Yes, There Really Could Be Life In The Cloud Tops Of Venus

Ethan SiegelSenior Contributor
Starts With A Bang
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The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

The Mariner 10 spacecraft captured this image of Venus, which has been processed to appear in... [+] 2005 MATTIAS MALMER, FROM NASA/JPL DATA

From afar, Venus seems like the most uninhabitable planet of all.


NASA's Magellan mission conducted radar mapping of the entire surface of Venus, penetrating its... [+] NASA / JPL-CALTECH / MAGELLAN

Beneath its carbon dioxide/nitrogen atmosphere, 90 times thicker than Earth's, a hellscape of a surface awaits.



The surface of Venus, one of the Soviet Union's old Venera landers: the only set of spacecraft to... [+] VENERA LANDERS / USSR

Day or night, Venus's surface is constantly 880 °F (470 °C): the hottest planet of all.

Venus' surface, as seen by the Venera 14 lander. Humanity has not been back to the Venusian surface... [+]
Although we've successfully sent numerous landers, they've all failed after mere hours.



An infrared view of Venus' night side, by the Akatsuki spacecraft. The features revealed here... [+] ISAS, JAXA
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The reason? A layer of sulfuric acid clouds enshrouds Venus at high altitudes.


Multiple layers of clouds on Venus are responsible for different signatures in different wavelength... [+] VENUS EXPRESS; PLANETARY SCIENCE GROUP AT HTTP://WWW.AJAX.EHU.ES/These radiation-reflecting clouds create a runaway greenhouse effect: responsible for Venus's incredible temperatures.


Before we had explicit measurements of the temperature of Venus's atmosphere at various altitudes... [+] ESA, SPICAV/SOIR TEAMS

Above the cloud-tops, however, conditions become far more hospitable.

This false-color image of Venus, in the ultraviolet, shows the full view of the southern hemisphere... [+] ESA © 2007 MPS/DLR-PF/IDA

At 60 kilometers (36 miles) in altitude, temperatures and atmospheric pressures are similar to Earth's.

Using data from the ESA's Venus Express mission, both daytime and nighttime temperatures, as a... [+] ESA, VERA TEAM, (M. PÄTZOLD ET AL.)

The right ingredients for life, including carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen-rich molecules, are all abundant.



With a majority CO2 atmosphere alongside nitrogen gas, the presence of sulfur dioxide, water, and... [+] JUNKCHARTS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Ultraviolet photos of Venus display "dark patches," which Harold Morowitz and Carl Sagan suggested could indicate microorganisms.

Ultraviolet image of Venus' clouds as seen by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. The dark regions are still... [+] NASA

A zeppelin filled with breathable air would "float" at this altitude, making investigative missions feasible.



NASA's hypothetical HAVOC mission, the High-Altitude Venus Operational Concept, would look for life... [+] NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER

Above the cloud-tops, Venus has been called a "paradise planet."

This composite image of Venus's night side (left, from Venus Express) and night side (right, from... [+] JAXA / ESA / J. PERALTA, JAXA / R. HUESO, UPV/EHU

NASA has proposed a mission devoted to human settlements there, HAVOC: the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept.


There is a detailed plan for the deployment and entry of a HAVOC airship destined for Venus, which... [+] ADVANCED CONCEPTS LAB AT NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER

For life beyond Earth, the heavens of hell-planet Venus might, quite surprisingly, be "just right."
Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words. Talk less; smile more

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Ethan Siegel
I am a Ph.D. astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. I have won numerous awards for science writing…

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The More Military Equipment Cops Have, They More They Kill
WARTIME FOOTING

Militarization of police doesn’t reduce crime or improve officer safety. It does make civilians less trusting of the police, with good reason.

Casey Delehanty, The Conversation
Published Jul. 06, 2020


Tasos Katopodis/Getty



Police departments that get more equipment from the military kill more civilians than departments that get less military gear. That’s the finding from research on a federal program that has operated since 1997 that I have helped conduct as a scholar of police militarization.

That finding was recently confirmed and expanded by Edward Lawson Jr. at the University of South Carolina.

