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16 luxury hotels that go all-out for Christmas | CNN

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Twinkling lights, glitter, Champagne and petit fours. It’s time to treat yourself to some holiday cheer.

Luxury hotels serve up a glamorous way to brighten up the Christmas season, whether for an overnight stay or an elegant afternoon tea.

These lavish hotels are worth a closer look for a few hours of sipping tea and admiring Christmas decorations or for a spur of the moment escape or a future holiday splurge.

Natural mineral springs have drawn guests, including US presidents, to The Greenbrier for more than two centuries. The historic hotel opened in 1913.

Letters to Santa, a fun run and cookie decorating workshops are all part of The Greenbrier’s lineup in the days surrounding December 25.

On Christmas Eve, there’s a Season’s Greetings Dinner ($125 per adult; $55 per child) and a service in the resort’s chapel. On Christmas Day, puzzles and board games, indoor planetarium presentations and a Christmas musical will keep families entertained.

Rates start at $609.

The Greenbrier, 101 Main Street West, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

The Fife Arms: Braemar, Scotland

Fishing, foraging and hiking are just outside at The Fife Arms, an antiques-packed, 19th-century retreat within Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands.

The hotel is 14.5 kilometers (nine miles) from Balmoral, the Royal Family’s residence in Scotland.

For winter guests, there’s a seasonal alpine fondue hut with a cozy fireplace. On the menu, a traditional Swiss option of molten cheese is joined by a Scottish take on the rich classic – a blend of two local cheeses and a local pale ale.

Rooms start at about $650 in late December. There’s also a special Christmas package, subject to availability.

The Fife Arms, Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

“Serenity Season” is right on time at the Ojai Valley Inn, where spa treatments, golf, tennis, yoga and more can be incorporated into a restorative stay at this 220-acre coastal valley resort.

In December, caroling, a nightly Menorah lighting, breakfast with Santa and story time with Santa’s elves are among the festivities. On December 24, there’s a Jingle Bell Jaunt across the resort grounds.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner will be served at both Olivella and The Oak, and there’s a grand buffet on Christmas Day at The Farmhouse ($195 per adult, including wine; $65 for children 12 and younger).

December room rates start at $795 per night.

Ojai Valley Inn, Ojai, California

Tea time and Christmastime coincide at The Plaza’s elegant Palm Court, where three holiday tea menus will be available through December 31.

The Holiday Signature Tea ($155 per person) features savories and sweets, including a foie gras macaron and an oolong tea cheesecake.

Eloise, the hotel’s famous fictional resident, lends her name to a children’s tea available for $118 per child.

There’s a Christmas Day buffet ($325 for adults). And for New Year’s Eve, a lavish grand fête offering comes with a price tag to match: $995 per person.

The starting rate at The Plaza for Christmas week is $1,800 per night.

The Plaza, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, New York

Anantara Golden Triangle: Chiang Rai, Thailand

As far as memorable holiday experiences go, it’s hard to beat sleeping in a clear bubble with elephants roaming right outside.

It’s possible at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. The resort’s two-bedroom Jungle Bubble Lodge is transformed into snow globes for the holidays. Starlit skies and gentle giants add another layer to the magic.

The resort has a selection of more traditional luxury rooms, and guests can learn more about the beloved residents at Elephant Camp.

A Christmas Day brunch will showcase fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

Rooms start at about $1,660, including meals, airport transfers and some activities.

Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort, Wiang, Chiang Saen District, Chiang Rai

A sledding mountain, two outdoor skating rinks and a new Aurora Ice Lounge are just part of the annual Christmas at the Princess festival. Add 7.5 million lights, a train and more: It’s safe to say Fairmont Scottsdale Princess doesn’t believe in holding back for the holidays.

The festival, which runs through January 6, is open to the public. Free for hotel guests, the entrance fee is $35 per wristband with advance purchase; children three and under are admitted for free. Self-parking is $35 in advance.

Rooms start at $399. There are also holiday packages available.

Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, 7575 East Princess Drive, Scottsdale, Arizona

Rock House: Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

There’s certainly a lot to be said for a warm-weather Christmas that involves lounging poolside with a cocktail.

The luxury resort Rock House on the island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos offers holiday programming from December 18 through January 3 including live music at al fresco restaurant Vita, a craft market, s’mores and more.

On Christmas Eve, guests are invited to a boat experience followed by brunch from chef Dennis Boon, and in the evening, a Feast of the Seven Fishes is followed by live entertainment at Vita.

A “Journey of the Mediterranean” Christmas dinner will features flavors from Greece, Morocco and Italy.

Christmas week rates start at $1,100 a night.

Rock House, Blue Mountain Road, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

Historic Hôtel de Crillon delivers a next-level Parisian holiday.

From December 11 through January 1, a festive afternoon tea service with pastries and canapés is available at the Jardin d’Hiver for about $95 per person.

A seven-course Christmas Eve menu at L’Écrin starts at about $650. A lavish Christmas Day brunch, featuring items such as scallop carpaccio, roasted veal rack and black truffle mashed potatoes, is available for about $250 including a glass of Champagne.

The five-star property, originally built in 1758 under the direction of King Louis XV, overlooks Paris’ Place de la Concorde.

Over Christmas weekend, rooms start at $2,265.

Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, 10 place de la Concorde, Paris

In the United States capital, the Willard InterContinental will host free nightly performances by local choral and vocal ensembles in the lobby through December 23, and signature holiday cocktails will be available in the famed Round Robin Bar.

Holiday afternoon tea – with finger sandwiches and pastries – will be served every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from December 2 through December 30 ($90 per adult or $102 with a glass of champagne; $65 per child).

Room rates in December start at $289.

Willard InterContinental, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC

Four Seasons: Hampshire and London, England

An hour from central London, Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire serves up a sophisticated country Christmas in an 18th-century manor on 500 acres of rolling meadows.

An equestrian center and other outdoor offerings will ensure a hearty appetite for holiday meals at Wild Carrot, afternoon tea in the Drawing Room or a cozy Swiss-inspired meal at the pop-up alpine restaurant Off Piste.

Hotel Hampshire rates during the Christmas season start at about $1,790.

For a sparkling city Christmas, guests at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane will find an enchanted forest of chandeliers in the lobby, Christmas afternoon tea and other special holiday menus. Room rates start around $1,050 this season.

Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire and Four Seasons Hotel London Park Lane, England

Madeline Hotel & Residences: Telluride, Colorado

With 14,000-foot peaks as your backdrop, why not have a ski and spa Christmas?

Madeline Hotel & Residences in Telluride boasts luxurious ski-in/ski-out accommodation, with a spa that offers treatments such as Alpine Remedy Muscle Relief for your after-ski rejuvenation.

There’s a three-course Christmas Eve dinner that can be packed to-go or enjoyed at Black Iron Kitchen + Bar, featuring juniper-glazed Cornish game hen or herb-crusted Colorado lamb leg, for $175 for adults, $55 per child.

A Holiday Maker’s Market will be held on select days leading up to Christmas, and the interactive art installation Alpenglow is returning for a second year. The resort has teamed up with a local holiday decorating service to offer a menu of in-room Christmas trees with choices from Tartan & Tradition to the sparkly All That Glitters.

The starting rate during Christmas is $1,799.

