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US home sales end 5-month skid

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

LOS ANGELES — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in November, ending a five-month skid, as easing mortgage rates provided some breathing room for homebuyers.Existing home sales rose 0.8% last month from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.82 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. That tops the 3.78 million sales pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.Sales were still down 7.3% compared with November last year, and are down 19.3% through the first 11 months of 2023 compared with the same period last year.The pickup in sales helped push up home prices compared with a year earlier for the fifth month in a row. The national median sales price rose 4% from November last year to $387,600.The modest increase in sales arrives with mortgage rates in decline after a sharp runup that sent borrowing costs on home loans higher. The rising cost of borrowing money compounded hurdles for buyers because there are so few homes on the market...

Best and worst days for air travel this holiday season

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

Laurie Baratti | (TNS) TravelPulseChristmas is just around the corner and, yes, you probably should have booked your flights months ago, but, hey, you might be among those who are still weighing their options. Or, perhaps you’re one of those who’ve already booked their tickets and simply want to know what to expect upon reaching the airport. Either way, it’d be good to know when might be the best and worst days to fly this Christmas season.According to online travel guide The Vacationer’s 2023 Christmas Travel Survey, 50% of American adults plan to travel to a vacation destination or holiday gathering for Christmas this year, whereas only 43% did the same last year. And, according to comparison site Hopper’s 2023 Holiday Travel Outlook, 59 percent of those travelers aim to spend time with friends and family, while 33% are planning a vacation on their Christmas breaks.Despite the forecast for increased travel volumes, this holiday season might offer some relief from the maddening cro...

Watchdog flags ‘scary’ MBTA capital needs ahead

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

The financial and policy analysts at the Mass. Taxpayers Foundation have mapped out how “the path to a safe and reliable transit system just got a lot longer” thanks to a ballooning price tag for bringing the MBTA’s infrastructure into a state of good repair.The MBTA updated its state of good repair measurement last month — using a slightly different calculation than resulted in the 2019 estimate of about $10 billion, as MTF explains in the brief it published Wednesday — to show that it would now cost $24.5 billion to fix all MBTA assets that are not in a state of good repair, which is almost two-thirds of them.And that figure includes only the cost of addressing current problems, not “needed investments in modernization, electrifications, accessibility, climate resiliency or expanded services” including those that the T included in a 2021 framework unconstrained by available funding, MTF said.In order to make those investments and eliminate...

Trump’s lawyers tell Supreme Court to stay out of immunity dispute in 2020 election case for now

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to stand down from a dispute over whether he can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results.Special counsel Jack Smith’s team last week urged the nation’s high court to take up and quickly consider Trump’s claims that he enjoys immunity from prosecution as a former president. The unusual request for a speedy ruling seemed designed to prevent any delays that could postpone the trial of the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner, currently set to begin March 4, until after next year’s presidential election.But Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that there was no reason for them to take up the matter now, especially because a lower appeals court in Washington is already considering the same question, and has scheduled arguments for Jan. 9.“Im...

Wisconsin elections commission rejects complaint against Trump fake electors for second time

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission, for a second time, has unanimously rejected a complaint against fake presidential electors who attempted to cast the state’s ballots for Donald Trump in 2020.The Wisconsin Elections Commission first rejected the complaint in March 2022. But a judge in May ordered the commission to rehear the complaint, this time without one of its members who served as one of the fake electors for the former president.The commission released its unanimous 5-0 decision to reject the complaint Wednesday without explaining why. The elections commission’s discussion of the complaint, as well as its vote on Tuesday, was conducted in closed meetings.The complaint asked the elections commission to investigate the fake electors’ actions and declare that they broke the law.Last year, when it rejected the complaint the first time, the commission attached a letter from the Wisconsin Department of Justice that said that Republicans who attempted ...

