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Have home prices bottomed? While low housing inventory stymies sales, bidding wars prop up prices

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

By ALEX VEIGA (AP Business Writer)LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. housing market remains in a deep sales slump, but the worst declines may be over when it comes to home prices.While home sales have fallen 22.3% through the first seven months of the year versus the same stretch in 2022, prices are being propped up by buyers competing for a near-record low inventory of properties on the market.The national median sales price rose to $406,700 last month, marking its first annual increase since January and the second month in a row that it’s been above $400,000, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.Home prices didn’t start falling on an annual basis until February, and even then the decline was modest, with the steepest drop 3% in May. That five-month streak of annual drops ended last month, when the median sales price rose 1.9% versus July last year. It’s now a eye-popping 45% higher than it was in July 2019.So, where do prices go from here? Homebuyers ...

Mac Jones has made one significant change in Patriots training camp this year

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

FOXBORO — Mac Jones isn’t only leaning on his offensive line and playmakers for help this summer. The Patriots quarterback is also picking the brains of his defensive teammates, and it’s led to veteran safety Adrian Phillips seeing a “way better quarterback” nearly four weeks into training camp.It’s been apparent on the practice field. Jones had perhaps his best practice as a Patriots quarterback Thursday in Green Bay during joint practices with the Packers. He followed that up with an impressive performance in Saturday’s preseason game.The Patriots were expected to conduct a quarterback competition this summer. Jones never let backup Bailey Zappe get close enough to challenge him based on his play on the field.“I’ve seen him grow and change a lot. I don’t want to give too much detail into it just because I don’t want to give up his little tidbits,” Phillips said. “He took last year on the chin. He’ll be the first one to tell you...

Fenway Sports Management teams up with LPGA to increase global exposure of women’s golf

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

As the Red Sox fight for their playoff lives, new ventures abound for John Henry on the golf course.Fenway Sports Management, under the Fenway Sports Group portfolio, will be teaming up with the LPGA to increase exposure of women’s golf around the world and to “expand investment opportunities in the sport,” the global marketing firm announced Tuesday.The new partnership comes less than two months after Henry and Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner said they added a team in the TGL, a high-tech golf league developed by Tiger Woods, to bolster the Fenway Sports Group portfolio.The team, along with five others, will play at a venue in Palm Beach, Fla.As for its foray into the world of professional women’s golf, Fenway Sports Management will “assist in developing and selling LPGA partnership assets worldwide,” according to a release.Officials made clear that the rest of the FSM’s sports properties, which has grown significantly, will lead to increased revenue and global exposure for the LPGA.“T...

Scorching heat in central U.S. brings warnings and tragedy as 1-year-old girl dies in hot car

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Scorching heat affecting nearly 100 million people across a huge swath of the U.S. sent schools, outdoor workers and organizers of open-air events scrambling to adjust Tuesday — and claimed the life of a 1-year-old girl left in a Nebraska day care center’s van on one of the hottest days of the year.Officers and medics were called Monday afternoon to Kidz of the Future Childcare in Omaha for an unresponsive baby inside the van, police said. The call came as temperatures reached into the upper 90s (mid-30s Celsius) and the heat index soared to around 110 degrees (43 Celsius), part of heat wave that has been plaguing the central part of the country for days.The child, Ra’Miyah Worthington, was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. Her parents questioned why her absence at the day care wasn’t noticed.“She loved, loved, loved her family,” her mother, Sina Johnson, told the television station WOWT. “She loved her daddy. She was daddy’s little girl.”Pro...

Toronto women stranded in Trinidad after over 90 pilot sick calls cancel Caribbean Airlines flights

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

Two Toronto women are stranded in Trinidad and Tobago after a pilot strike resulted in their cancelled flight, and the airline tells them they can’t return home until September.The women, who asked to remain anonymous, had both travelled to the area for vacation separately, but when they got to the airport in Tobago this past weekend, a frustrating experience brought the strangers together.Both were scheduled to fly from Tobago to Trinidad on Sunday before returning to Toronto.“At about 4 a.m., we got an email that our 9:55 a.m. flight was moved to 1 p.m. When I got to the airport, I asked if they could put me on the 11 a.m. flight instead, and that’s when customer service let me know that all pilots called in sick the night before,” said one of the women.On August 20, Caribbean Airlines took to social media to announce that several of their international and domestic flights to and from Trinidad and Tobago had to be cancelled after a “remarkably high v...