Madeline Hotel & Residences, Auberge Resorts Collection, Mountain Village Blvd. Telluride, Colorado

The holidays are a gourmet affair at the Royal Mansour in Marrakech.

The property’s restaurants will feature special menus for Christmas and New Year’s Eve from Michelin-star chefs.

At La Grande Brassiere, which debuted at Royal Mansour on November 1, chef Hélène Darroze is introducing a festive afternoon tea featuring items such as an orange blossom tropézienne and a cardamom opéra.

Pastry chef Jean Lachenal and Darroze have created four bûches de Noël this year, including a mango and gingerbread yule log topped with a light cream with local cinnamon.

The hotel will host a Christmas market in its lobby on December 16 with handmade crafts, Christmas sweets and gift items for sale, with proceeds going to local charities.

Hotel rates start at about $1,420 per night.

Royal Mansour, Rue Abou El Abbas Sebti, Marrakech, Morocco

Founded by Standard Oil Co. magnate Henry Morrison Flagler in 1896, The Breakers Palm Beach carries its lovely traditions right through the holiday season.

The oceanfront Italian Renaissance-style resort dazzles with sparkling lights, and holiday tea is available at HMF on December 20-23 and December 26-30 for $120 per person.

The Circle will host a buffet brunch on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ($285 per person; $100 for children 12 and younger). There’s also a Christmas Day buffet in the Ponce de Leon ballroom, and the resort’s Flagler Steakhouse will serve three-course, prix fixe menus on December 24 and 25.

There’s limited room availability in December with rates starting at $1,090.

The Breakers, One South County Road, Palm Beach, Florida

The Ritz Paris is putting on exactly what you’d expect from the elegant luxury property.

Christmas Tea is available at Bar Vendôme and Salon Proust, starting at about $75 per person with a hot beverage or about $95 with a glass of Champagne.

The Salon d’Eté will serve a lavish holiday brunch on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day for about $325 per person. The Ritz’s new restaurant Espadon is offering a next-level New Year’s Eve tasting menu for about $2,220 per person, including wine pairings.

Rates around Christmas start at about $2,300 a night.

Ritz Paris, 15 place Vendôme, Paris, France

Guests at Claridge’s will be treated to horse-drawn carriage rides and carol singing over Christmas.

Three-night Christmas packages feature those festive events, plus a personal Christmas tree, Champagne, a visit from Father Christmas, a Christmas lunch, stockings for all and a full English breakfast each day. (Pricing available upon request).

Festive afternoon tea, served through January 1, starts at about $130.

Claridge’s enlists celebrated designers each year to create an eye-catching lobby Christmas tree.

This year’s tree, from Louis Vuitton, is a sculptural creation situated within two large LV wardrobe trunks. Both Claridge’s and Louis Vuitton were founded in 1854.

Rooms start at about $1,060.

Claridge’s, Brook Street, Mayfair , London

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December 2, 2023
US new home sales surged in September | CNN Business

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Washington, DC
CNN
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New home sales in the United States surged higher in September from the month before, even as mortgage rates remained over 7%, making financing a home costlier and pushing people out of the market.

Sales of newly constructed homes jumped 12.3% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 759,000, from a revised rate of 676,000 in August, according to a joint report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau. Sales were up 33.9% from a year ago.

This represents the fastest pace of sales since February 2022 and easily exceeds analysts’ expectations of a sales pace of 680,000.

Sales of existing homes have been trending down since February and are down 20% year to date in September from a year ago. There is an ongoing inventory and affordability crunch that has homeowners with mortgage rates of 3% or 4% reluctant to sell and buy another home at a much higher rate. In August, rates topped 7% and have lingered there as the Federal Reserve continues to address inflation.

The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.63% last week, according to Freddie Mac, and there are indications it could continue to climb.

“With one more Fed interest rate hike expected for the year, interest rates are not anticipated to drop any time soon,” said Kelly Mangold of RCLCO Real Estate Consulting.

New construction has been an appealing alternative, attracting determined buyers frustrated by the historically low supply of existing homes. Still, affordability concerns remain.

“The constraints in the housing market have created a significant amount of pent-up demand, as more and more households are living in homes they may have outgrown and are deciding to buy despite current market conditions,” said Mangold.

According to the report, new home sales activity increased the most in the south, “a region that continues to outperform due to availability of land, population and job growth, and a relatively lower cost of living,” said Mangold.

While new home sales are a much smaller share of the overall sales market than existing home sales, the inventory picture is rosier for new construction homes.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of September was 435,000. This represents a supply of 6.9 months at the current sales pace.

By comparison, there were 1.13 million existing homes for sale at the end of September, or the equivalent of 3.4 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace.

Typically, the ratio of existing homes to new homes has been closer to 5 to 1, but lately it has been closer to 2 to 1, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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October 25, 2023
Landlord charged with hate crime, accused of stabbing 6-year-old tenant to death allegedly because family is Muslim | CNN

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CNN
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A Chicago-area landlord has been arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after authorities said he stabbed and killed a 6-year-old boy and seriously wounded his mother, allegedly because the tenants are Muslim.

According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, Joseph M. Czuba, 71, has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Authorities say they were called to the residence in unincorporated Plainfield Township, Illinois, approximately 40 miles outside Chicago, just before noon on Saturday after a woman called 911 saying her landlord had attacked her.

When deputies arrived, they found Czuba sitting outside and the victims in a bedroom. The boy had been stabbed 26 times, and his mother had been stabbed over a dozen times, the sheriff’s office said.

The victims were taken to the hospital, but the boy later died from his injuries, authorities said. His mother is recovering in a local hospital and expected to survive.

The sheriff’s office said Czuba did not make a statement to detectives after being brought to the Will County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Complex, but investigators were able to determine the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”

The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a news release identifying the victims as Hanaan Shahin, 32, and her son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.

CAIR said they had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years without trouble with Czuba, but in texts to the boy’s father from the hospital after the attack, Shahin said he “knocked on their door, and when she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling, ‘You Muslims must die!’” according to the CAIR statement.

On Saturday, Israel’s military said its forces are readying for the next stages of the war in response to the unprecedented October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. At least 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Sunday.

Nearly 1 million Gazans have been forced from their homes in the week since the Hamas attack and the ensuing Israeli retaliation, UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestinians, said Saturday.

Czuba was transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting his initial court appearance, according to the sheriff’s office. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

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October 15, 2023
Senior House Republican says GOP members ready to block Jordan | CNN Politics

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CNN
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A number of House Republicans are in talks to block Rep. Jim Jordan’s path to the speakership as the Ohio Republican tries to force a floor vote on Tuesday, according to multiple GOP sources.

One senior Republican House member who is part of the opposition to Jordan told CNN that there he believes there are roughly 40 “no” votes, and that he has personally spoken to 20 members who are willing to go to the floor and block Jordan’s path if the Ohio Republican forces a roll-call vote on Tuesday.

“The approximately 20 I’ve talked to know we must be prepared,” the member said. “We cannot let the small group dictate to the whole group. They want a minority of the majority to dictate and as a red-blooded American I refuse to be a victim.”

But another GOP source familiar with the matter says that Jordan has had positive conversations with members and believes by Tuesday evening he will be elected speaker of the House. The source said it was “likely” the vote would still happen on Tuesday and that Jordan may decide to go to multiple ballots on the floor if necessary.

Republicans are expected to meet behind closed doors Monday evening.

