Richard Alexander Murdaugh, the disbarred South Carolina attorney found guilty in 2023 of murdering his wife and son, won his bid Wednesday to overturn his conviction and get a new trial over comments the county clerk made to jurors. The Colleton County clerk “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility and his defense, thus triggering the presumption of prejudice, which the State was unable to rebut,” the South Carolina Supreme Court said in a per curiam opinion. “Our justice system provides—indeed demands—that every person is entitled to a fair trial, which includes an impartial jury untainted by external forces bent on influencing the…
Author: Awais
Brookfield Corp. is merging its shares with those of its insurance business as the firm pushes ahead with plans to transform itself into an investment-led insurer. The merger of the parent company and the insurance business will improve Brookfield Corp.’s overall capital structure and give it access to the combined group’s asset base to pursue growth, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt said in a letter accompanying its first-quarter earnings statement on Thursday. The asset manager’s distributable earnings before realizations rose to $1.4 billion in the first quarter, a 7% increase from the prior year, according to the statement. Profits from…
States were asked to report only new or expanded Medicaid and Public Health initiatives implemented in FY 2025 or planned for FY 2026 under specific domains. Therefore, initiatives summarized and reported here do not represent a comprehensive look at all initiatives currently in place across states. State counts are not identified in the sections below, as open-ended questions often lead to underreporting. See Appendix for additional (high-level) state-by-state detail. To track common themes across domains, state responses have been summarized (at a high-level) under the following subheadings, as applicable: “data sharing,” “rural,” “workforce,” “access,” and “other.” State examples are included…
Insurance brokerage IMA Financial Group, Inc. announced the completion of an equity recapitalization transaction. Oak Hill Capital and New Mountain Capital are each taking minority positions, with additional participation from HarbourVest Partners and a select group of prominent institutional co-investors. IMA employees will continue to own a majority of the company, with 100% of associates participating as shareholders. SkyKnight Capital and The Stephens Group will exit in connection with the transaction. New Mountain will exit its existing position and reinvest alongside the broader investor group. The transaction values IMA at $4 billion. The recapitalization supports IMA’s growth, investments in technology,…
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Ariel Re and McLarens. A summary of these new hires follows here. Ariel Re Taps Gallagher Re’s Sammons as Active Underwriter of Syndicate 2006 Ariel Re, the Bermuda-based reinsurer, announced the appointment of Richard Sammons as active underwriter of Syndicate 2006, following approval from Lloyd’s. Richard Sammons Sammons joins Ariel Re with nearly 30 years of experience across the Lloyd’s and global reinsurance markets, bringing extensive expertise in specialty underwriting, portfolio management and leadership. He has held senior roles at Gallagher Re and Hamilton Re, most recently serving as head of…
Icosa Investments AG is adding experienced insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond investments specialist Raffaele Dell’Amore as a new Portfolio Manager for its growing Icosa Cat Bond Fund strategy, Artemis has learned.We understand Dell’Amore will be employed by both Icosa Investments AG, which distributes the Icosa Cat Bond Fund UCITS strategy, as well as its fund management partner MRB Fund Partners AG which undertakes the regulated portfolio management activities, and is set to join as a PM for the Icosa Cat Bond Fund, working alongside its CEO and founder Florian Steiger in July 2026. Earlier this year, the Icosa Cat Bond…
A federal judge cited “red flags” about a proposed $1.5 million deal between Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission to end the agency’s lawsuit alleging the world’s richest person waited too long in 2022 to reveal his growing stake in Twitter Inc. “I am not going to rubber stamp this settlement and I cannot rubber stamp this settlement,” US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said on Wednesday, adding that details in the proposed settlement “raise red flags for me.” Sooknanan ordered attorneys for Musk and the SEC to answer questions by June 1 about how the parties reached the…
US efforts to end the war with Iran were dealt a setback after a commercial vessel was apparently seized by unauthorized personnel near the United Arab Emirates, increasing uncertainty over control of the critical Strait of Hormuz. The ship, whose identity wasn’t immediately clear, was taken 38 nautical miles off the UAE coast and is now bound for the Islamic Republic, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said in a statement on Thursday. The incident came amid an apparent uptick in vessels transiting the strait, which usually handles about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply. Its…
The use of the AI tool Grok to remove women’s clothing in images brought the issue of so-called technology-facilitated abuse to the fore. But it’s a problem that predates AI – with Bluetooth trackers, wearable devices, smart speakers, smart glasses and apps all used by abusers to control, harass or stalk their victims. This abuse has worsened as tech has become more embedded in people’s lives, and as AI advances rapidly. But governments have struggled to make tech companies design systems that minimise misuse, and to hold them accountable when things go wrong. Our own research has confirmed that technology…
Executive summary: With plans for an EU natural disaster insurance fund in the works, EIP’s founder and CEO Ross Sinclair explores the need to improve the speed of the payout process as an essential part of building climate resilience. As climate volatility across Europe continues to increase, so too does the ongoing financial fallout from these extreme weather events. Storm Goretti, which tore through Europe at the beginning of this year, is the perfect example of costs continuing to rise even after the event has taken place. Catastrophe insurance data provider PERILS recently increased its initial loss estimate as a…
A New York hospital system says it received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Texas seeking information about children who received gender-affirming care and the medical providers who administered it. NYU Langone is the first hospital system to publicly acknowledge receiving a subpoena for such records as part of a federal criminal investigation. But the institution said in its statement Tuesday it was one of several that received a subpoena out of the Northern District of Texas on May 7. It said it was deciding on how to respond. NYU Langone Health includes seven inpatient facilities and more…
A small Texas county outside Dallas approved a one-year moratorium on new data center and energy storage developments, pushing back against the growing number of large-scale projects fueling the artificial-intelligence boom across the state. Hill County had been approached by several data center builders in recent weeks, and feared the potential impact to local water supplies and quality of life, County Commissioner Jim Holcomb said in a meeting Tuesday. The County Commissioners Court passed the pause after hours of negative testimony from people at the meeting. “The data center folks have found a sweet spot in a state that has…
Hiscox Capital Partners, the division of Hiscox Re that encompasses insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments and quota-share partnerships, has won a US $1 billion mandate from giant Australian investor TCorp, which is the sovereign investment manager for the New South Wales (NSW) public sector, according to a report.Australian institutional markets publication Financial Standard has reported that TCorp’s head of listed and unlisted asset management James Murray told it about the mandate which has been awarded to Hiscox Capital Partners. “We see this as a strategic opportunity to partner with a highly regarded insurer with a strong track record in insurance underwriting,”…
President Donald Trump won’t have to pay an $83 million defamation award to a longtime advice columnist until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal, according to a court entry Tuesday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let the president delay the payment to E. Jean Carroll, though it required that Trump post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made. The appeals court late last month refused Trump’s request for a…