National News

Billions at Stake in Opioid Suits, But It’s No Tobacco Windfall

An Oklahoma case, the first of more than 1,600 lawsuits filed by U.S. state and local governments against opioid makers to go to trial, could serve as a key benchmark for governments hoping to recoup costs associated with the public …

Facebook Must Face Lawsuit Over 29 Million-User Data Breach

Facebook Inc. failed to fend off a lawsuit over a data breach that affected nearly 30 million users, one of several privacy snafus that have put the company under siege. The company’s disclosure in September that hackers exploited several software …

Cyber Insurers Need Loss Data to Properly Underwrite Risks

While there are “huge opportunities” on the horizon for the cyber insurance industry, cyber insurance underwriters still face the challenge of not having enough historical data to work with. “It’s really scary to underwrite something when you just don’t know …

Data Ownership Question Impedes Insurance Tech-topia

Insurers need to learn to share their data if they want to take full advantage of the mountain of information generated from connected devices, insurtech executives say. Along the way, somebody’s got to figure out who owns the data. Presentations …

Armada of Barges Cleared for Mississippi River Shipments After Floods

CHICAGO — The upper Mississippi River reopened to barge traffic on Friday as vessels were cleared to ship through St. Louis harbor, the U.S. Coast Guard said, and the situation quickly became a logistics nightmare as dozens of towboats and …

Mental Stress on Rise as Coastal Towns Confront Climate Threats

When community leaders in the town of Piermont, just north of New York City, ask residents, “How long do you want to live here?” the question is more than a personal one. Piermont, parts of which are set on a …

Tesla’s Autopilot Found Most Likely to Confuse Drivers on Safety

Automakers including Tesla Inc. are stoking confusion among motorists by choosing names for their automated-driving systems that wrongly suggest they’re more capable than is actually the case, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Almost half of respondents to …

Lawmakers will Hear from Pilots who have Criticized Boeing

The president of the pilots’ union at American Airlines says Boeing made mistakes in its design of the 737 Max and not telling pilots about new flight-control software on the plane. Daniel Carey says Boeing’s zeal to minimize pilot-training costs …

Uncertainty Can Follow Grief When Small Business Owner Dies

NEW YORK — When Jim McLaughlin died suddenly from a heart attack at age 64, his family assumed they would have to close his homebuilding business. He’d made no plans for someone to succeed him at McLaughlin Construction, and there …

Exiles Sue Expedia’s Trivago for ‘Trafficking’ in Cuban Property

A family of Cuban exiles sued a unit of Expedia Group Inc. for compensation over a hotel property confiscated when Fidel Castro took power, in the latest of several lawsuits filed since Donald Trump upended a quarter-century of U.S. presidential …

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