This federal effort is called the “1033 Program.” It’s named after the section of the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act that allows the U.S. Defense Department to give police agencies around the country equipment, including weapons and ammunition, that the military no longer needs.

Much of the equipment is brand new and some is innocuous—like file cabinets and fax machines. But the program has also equipped local police with armored vehicles and helicopters, as well as weapons meant to be used against people, like bayonets, automatic rifles and grenade launchers used to deploy tear gas.

The seeds of this program came in 1988 as the Cold War was ending. The military was shrinking, while police were feeling overwhelmed fighting the drug war. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act allowed military surplus to be distributed to state and federal agencies combating drugs. In 1997, the program was expanded to include all law enforcement agencies—including school districts. That additional eligibility led to a dramatic expansion in the program, and over the past 23 years police all across America received billions of dollars in military-grade hardware often designed specifically to fight in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.



And yet, all that equipment has done more harm than good. Militarization of police doesn’t reduce crime or improve officer safety—but it does make civilians less trusting of the police, with good reason.

In our study, my coauthors and I found that the police agencies who received the most military gear had, in the year after getting the equipment, a rate of civilian killings more than double that of police departments that had received the least amount of military equipment through the 1033 Program. While data limitations limited our analysis to four states, our findings were replicated with nationwide data.

A police armored vehicle is seen near a home in a suburb of Philadelphia in 2014.
Brad Larrison/Reuters

Federal records of how much military gear has actually been given to local police are inconsistent, poorly maintained and sometimes missing altogether. But between 2006 and 2014, the available records reveal that more than $1.4 billion worth of equipment was distributed. While the 1033 Program is the most significant source of military gear for police in general, it is not the only source of military equipment for police: There are other similar federal and state grant programs, and many big-city police departments have massive equipment budgets of their own with which they can purchase military-grade hardware.

The 1033 Program often requires receiving agencies to use the equipment within the first year after getting it, according to research done by the American Civil Liberties Union, even if a situation may not truly need it. That requirement exists alongside the proliferation of heavily armed SWAT teams and other military-style units in U.S. police departments, officers’ veneration of the revenge-killing comic-book character “The Punisher” and adoption of its logo, as well as militaristic training programs such as “killology.”

Together, research has shown, those influences lead police to emphasize the use of force to solve problems they encounter in the community. The equipment comes at no cost to the departments, but they have to pay to maintain it, which can be very expensive. To justify the costs, and help defray them, police often use the gear to serve search warrants targeting drug crimes. That can make the departments eligible for additional federal grants – and for a share of the value of any property and money seized during drug raids.

As a result, supposedly free weapons and vehicles can lead some police to use aggressive deployment strategies that make civilian casualties more likely. Other departments may already have a military-style mindset and are taking advantage of an opportunity to stockpile more equipment.

These increasingly aggressive deployment strategies of militarized police disproportionately harm communities of color, for instance in Maryland, where SWAT raids consistently target majority-Black neighborhoods.

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

SPORTS
3 Washington Redskins Co-Owners Want Out, But Daniel Snyder Remains All-In

BY SCOTT MCDONALD ON 7/5/20

Former NFL Player Burgess Owens Wins Utah’s Fourth Congressional District Primary

Things are changing quickly with the NFL's Washington Redskins and their mascot of the last 88 years. Just days after two major sponsors threatened to pull their millions of dollars, three co-owners now want out of their shares.

And none of them are named Daniel Snyder.

The three minority owners in the team—Robert Rothman, Dwight Schar and Frederick W. Smith—hold a collective 40 percent ownership, and they have reportedly hired an investment firm to help them sell their shares of the club, the Washington Post reported.

Snyder owns the majority of the team, and the other three co-owners are "not happy being a partner." The Washington Redskins are worth about $3.4 billion, according to Forbes' latest calculations. That ranks seventh in the National Football League.
 

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder sits next to his franchise's three Super Bowl trophies during a press conference in Ashburn, Virginia. Snyder now has three co-owners who want out of their ownership.PHOTO BY LARRY FRENCH /GETTY IMAGES

The latest news comes after a sequence of events over the last week that has forced the team to reexamine the name "Redskins" and whether it should be changed.