Yet there is still sizable opposition to Jordan. The GOP member says there are some Republicans who are critics of Jordan and not willing to back him – and there are others angry at the hardliners who took out Kevin McCarthy and sunk Majority Leader Steve Scalise and don’t want to reward those moves by electing Jordan, who is their preferred candidate.

“I know of many hard nos. …We can’t reward this behavior,” the GOP lawmaker said. “We can’t let a small group be dictators.”

The Republican conference nominated Jordan as speaker last week after Scalise dropped his bid for the role. Scalise had initially been selected by the conference as its nominee – after he defeated Jordan 113-99 in the conference’s first speaker vote – but more than a dozen Republicans said they would not vote for Scalise, forcing him to withdraw.

Now Jordan is facing the same problem from Republicans angry at McCarthy’s ouster and a small faction of the conference refusing to get behind Scalise after he won the first vote. After Jordan’s nomination, he held a second, secret vote in the conference on whether Republicans would support him on the floor. Fifty-five Republicans voted no.

To be elected speaker, a nominee must win the majority of the full House, which is currently 217 votes due to two vacancies. That means Jordan or any other Republican nominee can only afford to lose four GOP votes on the floor if every Democrat votes for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Some of Jordan’s allies have pushed for votes on the floor in order to try to call out the holdouts who aren’t behind the Ohio Republican. But Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas railed against his House GOP colleagues who plan on rallying support for Jordan’s speakership through a public pressure campaign, calling it “the dumbest thing you can do.”

“That is the dumbest way to support Jordan,” Crenshaw told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “As someone who wants Jim Jordan, the dumbest thing you can do is to continue pissing off those people and entrench them.”

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October 15, 2023
Pressure to fill House speaker vacancy builds amid crisis in Israel | CNN Politics

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The House speakership drama enters a new week under increased urgency as Israel declared war Sunday following unprecedented surprise attacks by Hamas.

Kevin McCarthy’s unprecedented ouster as speaker leaves the House iin uncharted legal territory regarding what it can do under acting Speaker Patrick McHenry. When Congress reconvenes Monday, lawmakers will be under pressure to elect a new speaker swiftly amid the crisis in Israel, which has prompted calls from within the Republican Party to speed up their timeline given the national security implications of keeping the role vacant.

As the Biden administration looks to provide additional assistance to Israel, officials were unsure Saturday about what could be accomplished without a sitting speaker. While McHenry is serving as speaker pro tempore, he has little power outside of recessing, adjourning or recognizing speaker nominations, and it’s unclear whether he can participate in intelligence briefings on the crisis in Israel.

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Sunday that he had conversations with the White House and the National Security Council on Saturday, but he has not yet met with the Gang of Eight – which typically includes the top leaders and heads of the intelligence committees in both parties and both chambers.

“I do anticipate that we’ll have the opportunity to have a secure briefing at some point next week,” Jeffries told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Jeffries said it is his understanding that the Biden administration can make some decisions regarding aid to Israel without waiting for Congress and urged the administration to do so, adding that he expects “it will provide whatever assistance it can.”

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul told Bash Sunday that there is currently $3.3 billion in foreign military financing already appropriated that the president can use.

The Texas Republican also called McCarthy’s ouster “dangerous.”

“I look at the world and all of the threats that are out there and what kind of message are we sending to adversaries when we can’t govern, when we are dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House?” McCaul said on “State of the Union.”

McCarthy on Saturday slammed his Republican colleagues for removing him from office last week, and stressed the impact of a speakerless House on national security. “Why would you ever remove a speaker during a term to raise doubt around the world?” McCarthy asked in a Fox News interview.

McCarthy announced shortly after his ouster that he would not seek the speakership again, making room for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan to launch their bids for the seat. Former President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Jordan. Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Hern announced Saturday that he had decided not to run, saying “I believe a three-man race for Speaker will create even more division and make it harder to elect a Speaker.”

House Republicans are scheduled to hold a candidate forum on Tuesday and an internal election on Wednesday. But it’s unclear when the floor vote will happen, and the timeline is contingent on whether moderate GOP lawmakers can rally around Scalise or Jordan, who are among the hardliners of the party.

“We have to get a speaker elected this week so we can get things on the floor like replenishing the Iron Dome,” McCaul told Bash on Sunday – referring to Israel’s rocket defense system, which was developed with help from the United States. He added that the House should look to pass a resolution condemning Hamas “by unanimous consent whether or not we have a speaker in place because I think we cannot wait. We have to get that message out as soon as possible.”

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October 8, 2023
‘Our grief is still too fresh’: Lahaina residents petition to delay reopening West Maui to tourists after devastating fires | CNN

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Residents in Lahaina are petitioning Hawaii Gov. Josh Green to delay reopening West Maui to tourists this weekend, saying the community is still grieving and needs more time to heal after the devastating wildfires that left 97 dead.

The fires on West Maui nearly leveled the historic town of Lahaina in early August, obliterating homes and displacing hundreds of residents – many of whom had to make harrowing escapes to survive. Crews spent days digging through the ashes of what used to be homes, businesses and historic landmarks in search of remains.

“The weight of recent events still burden on our shoulders and our souls ache with grief,” Lahaina native Paele Kiakona said at a news conference Tuesday. “Yet, amidst this profound pain, we are being urged to march forward even as our wounds remain open and vulnerable. We urgently ask for understanding and patience to allow survivors more time to grieve.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Our grief is still too fresh and our loss is too profound.”

Residents in protective gear have been allowed to return to survey what’s left of their homes for the first time in phases over the past two weeks, and the state plans to reopen West Maui to visitors on October 8.

The petition by local organization Lahaina Strong, which has over 15,000 signatures, says Lahaina’s working families are still struggling to find shelter, to provide for their children’s education and to cope with the trauma.

“Delaying the reopening will allow for a more comprehensive and inclusive approach that takes into account the welfare and well-being of all West Maui residents and visitors alike,” the petition says.

Green told CNN in a statement that reopening is necessary to help the over 8,700 people on Maui who are unemployed, saying reopening “will heal faster and continue to be able to afford to live on the island they love and call home.”

“Some people aren’t ready, and we’re going to let people find their own time and way, with our administration providing the services they need to help them get there,” he said. “We will gently reopen in partnership with Mayor Bissen and the County of Maui and will utilize a phased approach throughout the month of October.”

Kiakona said he’s an employee on the island himself, and understands that the business will benefit from reopening, but he’s not ready to face questions about what he’s gone through.

“I’m not ready to go back. I don’t want the conversation to always be, ‘Oh, did you lose your home?’” Kiakona said.

“We understand the economic implications – the world’s eagerness to experience the magic of Lahaina once more. But we implore you, let Lahaina heal. Let our spirits find peace. Let’s move forward, but only when we’re truly ready,” Kiakona said.

Kiakona said many of the town’s residents are faced with the difficult task of trying to balance personal healing with the urgency to provide for their families.

“While the ashes may have settled, our hearts still ache trying to find solace and make sense of this devastation,” Kiakona said.

The group on Tuesday urged the state to allocate more funds towards direct unemployment benefits for workers and grants for small businesses.

The state currently has disaster unemployment benefits available through February 2024 for Maui workers and business owners who lost their jobs or had reduced work hours due to the wildfires, according to Maui officials.