US to appeal Mexico’s refusal to investigate labor complaint at Mexican mine

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. government announced Tuesday it is filing its first appeal ever over Mexico’s refusal to investigate labor violations involving the right to organize.The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said it will request a dispute resolution panel to decide the case of the San Martín mine in the northern state of Zacatecas, the first time it has done that on a labor issue under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.For more than two years, Mexico had accepted more than a dozen U.S. complaints on behalf of union organizers in Mexico who claimed they were prevented from organizing freely.But since the beginning of August, Mexico has started to flatly refuse to intervene in at least two cases, marking the first time it has rejected labor complaints.On Aug. 1, Mexico’s Economy Department rejected a U.S. complaint about the San Martín mine, which produces zinc, lead, copper and silver. The mine has been locked in a longstanding dispute between two unions that c...

Serena Williams has given birth to her second baby. It’s another daughter

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

Serena Williams has given birth to a baby girl, she posted Tuesday on Instagram, almost exactly a year after her last match as a tennis star.Adira River Ohanian is the second child — and second daughter — for the 41-year-old Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Their first, Olympia, was born in 2017.Williams, who won 23 Grand Slam singles titles during a career that transcended her sport, revealed at the Met Gala in May that she was pregnant.When she told the world in August 2022 she was preparing to close her playing career, Williams cited a desire to grow her family as one of the main reasons for walking away from tennis.“Believe me,” Williams wrote last year in an essay for Vogue magazine, “I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.”The 2022 U.S. Open was her l...

Father of NFL cornerback Caleb Farley killed in explosion at North Carolina home

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The father of Tennessee Titans cornerback Caleb Farley died overnight in an explosion that destroyed the NFL player’s North Carolina home and left another person injured, authorities said.Robert M. Farley, 61, was found dead in the debris of the Lake Norman, North Carolina, house Tuesday morning, said Kent Greene, director of Iredell County Fire Services and Emergency Management.First responders arrived at the house a few minutes after midnight Tuesday and found Christian Rogers, 25, exiting the collapsed structure, Greene said. Rogers, a friend of the family, was transported to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte with a concussion. He is “awake and alert,” Greene said, but has not yet been discharged from the hospital.Greene said gas must have accumulated over a long period of time and likely found its way to an ignition source, which caused the explosion. The blast, which local authorities have ruled accidental, originated in a bedroo...

Tenor Freddie De Tommaso, a young British sensation, makes US opera debut

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — “British Tenor Saves Night at Opera,” proclaimed the Daily Mail.The opera was Puccini’s “Tosca,” and the tenor was then-28-year-old Freddie De Tommaso, jumping in at London’s Royal Opera House when the scheduled singer withdrew after Act 1 because of illness.That was nearly two years ago. Now De Tommaso has just made his U.S. debut at the Santa Fe Opera in the same role, appearing to enthusiastic applause on Aug. 12, five days after a bout of laryngitis forced him to cancel his first performance. His final performance is Saturday.And he’ll return in the 2024-25 season for another debut, this time at the Metropolitan Opera, where he’ll again be Tosca’s lover, Mario Cavaradossi.In an interview at the opera house here, De Tommaso reflected on his career so far and the “star is born” moment in London that first brought him headlines.“So many people thought I was like an understudy or somebody they found walking down the street whistling ‘Tosca,’ and that wasn’t the...

Illinois Tollway deploys Hot Weather Patrols to help stranded drivers amid extreme heat

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:18 GMT

CHICAGO — As dangerous heat continues across parts of the state, the Illinois Tollway is taking steps to ensure the safety of stranded drivers.Hot Weather Patrols are being launched to assist drivers who become stranded along roads in the heat. Crews conducting the 24-hour patrols will be searching for stranded drivers in broken-down vehicles and responding to *999 calls for roadway assistance. List: Cooling centers in Chicago 12 Hot Weather Patrols will be providing additional help to the Highway Emergency Lane Patrol (H.E.L.P) trucks, which run from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. According to the Illinois Tollway, the Hot Weather Patrols usually offer help to drivers with dead car batteries, drivers who run out of gas, or those who suffer from overheated radiators. Extreme heat causing some Chicago area school districts to make adjustments Hot Weather Patrols consist of crew cab trucks that can accommodate drivers who need to get out of the heat or be taken to a...