A group of investors on Wednesday sent letters to the team's top three sponsors—FedEx, Nike and Pepsi—urging them to pull their sponsorships if the team did not change their name from Redskins to something else. The next day, FedEx sent a letter to the team that threatened a yanking of sponsorship dollars.

Why is FedEx important? FedEx holds the naming rights to the team's stadium, and pulling sponsorship could cost the Washington NFL franchise many millions of dollars if the team doesn't comply. Not to mention, the team would scramble to recuperate those dollars with another sponsor—one not likely to throw down cash unless a name change was made.

And within a few hours of the FedEx decision, Nike pulled all of its Redskins merchandise from the Nike.com website. Not only did a search of "Washington Redskins" take users to an empty landing page, Washington was omitted from the list of NFL teams on Nike's website.

On Wednesday, 87 different investors and shareholders, whose total net worth is $620 billion, signed the letters urging the them to pull their sponsorships unless the Redskins change their nickname.

"This is a broader movement now that's happening that Indigenous peoples are part of," said Carla Fredericks, who is director of First Peoples Worldwide and director of the University of Colorado Law School's American Indian Law Clinic. "Indigenous peoples were sort of left out of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s in many respects, because our conditions were so dire on reservations and our ability to engage publicly was very limited because of that. With social media now, obviously everything is very different."

FedEx made the first move.

"We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name," FedEx said in a statement.

Then Nike pulled the Redskins gear.

READ MORE
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This isn't the only time in history the Redskins have faced opposition to the name. Native American groups in the late 1960s began efforts to end any harmful stereotypes or images of Native American life, especially in the sports world. By the early 1970s, there became a growing plea from activists for the Redskins to drop their name, or change its mascot altogether.

Although requests for sports teams to change their mascots from Indians and similar names somewhat dissipated throughout the 1980s, it began picking up steam again following the 1991 season, when the Redskins advanced to the Super Bowl XXVI in Minneapolis.

About 3,000 demonstrators showed up at the game to protest the Redskins name—the largest such protest at the time. Later that year, a Native American group filed a petition to have the team's nickname removed from trademark.

A federal appeals board sided with the petitioners, but the Redskins appealed the ruling. The board ruled that the team's name was belittling to Native Americans.

In 2004, a poll of 768 self-identified Indians showed that only nine percent of them were offended by Washington's nickname, and it's a survey that owner Daniel Snyder has used to this day as a way to defend the Redskins organization and brand.

Lawsuits have continuously been filed against the Washington Redskins, but the organization has never wavered. Snyder even said in 2013 that he would never change the team's name.

After the death of George Floyd on May 25 while in custody of police, protests against his death—and police brutality against Blacks, in general—swept the nation. There have also been protests for equality of all races, including Native Americans.

In the letter from the investors to Nike, it stated, "the use of the R-word as the name and mascot of the Washington National Football League team is offensive and hurtful to American Indian and Alaska Native people and causes direct, harmful effects on the physical and mental health and academic achievement of the American Indian and Alaska Native populations, particularly youth; and ... despite the team's arguments to the contrary, the R-word is not a term of honor or respect, but rather, a term that still connotes racism and genocide for Native peoples and for all others who know of this history and recognize that it is wrong to characterize people by the color of their skin."

Bullying and Harassment Increase for Some Workers in Pandemic Lockdown: Opinion

By Elisa Martinuzzi, Bloomberg Opinion | June 23, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL


Working from home should have liberated employees from toxic workplace behavior such as bullying and harassment. Amid the lockdowns, gone are undesired office encounters, business trips, round-the-clock conferences and much after-hours socializing. Yet, far from ending misconduct, the pandemic lockdowns have displaced it at best and fueled it at worst.

Early anecdotal evidence in the financial services industry — which has all too often silenced victims of harassment — does not paint a pretty picture. SteelEye, which makes surveillance tools for securities trading and communications in banking, told me its clients have witnessed a notable increase in potential impropriety amid a surge in activity and heightened stress in financial markets. While the alerts mostly flag potential insider-trading and market abuse, offensive or hostile language that points to bullying and harassment has shown up too, according to SteelEye’s Chief Executive Officer Matt Smith.