The Colorado ruling against Donald Trump once again compels his rivals to rally to his defense

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

AMES, Iowa (AP) — With less than a month to go before voting begins, Donald Trump ‘s Republican rivals are once again rallying to his defense, this time after Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled to remove him from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause.Just as they had following Trump’s successive indictments as he racked up 91 criminal charges, the GOP front-runner’s opponents cast the landmark decision — the first time in history the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate and one the former president has vowed to appeal — as inappropriate, a “stunt” and an “attack on democracy.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis charged the court’s ruling was a plot to ensure Trump wins the nomination because Democrats view him as the weakest Republican candidate.“Look, it’s unfair. They’re abusing power, 100%,” he told an audience in Urbandale, Iowa, on Wednesday morning. “But the question is: Is that going...

Qapik Attagutsiak, last survivor of Inuit war effort and beloved elder, dies at 103

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

Qapik Attagutsiak was already a young woman in 1940, a mother at ease on the land and a skilled midwife, when she heard about a conflict occurring among many people in faraway lands. Qapik, who preferred using that name in the Inuit tradition, was hunting walrus with her family near Foxe Basin when the local Catholic priest told her about battles being fought by men jumping from planes.“Inuit are afraid to kill other people,” Qapik told a Parks Canada interviewer in 2018.“We were afraid that our husbands would be killed if they encountered anyone who had jumped from an airplane. We would think that they will never come back.”No paratroops landed in what is now Nunavut during the Second World War. But Qapik pitched in to that faraway conflict nonetheless.The beloved elder, who died last week at 103, was the last surviving Inuk who collected bones and animal carcasses — tonnes of them — to help make explosives and fertilizer to fuel Canada’s fight.During ...

Ohio prosecutor says he’s duty bound to bring miscarriage case to a grand jury

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio prosecutor says it is not within his power to drop a criminal charge against a woman who miscarried in the restroom at her home, regardless of the pressure being brought to bear by the national attention on her case.Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said in a release issued late Tuesday that he is obligated to present the felony abuse-of-corpse charge against Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, to a grand jury. “The county prosecutors are duty bound to follow Ohio law,” he wrote, noting that the memo would suffice as his office’s only comment on the matter.Watkins said it is the grand jury’s role to determine whether Watts should be indicted. Defendants are “no-billed,” or not indicted, in about 20% of the hundreds of cases county grand juries hear each year, he said.“This office, as always, will present every case with fairness,” Watkins wrote. “Our responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the accused is accorded j...

FTC proposes strengthening children’s online privacy rules to address tracking, push notifications

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

The Federal Trade Commission is proposing sweeping changes to a decades-old law that regulates how online companies can track and advertise to children, including turning off targeted ads to kids under 13 by default and limiting push notifications. The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parents’ consent before collecting personal information of children under 13. COPPA was enacted in 1998, went into effect in 2000 and was last updated a decade ago.“Kids must be able to play and learn online without being endlessly tracked by companies looking to hoard and monetize their personal data,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a statement. “The proposed changes to COPPA are much-needed, especially in an era where online tools are essential for navigating daily life — and where firms are deploying increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children.”Children’s online safety advocates applauded the announcement. ...

Chemical leak at Tennessee cheese factory La Quesera Mexicana sends 29 workers to the hospital

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:57:46 GMT

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Twenty-nine workers at a Tennessee cheese factory were sent to the hospital on Wednesday morning after a leak of anhydrous ammonia, Greeneville City Manager Todd Smith said at a news conference.The Greeneville Fire Department was first called to La Quesera Mexicana at 7:15 a.m. when a leak occurred during maintenance on a valve. Six people were hospitalized at the time.“The leak was contained and fixed at that moment. And the scene was certified as safe,” Smith said. However, a second call about a leak came in at 10:01 a.m. A further 23 people were hospitalized and 53 other employees were evaluated for possible illness, Smith said. Anhydrous ammonia can irritate or damage the lungs and burn the eyes and skin. Officials do not yet know if the two leaks came from the same source, Smith said, but the second leak was repaired and there was no risk to the surrounding community. Ballad Health set up incident command centers at Greeneville Community Hospital and J...