Merck & Co.'s move to pay a headturning $1.1 billion for Sirna Therapeutics Inc. sent shares of several other small biotechnology companies skyrocketing Tuesday. The biotechnology sector has seen a burst of M&A activity over the past several months and analysts ... [full story]

Court rules Allianz, St. Paul Travelers, Swiss Re not liable for extra $700M. NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Insurers of World Trade Center buildings destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks won a victory when a federal judge Tuesday ruled they need not ... [full story]

Rapper Heavy D claims his insurance company owes him around $1.5 million because of an accident at a 1991 City College of New York celebrity basketball event. Heavy D, whose real name is Dwight Myers, helped organize the event where ... [full story]

Houston Janitors Setting Up Picket Lines in Other Cities Starting Tonight Higher-Paid Workers In Chicago, DC, NY, CA Set to Stay Off the Job to Support Poverty-Wage Houston Workers HOUSTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- A strike by thousands of poverty-wage Houston ... [full story]

Recovery assessments 'a bump in the road' BATON ROUGE -- Despite rumblings from lawmakers that the state-run homeowners insurance company should be restructured or possibly abolished, its chairman said Monday that the Legislature "should stay the course" and let the ... [full story]

- Lax Security and Procedures Open up the Potential for Identity Theft - SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to new research by Identity Theft 911, the upcoming election in Ohio has emerged as a test case for identity theft as a political ... [full story]

Employment Cost Index sees biggest increase since middle of 2004 WASHINGTON - Wages and benefits paid to American workers rose in the July-September period at the fastest pace in more than two years. The Labor Department reported that its Employment Cost Index ... [full story]

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. said that it expects to pay a dividend of $4.63 billion to policyholders in 2007, increasing the payout by $360 million for the second consecutive year. The board of trustees of the Milwaukee-based insurance and ... [full story]