Summary List Placement If you live in Illinois and have outstanding student loans, the state could pay off some of your debt to help you buy a house. The SmartBuy program, offered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority, helps anyone who wants to buy a home in Illinois by paying off up to $40,000 in student […]
The French Open has been delayed by one week because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governing body of the tennis tournament said Thursday. The French Tennis Federation said first-round matches will now begin on May 30 instead of May 23 because of sharp spikes in coronavirus infections in France. The postponement marks the second year […]
The average U.S. mortgage rate dropped five basis points last week to 3.13%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. It’s the first decline in mortgage rates in two months. Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, pointed to a modest decline in treasury yields as the leading factor behind last week’s drop. Traders were […]
Summary List Placement It’s been 13 months since my school-aged kids stopped going to school. Save for a handful days of “in-person remote learning” — where students stare at laptops just as they would at home, only in teacher-less classrooms — they haven’t been to school since the pandemic crippled New York City in March […]
Summary List Placement The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits ticked higher last week as hiring slowed after surging through March. New filings for unemployment benefits totaled an unadjusted 744,000 for the week that ended Saturday, the Labor Department said. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected a reading of 680,000 claims. The reading marks a […]
Summary List Placement Staff at UK fintech Revolut, one of Europe’s biggest startups, will soon be able to work abroad for up to two months each year, the company said Thursday. The policy would apply to all of the company’s more than 2,000 employees, it said. “Revolut staff members who wish to work outside their […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden may not achieve his proposed corporate tax rise to 28%, but lawmakers and corporations could agree on a 25% rate as a compromise, White House officials and business groups told Reuters. The US corporate tax rate is 21%, but Biden wants to raise it to help fund his $2 […]
Summary List Placement Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia suggested he could derail Democratic attempts to circumvent Republicans more than once this year, arguing that embarking on the path would be harmful to the nation’s future. “We should all be alarmed at how the budget reconciliation process is being used by both parties to stifle […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden made a forceful pitch for his massive infrastructure package on Wednesday, arguing his proposed 28% corporate tax hike would level the playing field between large companies and average Americans. “I’m not trying to punish anybody, but dammit — maybe because I come from a middle class neighborhood — I’m […]
Summary List Placement The American Rescue Plan passed by President Joe Biden last month was larger than Federal Reserve policymakers had anticipated, according to minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s March meeting. Committee members rolled out a more optimistic outlook for the US economy on March 17 after concluding their two-day policy meeting. The […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a proposed rule on Monday that would bar servicers from starting on foreclosures until 2022. The CFPB also proposed streamlined processes for moving homeowners out of forbearance and in to loss mitigation options. However, since the announcement, several industry leaders have expressed reservations about the blanket policy. “My concern […]
Summary List Placement The Biden administration unveiled a proposal for a series of corporate tax hikes on Wednesday, projecting they would raise $2.5 trillion over 15 years to cover all of their infrastructure spending. But soon afterward, officials signaled an openness to compromise with lawmakers on the size of a corporate tax increase. The 17-page […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently released to Congress the 2020 Consumer Response report. While overall complaints were up 54% year-over-year, complaints against mortgage companies were up just 7.5%, and complaints against mortgage servicers were actually down, by 3.5%. These results are notable considering the sheer speed and impact the pandemic had on the mortgage […]
Summary List Placement The Biden administration has cleared its goal of delivering more than 150 million economic relief payments in the first 100 days of the president’s first term. It has now been 77 days since Biden’s inauguration on January 20. The IRS and the Treasury Department have sent out more than 156 million stimulus […]
Summary List Placement So far, President Joe Biden’s Department of Education has acted to address the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis in the country by, among other things, canceling debt for some borrowers defrauded by for-profit schools and for borrowers with disabilities. On his first day in office, Biden’s first action addressing student debt was […]
“Cambodia Burning,” a documentary by filmmaker Sean Gallagher, throws light on the effect Cambodia’s unfettered logging has had on the country’s forest ecosystem. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke to the award-winning filmmaker details ⇒ BusinessMediaguide.Com portal received this content from this noted web source: VOANews.Com
Summary List Placement JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in his latest annual letter to shareholders that the US economic boom could “easily run into 2023.” “I have little doubt that with excess savings, new stimulus savings, huge deficit spending, more QE, a new potential infrastructure bill, a successful vaccine and euphoria around the end of […]
Home sellers are chomping at the bit. As the economy reopens, vaccinations continue to roll out and stimulus checks reach bank accounts across America, home sellers are increasingly optimistic. And despite fierce bidding wars, competition from institutional investors and sore wrists from writing dozens of heartfelt letters to home sellers, even buyers are growing in […]
Mortgage applications decreased for the fifth straight week – this time down 5.1%, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. As has been the case for several weeks now, rising mortgage rates and low inventory are contributing to the slowdown in mortgage applications, said Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting. “The rapidly […]
The political dispute over a new election law in the southern state of Georgia has broadened into a debate over whether the United States should participate in a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price acknowledged the U.S. will discuss with allies whether to jointly boycott […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would safeguard the independence of the Federal Reserve, breaking with his predecessor, Donald Trump, who often tried pressuring the central bank to lower the cost of borrowing. “Starting off my presidency, I want to be real clear that I’m not going to do the kinds […]
Summary List Placement If you’re just starting to explore a new language or want to easily build on what you already know, Duolingo is a fun, free, and low-key way to squeeze in a few minutes of practice every day. Using cute animations and short, gamified lessons, it’s one of our favorite apps for […]
From a distance, it looks like college kids in sweat clothes tossing a football around on a campus green space. Draw closer, and it’s apparent this is no sandlot game. A coach is explaining routes he wants receivers to run on a play he calls “Bingo.” Then he tells his quarterbacks to make quicker […]
