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Insurance claims at $9 billion from California fires
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Insurance claims from last month's California wildfires already are at $9 billion and expected to increase, the state's insurance commissioner announced Wednesday.
About $7 billion in claims are from the Camp Fire that destroyed the Northern California city of Paradise and killed at least 86 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in at least a century. The rest is for the Woolsey and Hill fires in Southern California.
Collectively, the fires destroyed or damaged more than 20,000 structures, with the vast majority in and around Paradise. On Tuesday, state and federal authorities estimated it will cost at least $3 billion to clear debris.
"The devastating wildfires of 2018 were the deadliest and costliest wildfire catastrophes in California's history," Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said, adding that "behind the insured loss numbers are thousands of people who've been traumatized by unfathomable loss."
There are more than 28,000 claims for residential personal property, nearly 2,000 from commercial property and 9,400 in auto and other claims for the fires.
That's well above the number of claims filed following a series of fires that tore through Northern California's wine country last year. Losses from those fires were initially pegged at $3.3 billion but eventually grew to $10 billion.
The cleanup costs for last month's fires also will far surpass the record expense of $1.3 billion the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers spent on debris removal in Northern California in 2017.
California Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said the state will manage cleanup contracts this time. Last year, hundreds of Northern California homeowners complained that contractors paid by the ton hauled away too much dirt and damaged unbroken driveways, sidewalks and pipes. The state OES spent millions repairing that damage.
Ghilarducci said the state OES will hire auditors and monitors to watch over the debris removal in hopes of cutting down on the number of over-eager contractors.
Cuba health mystery: Diplomats had inner-ear damage early on
MIAMI (AP) -- American diplomats affected by mysterious health incidents in Cuba showed damage in the inner ear shortly after they complained of weird noises and sensations, according to their earliest medical exams, publicized Wednesday.
The detailed findings were published in a medical journal nearly two years after what the U.S. calls "health attacks" began -- and they shed no new light on a possible culprit.
"What caused it, who did it, why it was done -- we don't know any of those things," said Dr. Michael Hoffer of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who led the exams.
The U.S. says since late 2016, 26 people associated with the embassy in Havana suffered problems that include dizziness, ear pain and ringing, and cognitive problems such as difficulty thinking -- a health mystery that has damaged U.S.-Cuba relations.
The Miami researchers examined 25 of those people, who reported hearing a piercing noise or experiencing a sensation of pressure before their symptoms began. The patients failed a variety of tests that detect inner-ear problems associated with balance, what's called the vestibular system.
Testing of 10 people who were in the same building at the time of the incidents found they were fine, Hoffer reported in the journal Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology. Hoffer also traveled to Cuba to check 100 other Americans stationed there, who also turned out to be healthy.
Those inner-ear balance problems have been central to the government's ongoing health investigation. And earlier this year, a team of doctors at the University of Pennsylvania who also examined many of these patients, but months later, reported they suffered concussion-like brain damage, despite no blow to the head.
For doctors, Wednesday's paper adds specifics about the pattern of damage, abnormalities in structures involved with sensing gravity and acceleration, said Dr. Maura Cosetti of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. She isn't involved with any research related to the Cuba incidents.
"This provides an important step in creating a picture of the injury that people sustained," she said. She added that often people with long-term balance problems also report a "brain fog."
Mom whose toddler was yanked by police resolves another case
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A mother who was violently separated from her toddler by New York police in a widely viewed videotaped encounter agreed on Wednesday to do community service to resolve a separate legal case.
A judge told Jazmine Headley, 23, that the charges will be dropped in her credit card fraud case in New Jersey if she successfully completes an intervention program.
Judge Peter Warshaw said Headley will have to pay back about $1,000. Her agreement also includes 20 hours of community service.
"I'm just happy to be reunited with my son," Headley said outside the courthouse in Trenton.
Headley faced two credit card theft charges and one count of trafficking in personal information, along with two other defendants who were not in court Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez dismissed the charges against Headley relating to the benefits office tussle, saying he was "horrified by the violence depicted" in a bystander's video. She left a New York jail later that day.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was "deeply troubling" and "100 percent unacceptable."
The incident in the benefits office did not come up during her court appearance in New Jersey.