Maui Councilmember Tamara Paltin, who joined the petitioners Tuesday, said that while two months might seem like a long time, survivors have spent them trying to get housing and many children aren’t back in school yet.

There were over 7,700 people still staying at 40 Red Cross temporary housing locations around Maui as of last week, according to the county.

Paltin reminded tourists that other parts of the island are open, including beach communities in south Maui.

“Maui isn’t closed, West Maui is closed,” Paltin said. “Feel free to visit Wailea-Makena, stay there and enjoy your vacation and support our economy from South Maui.”

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October 4, 2023
Why you should care about the global rout in government bonds | CNN Business

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London
CNN
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A slump in government bonds around the world has pushed up the cost of some nations’ debt to levels not seen in more than a decade. That’s bad news for governments in the red but also for the wallets of millions of mortgage borrowers, stock investors and businesses.

The sell-off has been fueled by expectations among investors that the world’s major central banks will keep interest rates “higher for longer” to bring inflation down to their targets.

It works like this: Governments looking to raise cash for public services and investments issue bonds. A bond provides a way to borrow money from investors for a set length of time, with the obligation to make regular interest payments.

When official interest rates rise, so do investors’ expectations for returns on bonds, known as yields. This creates an incentive for investors to sell the bonds they currently hold and buy newly issued ones that offer higher interest payments. Selling bonds reduces prices. So, in short, when yields rise, bond prices fall.

And yields have most definitely been rising: The yield on 30-year US government bonds, also known as Treasuries, hit 5% on Tuesday for the first time since 2007. In the United Kingdom, the yield on 30-year bonds also reached 5% this week, the highest level in more than two decades.

Yields on German long-dated bonds are back to levels last seen on the eve of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011. Yields on Italy’s 10-year bonds hit 5% on Wednesday, the highest level since 2012, when that crisis was in full swing.

Here’s why you should care.

The yields on local government bonds are usually used by banks to price mortgages.

The disastrous “mini” budget unveiled by former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss in September last year provided a stark illustration of that relationship. Her plan to borrow tens of billions of pounds to fund tax cuts spooked bond investors who feared that the country’s finances were on an unsustainable path.

The resulting sell-off in UK government bonds — called “gilts” — caused yields to shoot up, taking mortgage costs higher with them.

The average interest on a two-year fixed-rate mortgage soared to 6.47% at the start of November 2022, according to data from product comparison website Moneyfacts, the highest level since the depths of the global financial crisis in August 2008.

That meant hundreds of pounds more a month in mortgage payments. Before higher mortgage rates kicked in, some panicked homeowners rushed to refinance their fixed-rate loans earlier than planned, accepting a financial penalty for doing so.

Mortgage rates had been falling back since the drama last fall but are now back to 6.47%, this month’s data from Moneyfacts shows.

In the United States, mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year Treasuries, and that yield has risen 0.27 percentage points since late September.

On Thursday, government-backed mortgage provider Freddie Mac announced that the average interest on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had hit 7.31% in the week ending September 28 — its highest level since 2000.

“Higher mortgage rates create a standoff between potential buyers, who face some of the highest borrowing rates since 2000, and sellers, who may already enjoy a low fixed-rate mortgage and thus are less incentivized to sell,” Andrew Sheets, global head of corporate credit research at Morgan Stanley, told CNN.

Surging government bond yields are probably coming for your stock portfolios too.

Shares typically lose value when the yields on government debt rise, as investors can now get high returns — and a steady income — from less risky assets.

Take the yield on 10-year Treasuries: at 4.78%, it is more than twice as high as the average yearly dividend paid out by the companies making up the S&P 500 index (SPX).

“The higher the gilt yield goes, the less inclined, or obliged, investors will feel to take risk and pay up for other asset classes, such as shares,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, told CNN.

Stock indexes have tumbled on both sides of the Atlantic in recent weeks. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (NDX) have shed 4% and 2.3% respectively since the Federal Reserve said late last month that it could hike rates once more this year and expected to make fewer rate cuts in 2024.

The STOXX Europe 600 has sunk 4.5% and London’s FTSE 100 4.3% in that time.

“Income is back,” analysts at BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, wrote in a note Monday, recommending investments in short-dates US Treasuries.

Stocks have also taken a hit in recent weeks as rising oil prices, an ailing Chinese economy and the prospect of another government shutdown in the United Stated have unnerved investors.

High official interest rates in America and Europe have also raised the cost of borrowing for businesses.

“Higher interest rates make borrowing less attractive, and we’ve already seen a sharp slowing of bank lending that we think is consistent with this idea,” said Sheets at Morgan Stanley.

“It’s important to note that slower credit growth, which generally means a cooler economy, is precisely what the Federal Reserve is trying to achieve through its large recent rate hikes,” he added.

Higher yields also mean that the government must pay more to service its debt — with less money available to spend elsewhere.

The US government is currently sitting on a $33 trillion debt pile and is expected to incur more than $1 trillion in average annual interest costs over the next decade.

In March, when gilt yields were much lower than now, the UK’s public spending watchdog said it expected the annual interest paid on the government’s pile of debt to peak at £115 billion ($140 billion) this year. That’s almost three times as much as the UK government plans to spend in 2023 on a key benefit for children and people with disabilities.

Rising bond yields mean that “for any given level of borrowing, more must be spent on debt interest, leaving less scope to finance other priorities,” the Office for Budget Responsibility said in its March forecast.

Higher gilt yields give politicians “less wiggle room to ease [the] cost-of-living pain through tax cuts or public sector pay offers,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a note Wednesday.

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October 4, 2023
The fate of this consumer watchdog is in the hands of the Supreme Court | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in a case that will determine the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The case was brought on by the Community Financial Services Association of America, a trade group representing payday lenders.

The group scored a victory last year in a case it brought before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. The three-judge panel ruled the CFPB’s funding violates the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and separation of powers. The Supreme Court will have the final say on that, however.

The consumer watchdog agency was created after the 2008 financial crisis by way of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The agency was the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She began advocating for it in 2007 when she was a Harvard Law School professor.

The broad purpose of the CFPB is to protect consumers from financial abuses and to serve as the central agency for consumer financial protection authorities.

Prior to the CFPB’s formation, “[c]onsumer financial protection had not been the primary focus of any federal agency, and no agency had effective tools to set the rules for and oversee the whole market,” the agency said on its site.

The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve in an effort to keep the agency independent from political pressure. It also means that the agency doesn’t depend on Congressional appropriations funds.

While there are critics of the agency’s current structure and funding, it has saved consumers money, made it easier for them to seek redress and to get better clarity and more tailored responses from companies when they have a problem with their accounts, loans or credit reports.

“Today virtually all financial transactions for residential real estate in the United States depend upon compliance with the CFPB’s rules, and consumers rely on the rights and protections provided by those rules,” the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Homebuilders and the National Association of Realtors said in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

For instance, the CFPB recently ordered Bank of America to pay $100 million to customers and $90 million in penalties saying that the nation’s second-largest bank harmed consumers by double-dipping on fees, withholding credit card rewards and opening fake accounts.

The CFPB also took action against Wells Fargo after the agency found the bank had been engaging in multiple abusive and unlawful consumer practices across several financial products between 2011 and 2022 — from auto loans to mortgage loans to bank accounts.

The agency ordered the bank to pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty in addition to more than $2 billion to compensate consumers.