Suzanne McKie, a London-based employment lawyer, whose clients work predominantly in finance, concurs. She told me that she has heard of more occurrences of harassment than before lockdown. This intimidation has not been physical, but it has moved to WhatsApp and text messages on personal phones, which are just as, if not more, difficult for employers to monitor.

McKie says she is also seeing a distinct uptick in complaints of gender harassment and racial intimidation. For example, her clients have reported being excluded from meetings and bullied over video calls – provocations that would have been harder to do in an office with bystanders present. Abruptly leaving a meeting room, for example, is not as easy as hanging up a video call.

Also specific to the coronavirus crisis, McKie says, managers have used furlough as a form of bullying minorities, either by forcing them to take it or by denying the option when it’s been requested. (In the latter case, the hope is this will lead the employee to resign.)

According to another London-based employment lawyer, whose clients also work predominantly in finance, remote working during the pandemic has given rise to harassment in two key ways. First, virtual communication provides a degree of anonymity that can lead people to act in ways they would not do so in person — similar to how the internet and social media produced cyber-bullying, which then became an issue in schools.

Second, stressful conditions from the pandemic have led some working relationships to break down. Inappropriate comments that denigrate an individual, be it over the phone, by text message or by e-mail, are proliferating, the lawyer told me.

If history is any guide, economic vulnerability can breed harassment. In the U.S., workplace harassment charges spiked in the Great Recession to a two-decade record, says Alexandra Kalev, an associate professor in sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University. Using data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Kalev calculated that the rate of harassment charges in 2008 shot up to 33 per 1,000 employees, a jump that was four times higher than the rate of increase in the decades before. Harassment rises in line with insecurity, Kalev explains.


And right now we are all more vulnerable. Some jobs that have been lost may never return. Those fortunate enough to stay employed are still concerned about their future financial wellbeing. And we are worrying about our physical survival and that of our loved ones, as Covid-19 infection rates continue to ebb and flow. Add in the stress of coping with closed schools and remote working, and it’s easy to see how many people may be at their wits’ end.

Crucially, just as many are at their most strained emotionally, the boundaries between work and private life have blurred, which can facilitate harassment. Take the explosion of video calls and meetings. Colleagues, as well as customers and other contacts, are now regularly brought into the intimacy of our homes. Working out of our kitchens and living rooms can lead people to let their guard down and be more informal or in some cases inappropriate. A comment about a nice bookcase in the background can all too easily be followed by unsolicited remarks about a person’s appearance or by an improper joke – an uncomfortable situation I have experienced myself.

McKie says that some firms have postponed investigations into harassment cases due to the pandemic, which is not an encouraging sign. In the U.S., some states, such as Connecticut, have extended deadlines to conduct mandatory sexual harassment training that were introduced after the #MeToo movement.

Company executives should pay attention. As many people continue working remotely and others begin transitioning back to the office, employers will have to prioritize rooting out improper behavior and mistreatment of employees. Industries like finance have to improve their dire record on harassment.

Bullying and harassment perpetuate inequality in organizations, typically by preventing women and minority groups, who are most often targets, from advancing. This behavior hurts productivity, damages mental and physical health, produces absenteeism and high staff turnover and distracts management.

There is no quick fix. Filling management positions with more women — one commonly cited solution — is no panacea. A recent study into harassment in Sweden, the United States and Japan found that women promoted into leadership positions can face even more harassment.

But employers can step up by putting more effort into offering anti-harassment training and following up on complaints. At a time like this, Kalev says, companies need to send a strong anti-harassment message and get more people involved in rooting out misconduct.

Bystander training, for example, can teach staff to speak up when they spot inappropriate behavior. This should be beefed up online and reinforced as an important way to empower employees and establish health work cultures. Companies can also create easier, non-adversarial reporting mechanisms for employees to share concerns and complaints. Longer term, Kalev and her coauthor Frank Dobbin, a professor of sociology at Harvard, also suggest creating task forces and publishing data that reveal the extent to which harassment permeates a firm.