Summary List Placement Everyone knows it’s been hard to find an affordable house amid the pandemic, but as the data comes in, it’s becoming clearer just how hard. The answer: Extremely. US home prices continued to rip higher in February as supply constraints across the country and outsize demand boosted competition. Selling prices increased 10.4% […]
The U.S. housing market is in the midst of an inventory crisis. The number of homes for sale in the U.S. is hovering near record lows, caused by a pandemic-induced housing inventory death-spiral. At the same time, home sales have soared close to record highs, suggesting the housing market suffers exclusively from a supply (and […]
Summary List Placement The White House said on Tuesday that it is aiming to get President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar infrastructure package approved within months, an ambitious timeline that underscores the administration’s desire to quickly muscle a plan through Congress. “We’d like to see progress by May and certainly a package through by the summer,” White […]
Summary List Placement The government’s bid to pad against the coronavirus recession was mostly successful, but there are lessons to learn from some key shortcomings, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said. Congress authorized roughly $5 trillion in spending on various economic relief measures since the pandemic began. Households received support through direct […]
The promise to return several Benin Bronzes from three Western institutions to the former Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria was celebrated by many. But returning all the artifacts looted by British soldiers 125 years ago will continue to be a challenge. In recent weeks, a university in Scotland and museums in Germany and Britain pledged […]
Summary List Placement Lisa Andrea, 32, knew exactly what she wanted to do after college: She wanted to pursue her MBA, become a certified public accountant, and work for a Big Four accounting firm. “That was my dream,” Andrea, who asked to use a different last name in compliance with her company, told Insider. But […]
Summary List Placement The NFT craze continues, and it could change the art world. The acronym, which stands for “non-fungible token,” is a digital file that’s tradable by blockchain. It shot to fame and prominence in March when a visual artist called Beeple sold “Everydays: the First 5000 Days,” a digital collage of images, for […]
Summary List Placement The second part of the $4 trillion infrastructure plan President Joe Biden will unveil in the coming weeks includes funding for issues like universal pre-K and paid family and medical leave, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal said that those issues belong in infrastructure and should be a top […]
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today announced a comprehensive review of the Department’s regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as part of implementing President Biden’s March 8 Executive Order on Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free from Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity. details […]
Summary List Placement Seventy economists have signed on to a letter saying it’s time to go big on infrastructure. “A multitrillion-dollar investment in infrastructure like the one President Biden laid out last week will help pave the way for sustainable and equitable economic growth and pay for itself in the long run,” the letter, coordinated […]
North Korea says it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s sports ministry said the decision was made “in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by COVID-19,” in a statement dated Monday. If North Korea follows through with the decision, it would be the […]
Summary List Placement New York City millionaires are about to fall under the highest tax rate in the country. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders are coming close to agreeing on a 2022 budget proposal that would create an extra $4.3 billion a year by raising income and corporate taxes, The New York Times’ […]
Summary List Placement The student-debt problem numbers are massive: 45 million people owe $1.7 trillion. But another big number is 19, as that many states have more outstanding student debt than their annual budgets. Student Loan Justice — an organization advocating for student-debt cancellation — released a report in March on these 19 states, with […]
The share of loans in forbearance fell six basis points during the final week of March to 4.9% of servicers’ portfolio volume, according to recent data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. New forbearance requests also dropped to their lowest level since March, 2020 as forbearance volume fell across the board for every investor type. Fannie […]
Summary List Placement Gradual reopening and widespread vaccination have economists wondering how Americans will spend in a post-pandemic economy. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York see little cause for concern. Americans enjoyed a savings surge during the pandemic as government stimulus hit households and lockdown measures cut down on spending. Estimates suggest people […]
Summary List Placement After the freeze, comes the thaw. For the US economy, the pandemic era stopped the all-important service sector in its tracks. Now a spring thaw is emerging in more ways than one. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of service businesses rose to 63.7 last month from 55.3, according to a Monday […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a notice of proposed rulemaking on Monday that would amend Regulation X to provide a special pre-foreclosure review period prohibiting servicers from starting foreclosures until after December 31, 2021. Under current CFPB foreclosure rules, a borrower must be 120 days delinquent before the foreclosure process can start. The Bureau […]
Summary List Placement Housing prices have skyrocketed during the pandemic, as it seems many people bought new homes. But something else is going on, too: not enough homes are hitting the market. A report from real estate analytics corporation Black Knight puts into perspective just how dire the situation is: housing inventory is down by 40% […]
Table of Contents: StaticSummary List Placement One of the biggest aspects of Buddhism is meditation, a mindfulness practice that promotes awareness in the present moment. The purpose of meditation is to control your state of mind so your thoughts become more focused and peaceful, and the benefits of incorporating meditation into your daily life range […]
Pop star The Weeknd has announced he will be donating $1 million to relief efforts in Ethiopia amid the country’s ongoing conflict in the Tigray region. A U.N. statement said his donation, the equivalent of 2 million meals, went to World Food Program USA, the U.S. affiliate of the United Nations World Food Program, and […]
Summary List Placement The pandemic’s uneven economic fallout is now showing up in car loan payments — especially in their absence. More than 9% of subprime auto borrowers — those classified as having a higher risk of default — were over 60 days delinquent in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to TransUnion data cited by […]
Summary List Placement President Biden announced on Wednesday his proposal to invest $2 trillion over eight years to bolster the economy, create jobs, and shore up supply chains. The plan earmarks $300 billion for small businesses and manufacturing, with initiatives to bring more manufacturing stateside, update tax incentives, expand research and development, and install funding […]