Alabama officials, like state and local leaders around the country, expect disaster recovery costs to continue to grow as people live in vulnerable areas and climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

Leading travel insurance trends aren’t just focused on hurricanes and illness anymore. A considerable number of traveler inquiries are now seeking to make certain that they are protected against losses from terrorism, too.

A man charged with arson in the fire of historic Butler’s Mill has been charged with two additional counts relating to the incident. Court records show Christopher Lynn Phillips, the owner of Butler’s Mill, was charged with two counts of first-degree insurance fraud.

Forecasters expect severe thunderstorms to move across the Southeast on Wednesday, bringing a threat of tornadoes and large hail.

A former high-ranking member of the Prattville Police Department has been indicted on fraud charges. Leon Todd Townson, 50, of the 1500 block of Bridge Creek Road, was arrested Tuesday morning on indictments for insurance fraud and theft of property, an arrest report on file at the Autauga County Sheriff’s Office shows.

On Friday, the meteorology community was riding a major high as stunningly high-definition images came in from the nation’s newest and much-anticipated earth observation satellite. The high came crashing down that evening, though, as the first hints of significant cuts to the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began to emerge.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: You don’t want your vehicle to catch on fire. For that reason, Mercedes-Benz is recalling more than 354,000 vehicles.

An annual state-by-state analysis of auto insurance reveals rates continue to increase after filing just a single claim. According to a fourth annual study by insuranceQuotes, drivers now pay an average of 44 percent more for car insurance after making a single claim of $2,000 or more.

A group of revelers were mowed down by an out-of-control vehicle at a Mardi Gras parade for the second time in a week, with Tuesday’s incident involving a dozen injured high school band members at an Alabama event.

People sparked most US wildfires in recent decades, causing longer fire seasons and increasing the amount of scorched earth, according to a new study published Monday. Researchers found that humans caused 84 percent -- or four out of five -- of the total 1.5 million wildfires studied between 1992 and 2012.



In addition, human actions tripled the length of the fire season during those two decades and were responsible for 44 percent of the total acreage burned, researchers reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

United Technologies Corp’s (UTX.N) Carrier unit expanded a recall of some air conditioners and heat pumps as their power cord plugs can overheat, posing a fire risk, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.

The possible listeria contamination affecting a number of cheese brands continues to grow, as Sargento and MDS Foods announced over the weekend the recall of more than a dozen additional products that may have come into contact with the listeria-tainted cheeses from supplier Deutsch Kase Haus.

Your greatest SodaStream fears have been realized: tens of thousands of SodaStream’s plastic bottles may not be able to withstand quite as much pressure as the company thought, causing the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue a recall because they pose an injury risk to carbonation-happy consumers.

It was, for Oak Grove High School principal Pam Dennis, a week of twisted metal and grief. First the unthinkable: Two Oak Grove students were killed in a collision with an 18-wheeler near the school, and two more - their siblings - were critically injured.

It may not come as a surprise that bruises and open wounds are the most common injuries in every state across America — with the one exception of Colorado, where you’re more likely to have be injured by a ‘fall’. But did you know that ‘over-exertion’ is disproportionately common in North Dakota, and a ‘near-drowning’ experience six-times more likely in Hawaii?