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Intact subsidiary RSA selling U.K. home and pet insurance business

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

TORONTO — Insurance company Intact Financial Corp. says its Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Ltd. subsidiary has signed a deal to sell its U.K. home and pet insurance business to Admiral Group.The company says the sale includes an initial cash payment of 82.5 million pounds, with a potential additional payment of up to 32.5 million pounds, subject to certain retention thresholds.The proceeds from the sale and the release over time of capital backing the U.K. personal lines business are expected to total about 350 million pounds, including the benefit of earnout provisions, Intact says.The deal will result in the transfer of renewal rights, brands and employees. Around 300 RSA employees are expected to move to Admiral.Intact says it will also work to exit its home and pet partner and broker contracts in the U.K.The sale has been approved by the boards of directors of Intact and Admiral. It is expected to close at the end of the first quarter of 2024.This report by The Canadian Pres...

Israel and US at odds over conflicting visions for postwar Gaza

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. But the allies are increasingly at odds over what will happen to Gaza once the war winds down.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.These conf...

Rights groups say Israeli strikes on journalists in Lebanon were likely deliberate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday.Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said that the strikes should be investigated as a war crime. Their findings were released simultaneously with similar investigations by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.Israeli officials have said that they don’t deliberately target journalists. The investigations by the rights groups found that two strikes 37 seconds apart targeted the group of journalists near the village of Alma al-Shaab on Oct. 13.The strikes killed Issam Abdallah and wounded Reuters journalists Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television cameraman Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and AFP’s photographer Christina Assi, and video journalist Dylan Collins.The seven journalists, all we...

The past, present and future of birth control

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

In today’s Big Story Podcast, “the pill” has been around for more than 60 years now. And while it changed society, sparked a sexual revolution and helped reshape the workforce, the side effects can be challenging for those who take them. The past six decades have seen incredible medical advancements, but somehow hormonal birth control remains the go-to for a lot of people who menstruate — even though we keep discovering new side effects even today.Nicole Schmidt wrote about the birth control pill for The Walrus. “We’re kind of just starting to understand how vast the side effects really are,” said Schmidt. Why hasn’t the pill gotten much better over six decades? Why haven’t better alternatives come to market? What is possible in the world of birth control and science pushes further? And why, despite promising research, is there still no proper birth control for men?You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.You can ...

Man dies after being found shot on street in West Loop

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

CHICAGO — A man has died after being found shot in the chest in the city's West Loop.Police responded to a person shot in the 100 block of North Clinton Street around 12:50 a.m. Thursday.Upon arrival, officers found the man on the street with a gunshot wound to the chest. According to police, the man was unresponsive and appeared to be about 40-years-old.He was transported to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, but was later pronounced dead. Pedestrian struck and killed on sidewalk in River North No one is in custody. Area Three Detectives are investigating.

Strikes on Gaza's southern edge sow fear in one of the last areas to which people can flee

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces struck the southern Gaza town of Rafah twice overnight, residents said Thursday, sowing fear in one of the last places where civilians could seek refuge after Israel widened its offensive against Hamas to areas already packed with displaced people. United Nations officials say there are no safe places in Gaza. Heavy fighting in and around the southern city of Khan Younis has displaced tens of thousands of people in a territory where over 80% of the population has already fled their homes, and cut most of Gaza off from deliveries of food, water and other vital aid.Two months into the war, the grinding offensive has set off renewed alarms internationally, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres using a rarely exercised power to warn the Security Council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” and urging members to demand a cease-fire.The United States has called on Israel to limit civilian deaths and displacement, saying too many Palesti...

Wisconsin judge rules 1849 law doesn't outlaw abortion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

(The Hill) - A Wisconsin circuit court judge has ruled that an 1849 law which classifies the destruction of a fetus by someone other than the mother as a felony does not outlaw abortions, returning the state's abortion access to its pre-Dobbs status.Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper on Tuesday reaffirmed a ruling she issued earlier this year, finding that an 1800's era law "does not apply to consensual abortions, but to feticide."Dane County Wis. Judge Diane Schlipper makes remarks during a case being argued by the State of Wisconsin which challenges a 174-year-old feticide law at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wis. Thursday, May 4, 2023. Schlipper refused Friday, July 7, 2023, to toss out a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's 174-year-old abortion ban, keeping the case inching toward the state Supreme Court in a state where debate over abortion rights has taken center stage. (John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal via AP, File)After the Supreme Court overturned the lan...

The 5 highest-earning bachelor's degrees in Ilinois: Census data

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

(NEXSTAR) — Throughout the U.S., the median household income is around $75,000, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 5-year survey. Your income can, of course, vary due to several factors, like where you live, your gender, and the field you're in. Your highest level of educational attainment can also be impactful. Among American workers who have only a high school diploma or equivalent, the median income is less than $37,000, according to data the Census released Thursday, which was based on their widespread community survey. Those who have a bachelor's degree, however, report a median income of just under $65,000. How much you need to make to be ‘middle class’ in Chicago Some fields will, on average, pay you much more than that. Nationally, it's those with a degree in engineering that have the highest reported median average: Americans between the ages of 25 and 64 with a degree in that field earn about $111,600, Census data shows (this data is based on...

Watch in full: Candidates spar over the issues at fourth Republican debate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

(NewsNation) —  Four Republican presidential hopefuls took the debate stage Wednesday night in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for a last-chance effort to win over voters before the Iowa caucuses in just six weeks.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie appeared in person at the University of Alabama, looking to position themselves as a viable alternative to former President Donald Trump — the dominant GOP front-runner.Trump did not attend this or any of the previous debates, noting that he continues to dominate the polls and maintains a sizable lead over the rest of the party. Trump held a fundraiser in Florida instead. Where was Donald Trump during Republican debate? Moderators Elizabeth Vargas, the Peabody award-winning anchor of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports;” Megyn Kelly, host of “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM; Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of The Washington Free Beacon, ...

Hearing Thursday for woman suing Texas over abortion ban

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:14 GMT

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Kate Cox never thought she would seek an abortion in her journey to raise a big, loving family. As a 31-year-old mother of two young children in Dallas, she was thrilled to learn she and her husband had a third on the way in August. That joy, however, was cut short by a diagnosis.“It is not a matter of if I will have to say goodbye, but when. I do not want to continue the pain and suffering that has plagued this pregnancy," Cox said in a petition to a Travis County district court. "I do not want my baby to arrive in this world only to watch her suffer a heart attack or suffocation. I desperately want the chance to try for another baby and want to access the medical care now that gives me the best chance at another baby.”She learned her baby has full trisomy 18 -- a fatal chromosomal condition causing deformities and growth delays in fetal development. Babies with trisomy 18 are often stillborn or survive for only minutes or days, and their mothers are often at ri...