As company executives shift their focus from the health crisis to returning to work, employment conditions need to be firmly in their sights. Concerns about harassment can’t go ignored.


Copyright 2020 Bloomberg.

Fidelis, Aon and Marsh Develop Marine Cargo Clause Aiming to Combat Modern Slavery

June 22, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL


A group of brokers and insurers in the London market has come together to announce a new approach to keeping the products of modern slavery out of the export supply chain.

Fidelis, Aon and Marsh have developed a clause which makes it a condition of marine cargo policies that the insured complies with applicable legal and regulatory obligations in respect of forced and child labor.

“Forced labor in all its forms is an extreme expression of inequality and injustice. The insurance industry is committed to do all it can to prevent association with the abhorrent practices of modern slavery. We sometimes think that slavery is a thing of the past, but it is not – it is real and present in all societies and we want to do our part to root it out,” said Charles Mathias, group executive director & group chief risk officer, Fidelis Insurance.
About Fidelis Insurance

Fidelis Insurance Holdings Limited is a privately owned, Bermuda‐based holding company, which, through its subsidiaries, is a global provider of property, bespoke and specialty re/insurance products. The core operating subsidiaries of Fidelis have financial strength ratings of A (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company, Inc. and A‐ by Standard & Poors.

Source: Fidelis

THE SLAVE TRADE IS THE ORIGIN OF CAPITALISM

Some Facts About London’s Role in Insuring the Slave Trade

By Guy Faulconbridge | June 19, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL


London is facing up to its role in insuring the slave trade as part of a sweeping global reassessment of history and racism.

This reappraisal was triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him.

For centuries, London has maintained a pre-eminent role in financing global trade and on Thursday the Lloyd’s of London insurance market apologized for its “shameful” role in the 18th and 19th Century Atlantic slave trade.

About 17 million African men, women and children were torn from their homes and shackled into one of the world’s most brutal globalized trades between the 15th and 19th centuries. Many died in merciless conditions.

By the late 18th Century, Britain was the leading slaver nation, carrying about 40% of Africans transported between 1761 and the abolition of the trade in 1807.

Update: Lloyd’s of London Apologizes for Its ‘Shameful’ Role in Atlantic Slave Trade

Lloyd’s grew to dominate the shipping insurance market, a key element of Europe’s global scramble for empire, treasure and slaves, who were usually in the 18th Century included in insurance policies in the general rate for ship cargo.


Other major traders were Portugal/Brazil, with about 32% of the market, and France, with about 17%. American and Dutch ships were also involved, with around 6% and 3% respectively.

How important was slavery to British maritime insurance?

There is a lack of documentary evidence from the time, but historians have estimated that the slave and West India trades combined accounted for 41% of British marine insurance in the 1790s.

(For more information: Insuring the Transatlantic Slave Trade.)

“Between a third and 40 percent of London marine insurance in the 18th Century was accounted for by the slave trade and by the movement of slave grown produce across the Atlantic,” said Nick Draper, former director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership.

“Those ships bringing sugar to Britain had a valuable cargo and the ships themselves were valuable and often coming through enemy waters because Britain was at war for long periods.”

Who were the big players?

There were three main marine insurers in the 18th Century: London Assurance, Royal Exchange and Lloyd’s of London.

“Lloyd’s had the dominant insurance business – probably had 80-90 percent of the market,” said Draper.

“By 1807 when the slave-trade was abolished, it was relatively unimportant to marine insurance and by the 1830s when slavery was abolished the sugar economy in turn had become less important. We were shipping then huge amounts of raw slave-grown cotton, for example, back to the UK from the American south.”
How did it work?

Slaves were seen as cargo by the insurance market of the time and generally included in the general insurance rate.

Often slaves were termed as a “parcel” whose value was determined by ethnicity, size, height, age, gender and health.

Slaves were also classified by underwriters as “perishable goods,” alongside cattle. Underwriters and courts dealt with slave losses arising from revolt as the equivalent of damage and losses caused by livestock panicking during a tempest.

