The nation’s largest insurance company has settled out of court with more than a dozen Mississippi policyholders whose lawyers were barred from representing them in lawsuits against the insurer over Hurricane Katrina damage, according to court filings Thursday.

Three hot-air balloons dropped asphalt shingles, lumber, sticks, leaves and pine needles onto a north Alabama landfill, so scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville could gather data needed to improve tornado warnings. The payloads dropped by the balloons were similar to the types of debris thrown into the air by tornados that touch the ground.

The Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-sponsored insurer of last resort, will be nearly its pre-Hurricane Katrina size after responsibility for 30,000 homeowner policies is transferred to private insurers. John Wortman, chief executive of Citizens, said the group plans to offer another round of bidding for private companies to take over policies in Citizens. "

Rumors that California is considering selling the State Compensation Insurance Fund to help close the state budget gap are true, but government officials said the idea has amounted to no more than discussion at this point. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Administration is predicting a budget shortfall of $3.3 billion in the current fiscal year, which will grow to $14.5 billion next year.

A Senate bill to renew the national flood insurance program is expected to reach a final vote this week, but not before lawmakers from Florida and other Gulf Coast states try to rewrite it. As now drafted, the bill does not allow flood insurance customers an option of also buying wind coverage, unlike a version passed by the House of Representatives last year over White House protests that it would be "fiscally irresponsible" to do so.