that the R1 toe…
Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc., a nationally expansive, Florida headquartered property and casualty insurer, has renewed reinsurance and catastrophe bond limit totalling $2.2 billion for 2026, with the firm’s CEO citing “substantial cost savings” and more multi-year protection.Interestingly, the $2.2 billion of reinsurance limit, across traditional and cat bonds, is actually less than Heritage secured a year ago. At the mid-year 2025 renewals, Heritage secured almost $2.5 billion of limit, up 13% on the $2.194 billion renewed a year earlier. So, for 2026 total limit has declined, indicating a restructuring of sorts. But the all-important first-event exhaustion points have all increased…
Tesla Inc. has just 42 vehicles operating as robotaxis in Texas almost a year after Elon Musk launched the service, a small fraction of the fleet commanded by rival Waymo. The official count was revealed for the first time in registration information Tesla submitted to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles under new rules that went into effect Thursday. A DMV website shows that Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo has registered 577 automated vehicles in the state, more than 13 times Tesla’s total. The tally represents the most concrete assessment yet of the scale of Tesla’s Texas robotaxi network that began operating…
UHS will establish a new nonprofit to absorb financial responsibility of GW University’s debt-ridden physician practice group. Executives said the deal should help maintain clinical operations in the D.C. region.
Ohio will pause incentives for future data center projects, following a directive from the governor to halt the tax credits while a committee studies the impact of the projects on the state’s economy. The pause is not a complete ban but a suspension of requests from facilities for state tax breaks, Governor Mike DeWine said in a statement Wednesday. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority, the body that oversees issuing the perks, will stop accepting new applications after its next meeting on June 1. Data centers previously incentivized by the state had a total capital investment of $27 billion last year,…
Michigan may be known as the Great Lakes state, but most of its residents have a river to thank for their hometown’s existence. “Just looking at settlement patterns in Michigan tells us a lot about how important our rivers are,” said Lisa Dechano-Cook, a Western Michigan University geographer who co-wrote the book ” Kalamazoo River.” “You wanted to be near water, especially running water, so that you could get from place to place.” When combined, Michigan’s 76,000 miles of rivers, creeks and streams have a shoreline 46 times the length of Michigan’s Great Lakes coast. That means in most of…
Allan Ilias The Hartford has named Allan Ilias as head of Ocean Marine, U.S., and global practice leader, effective June 1. Ilias replaces Tony Plutino, who is retiring. He will report to Rick Ciullo, The Hartford’s head of Global Specialty U.S. Retail. Ilias will oversee the underwriting strategy and portfolio performance for the Ocean Marine business segment within Global Specialty. Ilias previously served as The Hartford’s national cargo practice leader. He joined The Hartford in 2024 from AXA/XL, where he last served as National Cargo Producer Leader for the United States. Topics USA Was this article valuable? Yes No Here…
Cyberattacks and inflation are tops among concerns for business leaders, according to a recent survey from The Hartford. The insurer’s 2026 Risk Monitor report is based on a survey of 500 U.S. midsize and large business. Results put both cyber risks and economic risks at the top for 77% of respondents. Phishing, ransomware and data breaches are at the forefront of business concerns, according to the survey, and 67% of respondents said their business has an insurance policy and a response plan—leaving a third without one. More than half of business leaders said enhancements to cyber policies are planned in…
Anthropic plans to widely release new artificial intelligence models in the coming weeks with cybersecurity capabilities comparable to Mythos, a technology the company previously said was too dangerous to make available to the general public. The company said Thursday that it has made “swift progress” in developing “stronger safety safeguards” that would allow it to release Mythos-level AI models to all customers. The company made the announcement alongside the release of a new model, called Opus 4.8, that’s meant to be better at carrying out coding tasks on behalf of users. Anthropic has said Mythos is capable of identifying and…