“Most insurance policies for the slave trade excluded the death of enslaved people from disease or insurrection – they were insuring the ship against the perils of the sea,” said Draper. “But they were not insuring so that people were disembarked at the other end in a healthy condition.”

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Alexander Smith)

Photograph: Black Lives Matter protest in London on June 6, 2020 during the coronavirus lockdown.

Related:
Update: Lloyd’s of London Apologizes for Its ‘Shameful’ Role in Atlantic Slave Trade


Copyright 2020 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

CAPITALIST ETHICS:AN OXYMORON
UK Insurers Cite Swedish Example in Bid to Dodge Coronavirus Biz Income Payouts

By Lucca de Paoli | June 17, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL


Insurers are set to argue against paying out fully on claims made by businesses forced to shut because of the pandemic, saying that shops in Sweden lost money even without a strict lockdown.

The strategy was raised at the first case management hearing Tuesday in the Financial Conduct Authority’s London lawsuit seeking clarity on the limits of business interruption insurance amid the coronavirus crisis.


Lawyers for Hiscox Ltd. and other insurers said Sweden is an example of a country where no firm lockdown restrictions were implemented, but businesses still suffered. The Swedish example is key to the insurers’ defense because some policies cover losses resulting from government action, but not necessarily pandemics.

The court case is one of a number of battles across the world, where insurers and clients are fighting over whether coverage extends to measures taken by governments to halt the spread of coronavirus. In France, AXA SA was ordered by a Paris court last month to compensate a restaurant owner for two months of virus-related losses.

“Some proportion of the UK businesses’ losses could not properly be said to have been caused by COVID alone,” said Jonathan Gaisman QC, a lawyer for Hiscox. One way that this might be examined is for the court “to compare the situation in the UK with that in Sweden.”

Sweden, in stark contrast to most other countries in Europe, enforced softer lockdown measures, leading to one of the highest death rates in the world relative to population. Despite the more lenient measures, the country’s economy has taken a hit with Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson estimating the Scandinavian nation is set for a 7% drop in gross domestic product.

The FCA trial is due to start in London’s High Court in July and will examine 17 policy wordings and try to establish whether a number of insurers should pay out on business interruption insurance.

In addition, other insurers in the case include RSA Insurance Group Plc, Zurich Insurance Group AG and MS Amlin Ltd.



–With assistance from Ellen Milligan.

Related:
Hiscox Action Group Launches £40M Arbitration Claim for COVID Biz Interruption Dispute
British Regulator Enlists 8 Insurers in Pandemic Test Case of Business Interruption Cover
UK Regulator Seeks Court Review in July to Resolve COVID-19 Insurance Dispute
Forced Payouts of Pandemic Claims Risk Insurers’ Financial Stability: Regulators
Willis Paints COVID-19 Insurance Loss Big Picture: It’s a Wash or Historic Catastrophe
FERMA Forms Task Force to Find Solution for Non-Damage BI Cover – Such as Pandemic
Two Law Firms Seek British Businesses to Join Biz Interruption Lawsuit Against Allianz
UK Regulator Wants Courts to Clarify Wording of Disputed Business Interruption Policies
Non-Life Insurance Claims from Pandemic to Surpass 9/11 Claims: Willis Towers Watson
Top Insurers Face Lawsuit from UK Hospitality Sector on Rejected Biz Interruption Claims
Hiscox Action Group Gears Up to Take Hiscox to Court over COVID-19 BI Exclusions
Many Insurance Policies Bought by Small UK Firms Don’t Cover Pandemic: Regulator




Copyright 2020 Bloomberg.

U.S. Economic Losses from Severe Weather During May Topped $4 Billion: Aon

June 24, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL


Severe weather outbreaks across the United States, with a lot of hailstorm damage, resulted in another costly month for insurers as a significant proportion of the US$4 billion economic cost was covered by insurance, according to Aon’s monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report.

One of the more severe outbreaks on May 4-5 hit the Plains, Midwest and Southeast, with impacts felt the most in parts of Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina, said the report. Most damage was due to straight-line winds, causing estimated economic losses of more than US$975 million, with 75% of the costs insured.

