TOP STORIES:
US
mortgage applications tumble to a 13-year low - (www.seattletimes.com) The number of Americans applying for mortgages
has fallen 63 percent since a May peak, reflecting a cooling housing market and
higher borrowing rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association says applications fell
a seasonally adjusted 6.3 percent last week from a week earlier. Applications
are now at a 13-year low. The drop-off follows a 1 percentage point increase in
mortgage rates from historic lows last spring. The average for a 30-year
mortgage is 4.47 percent, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. Home sales
stalled and began to fall once rates steadily increased after May. That ended a
year and a half of rising mortgage applications since the housing bust.
Western
Iraq on brink of rebellion against Shia regime - (www.ft.com) Iraq’s smouldering civil tensions have
been in danger of reigniting into full-blown conflict for months, stoked by
perceptions that Mr Maliki has a sectarian agenda favouring the Shia majority,
as well as by jihadists entering Iraq over the Syrian border. The latest
escalation of violence in Anbar province – a centre of resistance during the
US-led invasion in 2003 and subsequent occupation – has alarmed international
observers. Iraq’s vast energy reserves have piqued the interest of
international businesses while its strategic location has made it a
battleground for influence between Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Latvia
joins euro, but controversy rages on - (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Baltic nation to join the
euro on New Year's Day against the wishes of its own people, five years after
its economy crashed in flames. The tiny Baltic nation of Latvia is to join the
euro on New Year's Day against the wishes of its own people, becoming the eighteenth and poorest member of monetary
union five years after its economy crashed in flames. The
country has endured a 1930s-style depression and a drastic experiment in EU
shock therapy with stoicism, abiding strictly to the terms of an EU-IMF
bail-out. It has exported its way back to balance and defied critics by
defending its euro-peg through thick and thin, yet the feat comes at a high
social cost. Euro accession has been greeted glumly by most of Latvia's 2m
people, worn down by lay-offs and 28pc pay cuts for teachers, nurses, and
police. A mass exodus of youth has served as an escape valve, leaving an older
society behind. Latvia's population has shrunk by 7pc since 2007.
Boeing
tells state leaders 777X wing plant is at risk - (www.chicagotribune.com) Boeing Co will not build the wing for its new
777X jetliner in Washington state if members of its largest union reject its
latest contract offer in a Friday vote, company executives told Seattle-area
elected officials on Monday. But the company did not rule out locating final
assembly of the plane or construction of its fuselage in the Puget Sound area
if members of the 31,000-strong International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers District Lodge 751 turn down the proposal, three officials at
the meeting said. "They made it very clear that if there is a 'no' vote on
the contract, they will not build the composite wing here," said Suzette
Cooke, mayor of Kent, Washington. "It left the other parts of the plane in
question." The location of the
final assembly and wing fabrication is in question because union members
rejected Boeing's contract offer, prompting Boeing to look for other locations
around the country, and prompting 22 bids from rival states.
NYC sues
FedEx for illegally shipping cigarettes - (www.chicagotribune.com) New York City has sued FedEx Corp, accusing it
of illegally delivering millions of contraband cigarettes to people's homes and
seeking $52 million in fines and unpaid taxes. The lawsuit, filed in U.S.
District Court in Manhattan, marks one of the last acts by the administration
of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose more than decade-old campaign to ban smoking
in various public and private places has been credited with saving thousands of
lives and become a blueprint for other cities. According to the city, package
delivery company FedEx created a "public nuisance" through its
partnership with Shinnecock Smoke Shop, located on the Shinnecock Indian Nation
reservation in Southampton, New York, to ship untaxed cigarettes to residential
homes. FedEx allegedly did so despite, and even while negotiating, a February
2006 agreement with New York State's then attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, to
stop such deliveries in the state, an agreement later expanded to cover
deliveries throughout the country. The city said FedEx delivered about 19.5
tons, or 55,000 cartons, of cigarettes to city residents in 9,900 shipments
from 2005 to 2012 and deprived it of a $15 excise tax on each carton. A typical
carton has 200 cigarettes.
Realtor/Socialite
Arrested for Stealing a Sweater! Even Your Clothes Aren't Safe! - (www.nypost.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment