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The Wall Street Journal reports that speculation on housing by house-flippers is down, and the writers seem to treat that as a bad sign for housing. Small-time investors who flooded into real estate in the past decade to take advantage of low borrowing costs and rising home values are starting to cut back. The moves indicate that the market's short-term risk-takers see limited upside – and possible turbulence – ahead. I believe that it is actually an excellent thing when speculative bubbles get gradually deflated. If the speculative bubbles deflate naturally and gradually, there is much less risk of a...

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Frederica Wilson says she never received an apology from outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly after he falsely attacked her. Instead, she’s received death threats and nooses in the mail over the past year. The Miami congresswoman was part of a national firestorm a year ago when she criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of a phone call with the widow of La David Johnson, a constituent of Wilson’s who was killed under mysterious circumstances during a military operation in Niger. In response, Kelly took the unusual step of addressing the national media from the White House briefing room...

Editor’s Note: This article, which originally ran in the July 22, 1983, issue of National Review, is adapted from the address Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave on the occasion of his acceptance, in London on May 10, 1983, of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. In announcing the 1983 award, the Templeton Foundation described Mr. Solzhenitsyn as “a pioneer in the renaissance of religion in atheist nations.” Mr. Solzhenitsyn ’s introductory remarks were made at the awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace, with Prince Philip presiding. The address proper was delivered later the same day at the London Guildhall. Today, December 11,...

A Northeast Portland homeowner was arrested Wednesday after police say she confronted a driver about where he was parked, claimed he was trespassing on her property and fired a gun while they were arguing. Susan A. Dowiasz, 71, is accused of unlawful use of a weapon, reckless endangering, unlawful discharge of a firearm in the city and menacing. No one was injured in the shooting. The male driver drove away after the gunfire and called police. The confrontation occurred around 4:55 p.m. in the 1400 block of Northeast 82nd Avenue. Police have not said where the pistol was aimed when...

Messier 100, also known as M100, NGC 4321 and LEDA 40153, is located approximately 50 million light-years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices.This galaxy is one of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster, a group of about 1,300 (and possibly up to 2,000) galaxies.Its apparent magnitude of 10.1 means that, while it can be seen through small telescopes, it will appear only as a faint patch of light. Larger telescopes can resolve more details of the galaxy.The galaxy was discovered on March 15, 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, Charles Messier’s fellow comet hunter who discovered eight...

Europe’s commentators have not been kind to Theresa May after she delayed the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal and dashed to the continent in search of further concessions. “It’s like a long, slow agony,” wrote Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, the London correspondent for the French daily Libération. “You know the end is near, you expect the worst, then there’s a small flicker of light – before another collapse. And it always ends badly.” May “blew her last bet”, failing miserably to convince parliament to vote for the withdrawal agreement sealed barely two weeks ago. “Rather than suffer the humiliation, she suspended...

Former New York Mayor and reported presidential wanna-be Michael Bloomberg held forth before a sold-out Aspen Institute crowd on Friday. Because he has billions of dollars, he draws crowds and is frequently asked his opinion on a range of topics, whether he has any expertise in the area or not. After opining on topics such as marijuana legalization, education and poverty in the United States, the topic of “gun violence” was teed up for America’s foremost advocate of civilian disarmament. As the Aspen Times reports: Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and...

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday it was unclear to him why a Russian woman, Maria Butina, had been detained in the United States and accused of being a Russian agent because his intelligence chiefs had told him they knew nothing about her. “...she risks 15 years in jail. For what?” asked Putin. “...I asked all the heads of our intelligence services what is going on. Nobody knows anything about her.”

SPRING HILL (CBSMiami) — A Florida man who just finished a job interview at a Kohl’s store ending up leaving in handcuffs. Dominick Breedlove is charged with retail theft after deputies say he tried to shoplift shoes just minutes after he left a job interview at the store in Spring Hill. After leaving the human resources office, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office says Breedlove spotted two pairs of Nike shoes without security tags. Authorities say he grabbed a Kohl’s shopping bag from a previous purchase out of his car and put both pairs of shoes into the bag and tried...