The Supreme Court’s decision, which likely won’t be announced until the spring of 2024, has far-reaching implications.

If the Supreme Court finds the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutional, it could shutter the agency and invalidate all of its prior rulings.

“Without those rules substantial uncertainty would arise as to how to undertake mortgage transactions in accordance with federal law,” the associations said in their joint brief. “The housing market could descend into chaos, to the detriment of all mortgage borrowers,” they added.

It could also call into question the constitutionality of other government agencies like the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that also aren’t funded by Congressional appropriations.

“We are confident in the constitutionality of the statute that created the CFPB within the Federal Reserve System and provides its funding,” Sam Gilford, a spokesperson for the CFPB, told CNN in a statement. “We will continue to carry out the vital work Congress has charged us to perform.”

There’s also a way for the Supreme Court to change the CFPB’s funding structure in a way that wouldn’t invalidate prior rulings, said Joseph Lynyak III, a partner at the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney and a regulatory reform expert.

“This result would be far more probable rather than voiding the last decade of the CFPB’s activity,” he added.

From listening to the case on Tuesday, though, Lynyak believes the Supreme Court will rule that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional.

“As we have argued from the outset, the CFPB’s unique funding mechanism lacks any contemporary or historical precedent,” said Noel Francisco, a lawyer arguing on behalf of those challenging the constitutionality of the CFPB’s funding structure.

He added that it “improperly shields the agency from congressional oversight and accountability, and unconstitutionally strips Congress of its power of the purse under the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution.

But both Republican and Democratic-appointed justices told Francisco on Tuesday they could not understand the crux of his argument.

“I’m at a total loss,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Echoing her remarks, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “we’re all struggling to figure out what’s the standard that you would use.”

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October 3, 2023
US mortgage rates climb to 7.31%, hitting their highest level in nearly 23 years | CNN Business

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Washington, DC
CNN
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US mortgage rates surged to their highest level in nearly 23 years this week as inflation pressures persisted.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.31% in the week ending September 28, up from 7.19% the week before, according to data from Freddie Mac released Thursday. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate was 6.70%.

“The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has hit the highest level since the year 2000,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, in a statement. “However, unlike the turn of the millennium, house prices today are rising alongside mortgage rates, primarily due to low inventory. These headwinds are causing both buyers and sellers to hold out for better circumstances.”

The average mortgage rate is based on mortgage applications that Freddie Mac receives from thousands of lenders across the country. The survey includes only borrowers who put 20% down and have excellent credit.

Mortgage rates have spiked during the Federal Reserve’s historic inflation-curbing campaign — and while a good deal of progress has been made since June 2022, when inflation hit 9.1%, Fed officials say there is still a ways to go.

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the core Personal Consumption Expenditures index, is currently 4.2%, which is more than double the Fed’s target of 2%. Economists expect it to drop to 3.9% when the latest reading is released on Friday.

This week’s mortgage rate surge followed last week’s small move higher, as investors settled in for “higher-for-longer” interest rates after last week’s Fed policy meeting, said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.

Hale said the takeaway from the meeting was that the upward adjustments from the Fed haven’t ended.

“Revised economic projections show that another rate hike this year is definitely on the table, and the expected policy rate in 2024 and 2025 was also higher than previously forecast,” she said. “Market participants are still playing catchup.”

While the Fed does not set the interest rates that borrowers pay on mortgages directly, its actions influence them.

Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year US Treasuries, which move based on a combination of anticipation about the Fed’s actions, what the Fed actually does and investors’ reactions. When Treasury yields go up, so do mortgage rates; when they go down, mortgage rates tend to follow.

The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose from 4.3% on September 20 to 4.6% as of September 27.

Mortgage applications continued to drop last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, as mortgage rates went higher.

“Rates over 7% and low for-sale inventory continue to create affordability challenges for prospective buyers,” said Bob Broeksmit, MBA president and CEO. “Until rates start to come back down, we anticipate housing market activity will remain slow.”

Markets are experiencing an extraordinarily low number of homes for sale as homeowners stay put with ultra-low mortgage rates that are several percentage points lower than the current rate.

There has been a small uptick in newly listed homes coming to market over the past few weeks, according to Realtor.com, which is seasonally atypical, said Hale.

The first week in October tends to be an ideal week to buy a home, she said, since home prices tend to fall relative to summer highs, and fewer buyers contend for homes. Yet housing inventory remains higher than a typical week, Hale said.

But, she added, mortgage rates will continue to be a wild card, which could make it impossible for some buyers to get in the market now.

Even as demand is dropping, with so few homeowners selling, the market is pushing up prices as those few buyers who remain tussle over the handful of available houses, Hale said.

This combination of higher prices and higher mortgage rates contrasts with easing rents over the past few months. This may cause would-be first-time buyers to wait for home prices and mortgage rates to stabilize and rent instead.

“Buying a starter home is more expensive than renting in all but three major US markets [Realtor.com] studied,” said Hale, “which explains why buyer demand is likely to remain relatively low.”

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September 28, 2023
Dow tumbles by more than 400 points, on pace for biggest one-day decline since March | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Stocks tumbled Tuesday after a slew of economic data stoked fears about the US economy’s cloudy outlook and further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

The benchmark S&P 500 index slid 1.2%, on track for its lowest close since June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 416 points, or 1.2%, on pace for its biggest one-day drop since March; and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.5%.

The S&P 500 is hovering around the threshold that it passed to enter bull market territory earlier this summer, which represents a climb of more than 20% off its most recent low last October.

Housing data released Tuesday morning showed that new home sales fell 8.7% in August from July, as mortgage rates edged above 7% to the highest levels in decades.

At the same time, US home prices climbed to a record high in July, marking the sixth straight month of increases as a tight supply of homes continues to drive up prices, according to the latest Case-Shiller home prices index.

“The Fed will see the reacceleration of house prices as a reason to keep interest rates higher for longer,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “The Fed cannot afford to look past house prices’ influence on the cost of living.”

Investors have been on edge since the Fed last week indicated it could hike interest rates once more this year and delay rate cuts for longer than expected. That sent yields soaring to their highest level in decades, as investors recalibrate their expectations for how long rates will stay higher.

Oil prices gained on Tuesday after paring back their recent gains earlier. West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the US benchmark, rose to roughly $90 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed to $94 a barrel.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Tuesday in an interview with the Times of India that he is preparing the bank’s clients for a 7% interest rate scenario, further spooking investors.

The possibility of a government shutdown also looms over Wall Street as the fiscal year’s end on September 30 fast approaches without any spending deal.

Moody’s warned Monday that such an event could be negative for America’s credit rating, which already saw a downgrade from Fitch earlier this year after the federal government narrowly avoided breaching the debt ceiling.

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September 26, 2023
Want to live in London or New York? Good luck if you’re renting | CNN Business

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London
CNN
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In May, Viveca Chow hurriedly transferred $3,700 over her phone while standing in the lobby of a building in Queens, New York. She made the upfront payment to secure an apartment minutes after seeing it.

It was a moment the 28-year-old lifestyle influencer — forced to leave her previous accommodation after the landlord increased her monthly rent by $1,000 — described to CNN as “dystopian.”

Yet it is something that Chow, along with millions of renters in big cities, has come to expect as part of the fight for affordable housing. Her realtor urged her to pay the holding deposit on the spot to secure the one-bedroom unit.