Michigan Sues Owner of Failed Dams, Seeks Compensation for Destruction

Top 100 Cities: 6 in 10 Homes in High-Risk Flood Zones Lack Flood Insurance

Evacuations in Michigan as Dams Break, Flooding Hits Midwest


Record rains and flooding on May 16-21 led to the failure of two dams near Midland, Mich. on May 19, which caused historic flooding along the Tittabawassee River. Additional flooding occurred within the Chicago metro region. Total economic losses were estimated well into the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. While most of the wind and hail-related damage was expected to be insured, low National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) coverage in areas hard hit by flooding meant most of that damage was likely to be uninsured.


In other parts of the world, damages were often high, but there was little insurance protection to pay for them. For example, the report reveals that Cyclone Amphan, which swept across India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka during the month, killed at least 133 people – 103 in India, 26 in Bangladesh, and four in Sri Lanka – and injured more than 1,200 others. Governments of India and Bangladesh estimated that nearly three million homes had been damaged or destroyed, along with vast areas of agriculture and infrastructure.

The government in West Bengal, India, expected total economic losses to exceed INR1.0 trillion (US$13.5 billion), while officials in Bangladesh noted damage costs nearing BDT127 billion (US$1.5 billion). Most of the damage was expected to be uninsured.

“The vulnerabilities of infrastructure were amplified by Cyclone Amphan’s widespread effects in India and Bangladesh during May. The storm brought extensive coastal and inland flooding, in addition to hurricane-force wind gusts, which put a further spotlight on the need for future investments in modernizing coastal barriers, embankments, and the electrical grid in storm-prone areas around the world,” said Michal Lörinc, catastrophe analyst within Aon’s Impact Forecasting team, in a statement.

The Aon report indicated that hailstorms had a big role in U.S. losses during the month. Some of the storms included:
Severe weather on May 2-3. Parts of the central and southern sections of the U.S. were affected, causing total economic losses of an estimated US$650 million with insurers covering nearly US$500 million of that amount. The hardest-hit areas were in parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee where large hail – up to the size of softballs – and damaging straight-line winds approaching 80 mph (130 kph) were recorded.
Powerful thunderstorms on May 7-8. Hail (larger than baseballs) and straight-line wind (topping 60 mph), caused damage in Texas (especially in the Panhandle), Oklahoma, Kansas, and Louisiana. Economic losses were estimated at nearly US$150 million, with insurance covering most of the damages.
Severe weather on May 13-15. Twelve states saw damage from large hail (up to the size of baseballs), straight-line winds (topping 70 mph), flooding rains and isolated tornadoes. Some of the most extensive damage was reported in New York and Massachusetts. Total economic and insured losses were estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Severe weather and major flooding May 16-21. The central and eastern U.S. saw thunderstorms with reports of tornadoes, large hail, and straight-line winds. Extensive property damage hit areas from Texas to Ohio to Florida (which included hail larger than baseballs in Seminole County, Fla.)
Major hailstorm on May 27. Extensive severe weather was reported across Texas and elsewhere in the Southeast on May 27-28. Supercells produced swaths of large and significant hail, notably near San Antonio. Hailstones approaching 2.50 inches (6.4 centimeters) were reported. Total economic losses were expected to top US$1 billion, with most of those costs likely to be covered by insurance.

Further global natural hazard events during the month of May include:
Tropical Storm Amanda affected parts of Central America and caused 33 fatalities. Its remnants later evolved into Tropical Storm Cristobal in the Gulf of Mexico in early June.
Notable hail, wind and flood-related effects occurred in Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland on May 9-11. Aggregated economic losses were expected to be in the tens of millions of euros.
Typhoon Vongfong became the first named storm of the 2020 Pacific Typhoon Season and hit the Philippines on May 14-15. Nearly 50,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.
Seasonal flooding continued in Eastern Africa, leading to an additional 30 fatalities in Kenya on May 4-6. Kenyan government officials reported that the seasonal death toll rose to at least 237 since late March. At least 29 out of 47 counties in Kenya were affected, displacing around 100,000 people.
Strong winds and heavy rains swept across western Australia on May 25. The event occurred as remnants of Tropical Cyclone Mangga interacted with a cold front, later hitting southwestern Australia. Widespread power outages ensued, as power was cut to nearly 62,000 homes across the state. No human casualties were reported, and impact on property and motor was subject to further assessment.

