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4 things to know about the rapidly changing housing market

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

(The Hill) – Home prices are ticking up amid a sustained housing shortage, making it even more difficult for people to enter the market.  Mortgage rates remain well above recent historic lows, and even with new homes coming on the market soon, according to recent data, experts don't expect first-time buyers to see lower prices right away.Home prices are moving up largely due to inventory constraints, especially at the lower end of the market, where fierce demand leads to bidding wars. The intense competition drives home prices higher — and often above what many would-be homeowners can afford.A For Sale sign hangs in front of a property April 18 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Home prices are heating up againAfter falling during the second half of 2022 amid the Federal Reserve’s bout with inflation, home prices are rising again and nearing their peak, according to a recent report from Black Knight. Black Knight’s data showed five straight months of price gai...

Woman gored by bison at Yellowstone National Park suffers 'significant injuries'

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

(NEXSTAR) - A woman was airlifted to a hospital with "significant injuries" after she was gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park, officials said Monday. The 47-year-old woman from Phoenix was walking with another person in a field near the Lake Lodge Cabins on Monday morning, a news release from the park explained. The pair told officials they saw two bison and turned to walk away from the animals. Unfortunately, one of the bison charged and gored the woman. She suffered "significant injuries to her chest and abdomen," according to officials, and was airlifted to an Idaho hospital. Yellowstone rangers say they haven't yet determined how close the woman and her companion were to the bison when it charged, and the incident remains under investigation. Additional details weren't immediately available. Man pleads guilty to disturbing Yellowstone bison calf that later had to be killed by rangers The park warns that between mid-July and mid-August, bison are in mating season and...

Deaths of 4 women in Oregon are linked, person of interest ID'd: DA

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The deaths of four women in Oregon that were previously said to have been unrelated have now been linked to a person of interest, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office.Working together, investigators from several local law enforcement agencies said they uncovered information that links Kristin Smith, Charity Lynn Perry, Bridget Webster and Ashley Real. Who is Jesse Lee Calhoun? What we know about person of interest in 4 Oregon deaths Through interviews, authorities said they discovered at least one person who connects the four women, however, no charges have been filed in the investigation.Multiple sources at different agencies confirmed to Nexstar's KOIN that the person of interest is Jesse Lee Calhoun, which was first reported by Willamette Week.According to the Department of Corrections, in 2019 Calhoun was charged with three counts of unauthorized use of a vehicle, one count of assaulting a public safety officer and one count of f...

WATCH: Intense videos show 'short-lived' tornado form over part of Puerto Rico

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

AGUADA, Puerto Rico (WFLA) – A "short-lived tornado" formed over Aguada, Puerto Rico, Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Residents captured footage of the tornado, which lasted about four minutes. Janely Ivette was inside her car when she captured footage (above) of the wind howling and whipping around during the storm. Large branches can be seen piling up on the roadways. From afar, Amarilys Ruiz took a video of the funnel appearing to stay behind a hilltop. Country star Jason Aldean ends concert early after suffering heat stroke mid-performance Tornadoes are rare in Puerto Rico, the Associated Press reports. Only 24 – including Sunday's – have touched down in the U.S. territory since 1950.“The majority of them don’t even cause any damage,” Emanuel Rodríguez González, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told the AP. “They’re quite weak.”Multiple homes were damaged and a landslide was triggered by the storm, but no i...

Teen banned for 3 years after 'skip lagging' flight hack: family

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY) - A teenager, detained following a "skip lagging" incident earlier this month has now been banned from flying with American Airlines for three years, according to his family. The purchased flight for Hunter Parsons' 17-year-old son was from Gainesville, Florida to New York City with a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina. The plan was for the teen to get off the plane in Charlotte, where he lives, and not continue to New York City.Parsons told Nexstar's WJZY his family has used skip lagging resource Skip Lagged for the past few years, but noted he never would have put his son in this predicament if he knew what would happen.Skip lagging — the once-popular travel "hack" that involves booking whole flights but getting off at the layover — has other names, including hidden city ticketing and point beyond ticketing. You’ll most likely find those in any airline’s conditions of carriage. That includes American Airlines, Delta, United, and Frontier, all of ...