In many urban centers, an influx of workers and students after the pandemic has collided with a lack of accommodation for rent, high levels of inflation, and rising interest rates that are trapping some people in the rental market when they would otherwise be buying a home.

Average rents in New York and Sydney grew by an inflation-busting 4.7% and 6.9% respectively in the year to August, according to real estate firm Knight Frank. While growth in rental costs in both cities has slowed compared with its pandemic peaks, average rents are still at all-time highs.

In other places, rents are rising even faster. In London, the average annual rise in the cost of a rental property exceeded 17% in April and again last month, the biggest jumps since real estate agency Hamptons started collecting the data in 2014.

That runaway growth far exceeds both inflation and pay raises in the United Kingdom.

Many are struggling to meet the costs.

According to property website Realtor.com, affordability in the New York metropolitan area deteriorated the most out of the 50 largest US metro areas in the year to July. The share of median household income in the New York area eaten up by the median rent rose from 35% to 37% in that time.

Based on one approach, housing costs are judged affordable if they account for no more than 30% of the typical household income, Realtor.com said. This is also the benchmark used by the UK Office for National Statistics when assessing private rents.

In London, the destination for many UK college students looking for work after graduating, renting has become “entirely unaffordable” for that cohort, said SpareRoom, the UK’s biggest room search site, in a recent analysis.

The platform used the ONS’s measure of affordability in its study and the average graduate starting salary of £29,000 ($36,000) a year. According to SpareRoom’s latest Quarterly Rental Index, average monthly room rent reached £971 ($1,190) in the second quarter, up by almost a fifth compared with the same period in 2022.

Barnaby Scudds is feeling the pain. The public relations executive moved to London in March after graduating last year and now pays £975 ($1,195) a month to rent a room, which gobbles up more than half of his monthly paycheck.

“I’m paid well for the work that I do, and yet it’s still difficult,” he told CNN.

Even at those prices, rooms get snapped up fast.

“It is very difficult because properties come on at about six o’clock in the morning generally, and they are normally gone by six o’clock in the evening,” he said.

Matt Hutchinson, communications director at SpareRoom, told CNN that the UK’s chronic lack of supply of rental properties was to blame.

Beyond problems afflicting most global cities, such as a proliferation of short-term rentals offered through platforms like Airbnb, the shortage of places for long-term rent in London is exacerbated by local factors.

Since 2016, the UK government has increased taxes on purchases of second homes and cut the amount of tax landlords can claim back. Put simply, being a landlord in the UK isn’t as lucrative as it used to be.

“[It] is a much more tight-margin experience than it was six, seven years ago. And a lot of people are just selling up and leaving the market,” Hutchinson said, adding that rising interest rates, as well as higher costs for labor and materials, had discouraged many from investing in rental properties.

In a recent note about rental markets in 10 cities worldwide, Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, concluded: “Affordability of housing is set to become the leading political issue within the next 12 months.”

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, last month reiterated his call for rent control, urging the UK government to impose a two-year rent freeze for the capital’s 2.7 million private tenants. It is a version of a policy proposed by politicians and campaigners over the years as a way out of the affordability crisis.

But rental caps, while instinctively appealing, are generally “a bad idea,” Nikodem Szumilo, director of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute at University College London, told CNN.

“It benefits people who live in the rent control unit and maybe the politicians who impose the policy, but nobody else,” Szumilo said, noting that rental caps discouraged home builders from investing in new units, which in turn limited supply growth in places where demand might be rising.

A better way, Szumilo argues, is to simply make it easier to build more homes. Tokyo, the world’s most populous city, housing more than 37 million people, has a “very deregulated market” where rents are “relatively stable,” he said.

Policies that help people become homeowners — for example, offering subsidies on down payments or on mortgages for first-time buyers, as the UK government has done — are also effective, Szumilo said, because they help ease demand in the rental market.

Still, Chow in New York is grateful for rent control.

She and her partner live in one of the city’s coveted rent-stabilized units, which means the $3,700 they pay each month can’t increase by more than 3.75% if they renew the lease for another year. That’s below the 4.7% annual increase in rental costs in the city recorded by Knight Frank at the start of August.

That “doesn’t necessarily mean it’s cheap,” Chow said, but the cap provides a welcome safety net after the instabilities — and indignities — of her last place.

“We didn’t even have a kitchen, a proper kitchen. It was like a kitchen nailed to the wall. So I was like, you’re not raising $1,000 on me!”

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September 22, 2023
More remote workers are willing to move in order to find affordable housing | CNN Business

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Washington, DC
CNN
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Housing is less affordable than it has been in about four decades. But buying or renting a home might be even less affordable now if it weren’t for the continuing impact of remote and hybrid workers that resulted from the pandemic, according to a recent study by Fannie Mae.

The study, which was an analysis of Fannie Mae’s monthly National Housing Survey, with questions asked among more than 3,000 mortgage holders, owners, and renters between January and March this year, looked at how remote and hybrid work has changed over the past few years and its impact on housing.

More people are willing to move to less expensive areas further away from offices in city centers than a few years ago, according to the report. Continuing remote and hybrid work, at levels remarkably unchanged from two years ago, is enabling people to move toward housing affordability, the study found.

The report also revealed that “affordability” is the most important factor in finding a place to live, both for renters and homeowners.

At the beginning of the year, 22% of remote and hybrid workers said they would be willing to relocate to a different region or increase their commute. Only 14% such workers were willing to do so in the third quarter of 2021, which is used as a comparison throughout the study and was when many workplaces attempted a “return to work” until the Omicron variant of Covid-19 pushed many employers’ plans back that winter.

Workers who are able to break their ties to living in an area because of its proximity to work are able to spread out, reducing the competition for a historically low number of homes for sale that could push prices even higher.

The research showed that among remote workers, all age and income groups have grown more willing to relocate or live farther away from their workplace since 2021. But younger workers — those between 18 and 34 — are significantly more willing than those older than them to live or commute a further distance from their work, with the share willing to do so jumping from 18% in 2021, to 30% in 2023.

“We believe this greater willingness to live farther from the … workplace may be an indication that some workers are feeling more secure about their remote work situation … or their ability to find another job if their current employer were to change its policies,” wrote the researchers, in a summary.

This is good news for remote workers during a time of crushingly low levels of home affordability.

Remote and hybrid work may be here to stay. Or, it’s here long enough for people to buy or rent a new home because of it, the researchers found.

Despite the demands by leaders of some prominent companies that workers need to head into the office or head out the door, the share of fully remote and hybrid workers has remained surprisingly constant in the post-pandemic era, according to the study.

In the first part of the year, 35% of respondents worked fully remote or worked a hybrid mix of some time at a workplace and some time at home. That was only slightly down from 36% in 2021.

While the share of workers going to a work site or office every day was unchanged at 49% in both 2021 and in 2023, the share of people working fully remote ticked up to 14% this year from 13% in 2021.

Homeowners continue to be slightly more likely to work from home than renters. And those with more education and higher incomes are also more likely to have a work-from-home situation, which is consistent with 2021, the study found.

Only 30% of lower-income people, earning 80% of the area median income, could work remotely or hybrid in 2021, and that dropped to 27% by this year. Meanwhile 42% of upper-income people, those making 120% of the area median income, were able to work from home in 2021 and that number did not change in 2023.