Source: Aon’s Impact Forecasting

Photograph: Law enforcement officers patrol downtown Midland, Mich. in a rescue boat on Thursday, May 21, 2020. Severe flooding was caused by dam failures upstream. Photo credit: Katy Kildee/Midland Daily News via AP.

Canadian Privacy Panel Finds LifeLab’s Data Breach Was One of Biggest

              By Moira Warburton | June 26, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL

Canadian laboratory testing company LifeLabs failed to adequately protect sensitive health information of millions of people, resulting in one of the biggest data breaches in the country last year, privacy commissioners for the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario said on Thursday.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Ontario has ordered LifeLabs to improve and clarify its data protection policies, as well as better inform individuals of their information that was breached.


Some 15 million customers of LifeLabs, Canada’s largest provider of specialty medical laboratory testing, had sensitive personal information, including names, addresses, emails, customer logins and passwords, health card numbers and lab tests exposed due to a breach that was reported in November 2019.

Commissioners have delayed releasing the full report as LifeLabs claims it includes privileged or confidential information. The privacy commissioners disagreed and said the report will be made public, unless LifeLabs takes court action.

Canadian Lab Test Firm, LifeLabs, Pays Ransom After Data Breach

The Toronto-based company declined to say how much money was paid to secure the data.


The privacy commissioners’ joint report found that although the company for the most part took “reasonable steps” to contain and investigate the breach, it had failed to appropriately safeguard personal information of its customers.

LifeLabs is reviewing the report’s findings, according to a company statement, and “has committed to being open and transparent.”

The investigation “reinforces the need for changes to B.C.’s laws that allow regulators to consider imposing financial penalties on companies that violate people’s privacy rights,” Michael McEvoy, information and privacy commissioner of British Columbia, said in the statement.

Had such laws existed, McEvoy said, he would have taken action.

“This is the very kind of case where my office would have considered levying penalties.”

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Aurora Ellis)


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Canada’s Supreme Court Allows Class Action Seeking Employee Status for Uber Drivers

By Steve Scherer | June 26, 2020 INSURANCE JOURNAL

OTTAWA— Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a driver in a gig economy case that paves the way for a class action suit calling for Uber Technologies Inc. to recognize drivers in Canada as company employees.

UberEats driver David Heller had filed a class action suit, challenged by Uber, aiming to secure a minimum wage, vacation pay and other benefits like overtime pay. Drivers are now classified as independent contractors and do not have such benefits.

The ride-hailing company’s contract allows arbitration, but not class-action lawsuits. Heller’s attorney said the decision allowing him to sue was important, but only a small first step in a case that will probably take years to litigate.

Two days ago, California said it plans to ask a state court judge to force Uber and Lyft Inc to classify their ride-hail drivers as employees rather than contractors.

Canada’s 8-1 Supreme Court ruling dismisses an Uber appeal to an Ontario high court ruling that said the Uber’s arbitration clause violates provincial labor rules and is “invalid and unenforceable.”

The arbitration process, which must be conducted in the Netherlands where Uber has its international headquarters, costs about C$19,000 ($14,500). Heller earned between C$21,000 and C$31,000 per year.

“This was an access to justice case,” said Michael Wright, one of Heller’s lawyers. The court essentially ruled that “a stronger party was taking advantage of a weaker party in an unfair manner,” said Wright.

Uber had no immediate comment.


“The arbitration clause is improvident because the arbitration process requires US$14,500 in up-front administrative fees,” the top court said.

Now Heller can restart his class action suit, Wright said, but the matter will not be settled soon.

“This is the first round in a series of rounds,” said Wright, a labor and employment lawyer with Wright Henry LLP in Toronto, adding that it could take “a few more years.”

(Reporting by Steve Scherer, additional reporting by Moira Warburton Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Copyright 2020 Reuters.