BATON ROUGE - A woman is facing charges following an incident at an area middle school. On November 2, Faith Celestine was called to Capitol Middle School because her teenage son had been arrested for attacking a teacher. At the school, authorities told Celestine she needed to sign a form, so her son could be released to her. At that time, Celestine agreed to sign the form and authorities took the handcuffs off the teen. At some point, the teen became disruptive and was told by Celestine to stand outside the office. Once out the door, the teen began to...

The government snared more than 3,000 illegal immigrants in just one day last week, the administration’s top border official told Congress on Tuesday, saying the situation qualifies as a full-blown “crisis.” Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said more than 1,100 of those caught either jumping the border or trying to come through a border crossing without permission were children, either traveling alone or with parents, and forced on the treacherous journey.

A lot of people want to quit their jobs at Verizon, and that's a really good sign for the economy. In a drive to cut costs and shift investments as it rolls out 5G service, the company announced on Monday that 10,400 management employees had accepted voluntary buyout deals, out of 44,000 who were eligible. That might have been partially due to the fact that the terms of severance were generous, at three weeks of pay for each year of service, capped at 60 weeks. But it's likely there's a larger factor at play: The unemployment rate is now 3.7%,...

Six in 10 U.S. adults say they worry about having to pay higher health insurance premiums, according to a Gallup poll. The poll finds that 61 percent say having their premiums raised is a “major concern,” higher than several other health care-related problems. Democrats focused heavily on health care on the midterm campaign trail and won back the House majority while saying they would preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The poll, though, finds that premiums are an even bigger concern for the public than pre-existing conditions. Forty-two percent of adults said being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition...

HUGE ECONOMIC NEWS THIS MORNING— China moved to reduce tariffs on US cars from 40% to 15% in the latest sign of their willingness to negotiate a trade deal with President Trump.... ...Despite the Deep State DOJ’s best efforts to ruin the trade deal and punish Americans China is committing to a new trade agreement with the Trump administration.

Check out the Monopoly man three rows back!

The Trump administration is poised to withdraw federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands across the country, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to weaken landmark water rules long resented by some developers, farmers and oil, gas and mining executives. Environmental groups said the Trump administration proposal would have a sweeping impact on how the country safeguards the nation’s waterways, scaling back not just a 2015 Obama administration interpretation of federal jurisdiction over the nation’s waters, but also how federal agencies enforce the 1972 Clean Water Act. […] The changes would affect what waterways and wetlands fall under...

Recently-unionized writers and editors at Slate have reportedly voted almost unanimously to strike over concerns about the company's diversity policies and a rule mandating that union fees be optional for Slate employees. Bloomberg News reports that Slate employees voted 52 to 1 in favor of a strike and have begun considering when workers will walk out. A spokesman for the union told Bloomberg that the rules mandating optional union fees at the left-leaning blog seemed to be a "betrayal" of the site's values. “We just feel that it’s a total and absolute betrayal of Slate’s most fundamental values,” Slate writer...

JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Owners of hybrid and electric vehicles in Mississippi received a notice from the state Department of Revenue informing them of the new annual tax on their vehicles. The new tax, which took effect on October 1, will tax $75 for hybrid vehicles and $150 for total electric vehicles annually. The tax is in addition to regular tag fees and must be paid at vehicle registration or renewal. Cathy Waterbury, The associate commissioner of the Department of Revenue and she said the revenue attained from the tax will go towards the state’s highway fund, infrastructure and the...

Two years ago 16 track inspectors and five supervisors for the Washington, DC Metro Rail system were fired for repeatedly filing false reports on track conditions. The Metro and Amalgamated Transit Union appealed these firings. An arbitrator hired to hear the appeal ordered all the fired individuals to be reinstated. The basis for the reinstatement decision was the arbitrator’s finding that “filing false reports was the normal practice in the track inspection program. Each inspection report was essentially an exact copy of the previous report filed for that section of track. No new measurements of deteriorated conditions were ever noted....