Lower-income people — who are in most need of access to lower-cost housing, found further away from a city’s core — are also those least likely to work remotely, according to the survey.

With housing affordability taking a hit over the past few years as rents rose, home prices stayed elevated and mortgage rates soared to a 22-year high, it is not surprising that “affordability” was the top factor for people when picking a new home, at 36%. This was a big jump from 2014, the last time the question was asked, when the top consideration was “neighborhood” at 49%.

Homeowners and renters both showed growth in prioritizing “affordability,” but the increase was greatest among renters, shooting up from 21% in 2014 to 46% in 2023.

“The change in preference for renters is truly remarkable, since not only did it more than double, but it represented a complete reversal of the relative importance of neighborhood cited by consumers as the top consideration in 2014,” wrote the researchers.

In addition, despite the talk about moving for more space, “home size” as a factor for picking a next home was unchanged and still outweighed by “affordability.”

“The striking shift toward affordability as the top consideration among overall survey respondents for their next move substantiates the need of households to find ways to manage around the significant rise in mortgage rates, home prices, and rents of the past few years,” the researchers wrote.

And this is impacting where people look for a home and what they prioritize when they are searching.

“Home affordability may also be a reason why we saw an increase in remote workers’ willingness to relocate or live farther away from their workplace, particularly given that, historically, a shorter commute to denser job markets was considered a premium amenity,” the researchers wrote.

The suburbs are increasingly where people want to be, the report found, which is part of an ongoing trend since 2010. And that share has grown between 2021 and 2023.

The researchers say the change to the housing market brought about by remote workers holds broader implications for the link between housing and the labor market.

The growing share of remote-working renters and homeowners willing to live farther from their work location gives employers access to a wider labor market, which could be useful if a downturn in economic activity led to greater rates of job loss.

“Having access to a larger labor market may also reduce the adverse effect on local home prices when a major employer or industry contracts,” the researchers wrote.

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September 3, 2023
China relaxes mortgage rules to help homebuyers in latest stimulus push | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
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China just made it easier for people to buy homes, in a move that could affect $3.5 trillion in mortgage loans as Beijing seeks to bail out a property market mired in a record slump and worsening cash crunch.

Down payments will be set at a minimum of 20% for first-time buyers and a minimum of 30% for second-time buyers nationwide, according to a joint statement by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the National Administration of Financial Regulation (NAFR) released late Thursday.

That’s a big cut from the existing requirements of minimums of 30% and 40% for first-time and second-time buyers in cities that implement home-buying restrictions, such as Beijing and Shanghai.

In addition, minimum mortgage rates for buyers of second homes should be no less than 20 basis points over the loan prime rate (LPR), the statement said. Currently, minimum mortgage rates for second-time buyers are no less than 60 basis points over the LPR.

The LPR is the benchmark for most household and corporate loans in China and is set by the central bank each month.

The regulators also indicated in a separate statement that rates on existing mortgages for first-home purchases can be renegotiated between banks and customers starting September 25. The regulators have encouraged banks to offer lower rates.

“The drop in the interest rates of existing housing loans can save interest expenses for borrowers, which is conducive to expanding consumption and investment,” the regulators said.

“For banks, it can effectively reduce the phenomenon of early loan repayment and mitigate the impact on banks’ interest income,” they added.

The new policy measures could affect 40 million home buyers and impact 25 trillion yuan ($3.5 trillion) in mortgages, which is about two thirds of the country’s housing loans, state-owned Yicai reported on Thursday, citing people close to the regulators.

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August 31, 2023
3 people dead in ‘racially motivated’ shooting at Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, officials say | CNN

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[Breaking news update, published at 6:50 p.m. ET]

Three people were shot and killed Saturday at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, in what law enforcement described as a racially motivated incident.

“This shooting was racially motivated and he hated Black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference. He said the shooter, who is White and shot himself after the attack, left behind evidence that outlined his “disgusting ideology of hate” and his motive in the attack.

All three victims were Black.

The shooting happened blocks away from Edward Waters University, a historically Black school where students living on campus were told to stay in their residence halls.

[Original story, published at 6:35 p.m. ET]

The person suspected of opening fire and killing multiple people in a “racially motivated” attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday afternoon is dead, officials said.

The suspected shooter was barricaded in the store after opening fire and leaving “multiple fatalities,” Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said. State Sen. Tracie Davis told CNN the suspect is now dead.

The circumstances surrounding the shooter’s death are unclear. It was not immediately clear if victims were shot inside or outside the store.

Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department spokesperson Eric Prosswimmer told CNN the department was “on standby” to treat victims but could not share any information about how many people were hurt.

Jacksonville is located in northeast Florida, about 35 miles south of the Georgia border.

The area near the Dollar General store features several churches and an apartment building across the street.

Edward Waters University, a historically Black private Christian school that is located less than a mile southeast of the store, issued campus-wide stay-in-place order. The warning said students, faculty and staff don’t appear to be involved, according to preliminary reports.

“Our campus police have secured all campus facilities. Students are being kept in their residence halls through the afternoon until the scene is cleared,” the alert said.

Davis, whose district includes Jacksonville, called the shooting a “tragic day” for the city in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I’m offering prayers to the families of the victims and am on my way to meet with (Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters) for answers,” Davis posted Saturday.

“This type of violence is unacceptable in our communities,” Davis added.

There have been at least 470 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting in which four or more people are injured and or killed, not including the shooter. The nation surpassed the 400 mark in July, – the earliest month such a high number has been recorded since 2013, the group said.

The gun violence in Jacksonville marked one of several reported shooting incidents in the US over two days, including in Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Shots rang out across several cities, bringing a startling halt to normal summertime activities like high school football games and weekend shopping.

In Boston, at least seven people were injured Saturday morning in a shooting that interrupted a popular parade, police said. A high school football game in Choctaw, Oklahoma, took a deadly turn Friday night after a possible argument led to three people being shot, authorities say. One of them – a 16-year-old boy – died. And Four people, including a 17-year-old, were killed at an apartment in Joppatowne, Maryland, Saturday morning, officials said.

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August 26, 2023
Savannah renames historic square after Black woman who taught emancipated slaves to read and write | CNN

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CNN
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The city council of Savannah, Georgia, voted Thursday to rename a downtown square after Susie King Taylor, a Black woman who once taught slaves to read and write.

The change marks the first time a Savannah square has been specifically named after a woman and a person of color.

“It’s one thing to make history, it’s another thing to make sense, and in this case, we’re making both,” Savannah Mayor Van R. Johnson II said during Thursday’s city council meeting.

Susie King Taylor was born to enslaved parents in 1848. She moved to Savannah when she was seven to live with her grandmother, who arranged for her to receive clandestine schooling due to Georgia’s severe restrictions on education, according to the Library of Congress.

During the Civil War, she became an Army nurse and organized a school to teach emancipated slaves to read and write. She later opened more schools for Black students and wrote a memoir about her experience during the war as an African American woman.

The town square that will now bear her name is a popular tourist attraction in Georgia’s oldest city in the state. The square was originally named after John C. Calhoun, a former vice president of the United States who owned slaves and defended the institution of slavery.

“What he stood for is not what Savannah stands for,” Johnson said.

The effort to change the square’s name began in 2021, according to the Coalition to Rename Calhoun Square. The council voted to rename the square last year and considered 300 name submissions before choosing Taylor.