Gag order placed on Paxton impeachment participants

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick on Monday prohibited those involved in suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton's impeachment trial from speaking publicly about it.The gag order applies to all members of the court and members of the House of Representatives, as well as witnesses, attorneys, and employees of any party involved."Out-of-court statements relating to the matters of this impeachment proceeding pose a serious and imminent threat to Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr.'s right to a fair trial of impeachment," the order states.The order calls some specific statements as "particularly egregious," including those that some House members and attorneys on both sides have made to the press."After the Articles of Impeachment were preferred to the Senate, one of the House Board of Managers authored an opinion article published in major newspapers that used inflammatory and prejudicial language," the order states, referring to House General Investigating Chairman Andrew Murr's...

APD searches Pflugerville field for 2nd time in relation to murder suspect Raul Meza Jr.

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin Police Department did a follow-up investigation in a field Monday in Pflugerville in connection with the case of a man accused of multiple murders. APD said the investigation was off Farm-to-Market Road 1825, the same area APD, Pflugerville Police and the FBI searched July 12 in relation to a case connected with Raul Meza Jr. APD said it couldn't provide any details about the investigation since it is ongoing. TIMELINE: What we know about Raul Meza's criminal history Meza, 62, is in Travis County Jail and faces two murder charges, a capital murder charge and a charge for unauthorized use of a vehicle after confessing to the murder of his roommate, 80-year-old Jesse Fraga, the arrest affidavit said.APD said it believes Meza is connected to "multiple murders" and is looking into eight to 10 cold cases in which he could be involved.Meza also told detectives he was responsible for the 2019 killing of 66-year-old Gloria Lofton, according to an arrest affidavi...

Police investigate murder-suicide in southeast Austin

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Police Department investigators believe a man shot and killed his wife before shooting and killing himself in southeast Austin Sunday, according to an APD release Monday.APD said officers responded to a home around 4:30 p.m. Sunday in the 7500 block of South Glenn Street, which is near McKinney Falls Parkway and Burleson Road. MAP: Where have Austin’s homicides occurred in 2023? Officers found 73-year-old Eva Carol Dotson Penton and 65-year-old Timothy McDonald dead inside the home with gunshot wounds, APD said in the release. On Sunday, APD said the shooting was an isolated incident with no further threat to the public.The incident is Austin's 37th homicide of 2023.Anyone with information is asked to call APD's homicide tip line at (512) 477-3588 or contact APD Crime Stoppers by calling (512) 472-8477 or visiting austincrimestoppers.org. A reward of up to $1,000 may be available for any information that leads to an arrest.

Trudy Rubin: Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? I’m traveling there to find out

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

When this column appears, I will have arrived in Odesa, Ukraine.I want to see how Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are faring on the ground, as the country wages its counteroffensive against the Russian invaders. I also want to learn how the disappointing NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, has affected Ukrainian morale, and whether new weapons pledged by NATO countries will arrive fast enough to make a difference.What many Americans don’t realize is that Ukraine has a second enemy beyond Vladimir Putin’s Russia.That enemy is time.In his concluding speech in Vilnius, President Joe Biden seemed to imply he expected Russia’s war on Ukraine to continue indefinitely. He compared the struggle to the Cold War struggle for freedom in Eastern Europe. “Putin still wrongly believes that he can outlast Ukraine,” Biden said. “After all this time, Putin still doubts our (NATO allies) staying power. He is making a bad bet.”But, as a visibly disappointed Uk...

Nicholas Kristof: How to break a country

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:01:42 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia — Vladimir Putin has compared himself to the czar Peter the Great. But to travel through Eastern Europe is to see how much he has instead caused Russian influence to shrink.I’ve been on a road trip through Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — and it’s clear that Putin has managed to unite nearly everyone against Russia. Even Russian speakers who often used to feel loyalty to Moscow are now fundraising for Ukraine.One of my first memories is of a trip to Poland in the 1960s to visit my grandparents (Kristof is short for Krzysztofowicz). What I remember is that communist Poland seemed endlessly bleak and depressing. Later, when I began to travel around Eastern Europe as a law student and aspiring journalist, my main impression was that in the communist bloc, you didn’t need color film.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was in Vilnius, Lithuania, for the NATO summit, told me that when he first visited the country in 1979, he had the sa...