In 2020, a statue of Calhoun was removed from a square in Charleston, South Carolina. Clemson University also removed his name from its honors college, CNN previously reported. The university was built on Calhoun’s plantation.

Johnson said the city will be installing signage not only about Taylor’s accomplishments but Calhoun’s history and the reason why his name was replaced.

“It’s important that we don’t erase history, it’s important that people who come long after us understand the time that we are in today,” Johnson said.

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August 25, 2023
Crews work to identify many of the 93 victims found so far in Maui wildfires, now the deadliest US fire in over a century | CNN
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The death toll from the Maui wildfires climbed to at least 93 Saturday as authorities work to identify the victims and sift through the burned communities of western Maui.

The fire is now the deadliest US wildfire in more than 100 years, according to research from the National Fire Protection Association.

“This is the largest natural disaster we’ve ever experienced,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said at a Saturday night news conference. “It’s going to also be a natural disaster that’s going to take an incredible amount of time to recover from.”

Whipped by winds from Hurricane Dora hundreds of miles offshore, fast-moving wildfires wiped out entire neighborhoods, burned historic landmarks to the ground and displaced thousands. As searches of the burned ruins continue, officials warn they do not know exactly how many people are still missing in the torched areas.

Only about 3% of the fire zone has been searched with cadaver dogs, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said, and authorities expect the already staggering death toll to rise.

“None of us really know the size of it yet,” Pelletier said at Saturday night’s news conference.

Only two of the people whose remains have been found have been identified, according to an update from Maui County.

“We need to find your loved ones,” Pelletier said, urging those with missing family members to coordinate with authorities to do a DNA test.

“The remains we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal.”

Meanwhile, firefighters who continue to battle the flames – practically nonstop in some instances – have made some progress in containing the blazes. Of the three largest wildfires that crews have been combating, the deadly fire in hard-hit Lahaina has not grown, but is still not fully under control, Maui County Fire Chief Brad Ventura said.

The Pulehu fire – located farther east in Kihei – was declared 100% contained Saturday, according to Maui County. A third inferno in the hills of Maui’s central Upcountry was 50% contained on Friday, officials said.

As firefighting efforts continue, the state is surveying the immense destruction in once vibrant, beloved communities.

Around 2,200 structures have been destroyed or damaged by the fires in West Maui, about 86% of them residential, Green said Saturday.

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier on Saturday said it was premature to assign even an approximate dollar amount to the damage done on Maui, the governor estimated that “the losses approach $6 billion.”

“The devastation is so complete, that you see metals twisted in ways that you can’t imagine,” Green said. “And you see nothing from organic structures left whatsoever.”

“We’ve gone through tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but this event was much more catastrophic than any of those here,” Green said.

Here’s the latest as of Saturday evening:
Police are restricting access into West Maui: The one highway into the hard-hit Lahaina area remains highly restricted. Residents slept in a mile-long line of cars overnight Saturday, hoping to enter.
Thousands displaced: The fires have displaced thousands of people, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN on Thursday. A total of 1,418 people are at emergency evacuation shelters, according to Maui County officials.
Hotel rooms for evacuees: Around 1,000 hotel rooms were secured for evacuees and first responders, Green said, but it’s a challenge to get people into hotel rooms that have enough electricity. Long term housing solutions were also being sought.
Cellphone services coming back: While the fires initially knocked down communications and made it hard for residents to call 911 or update loved ones, county officials said Friday that cellphone services are becoming available. People are still advised to limit calls.
Maui’s warning sirens were not activated: State records show Maui’s warning sirens were not activated, and the emergency communications with residents was largely limited to mobile phones and broadcasters at a time when most power and cell service was already cut.
Disaster response under review: Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez will lead a comprehensive review of officials’ response to the catastrophic wildfires, her office said Friday. “My Department is committed to understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires and to sharing with the public the results of this review,” Lopez said in a statement.
More than a dozen federal agencies have been deployed to Hawaii to assist in the recovery efforts, including the National Guard, FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Local sites and attractions meant for summer revelers are now being turned into relief beacons.

Pacific Whale Foundation, which typically operates eco-tours across Maui, is instead using its ship to transport supplies like batteries, flashlights, water, food and diapers to people in need.

And at the Lahaina Gateway and the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua, food and water distribution sites have been set up, according to Green.

Thousands of pounds of food have been donated and are on the way, the governor said Saturday.

“We come at this like an ohana because it’s going to be, in the short term, heartbreaking. In the long term, people are going to need mental health care services. In the very long term, we’ll rebuild together,” Green said.

The Hawaii Department of Transportation will set aside a runway at Kahului Airport – the primary airport on the island of Maui – to accommodate incoming relief supplies, officials announced Saturday.

For those who’ve lost their homes, at least 1,000 rooms have been secured for them as well as support staff, the governor said.

“Then coming after that, in the days that follow, we’ll have long term rentals. Those are the short term rentals turned long term now,” Green said.

Meanwhile, tourism authorities are focused on helping visitors get out of Maui, alleviating the pressure on residents and traffic, so that “attention and resources” can be focused on the island’s recovery, Hawaii Tourism Authority spokesperson Ilihia Gionson said Saturday.

Gionson, who is a native Hawaiian, said residents will draw strength from the deep history of Lahaina — a former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom — and “the very powerful spirits of Maui.”

“It’s really in the families and in the hearts of the Kama’aina, the residents of those places, that those kinds of stories, those kinds of histories live,” he told CNN. “So our hearts, our prayers, all of our Aloha is with those families who have lost loved ones, who have lost their homes, who have lost businesses, livelihoods, lifestyles — it’s just devastating.”

In pictures: The deadly Maui wildfires

Maui police have been restricting residents on-and-off from taking the Honoapi’ilani Highway – the main roadway into devastated Lahaina.

Some residents slept in a mile-long line of cars overnight Saturday, hoping to enter by morning. But police told drivers that traffic is jammed on the main road and that conditions are too dangerous.

Steven and Giulietta Daiker said they were nearly up to the main checkpoint after hours of waiting when they learned they were only going to be turned around. “They couldn’t have told us that three miles back, or couldn’t have been on a bullhorn or on the radio?” Steven asked.

“It’s not just frustration. It feels sickening,” Giulietta added.

Officials say they have to limit access as conditions remain hazardous where homes were leveled by the fires.

“We’re not doing anybody any favors by letting them back in there quickly, just so they can go get sick,” Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said at Saturday’s news conference.
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August 13, 2023
Chinese property giant Country Garden flags loss of up to $7.6 billion as it nears default | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
—

One of China’s biggest property developers says it has burned through up to $7.6 billion in the first half of the year, compounding the crisis coursing through the country’s embattled real estate sector.

Country Garden warned investors in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing Thursday that it would likely record a loss of 45 billion to 55 billion Chinese yuan (about $6.2 billion to $7.6 billion) for the six months through June.

That compares with a profit of approximately 1.9 billion yuan ($264.3 million) for the same time last year.

The disclosure lays bare the financial woes currently facing Country Garden, a massive builder of hundreds of thousands of homes annually across China.

The developer, which employs some 300,000 people, has a massive debt pile that’s being compared to that of Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property group.

In recent weeks, the company has become the latest sign of China’s economic troubles, as it teeters on the brink of default and, by its own admission, works to save itself.

Country Garden shares plunged 8.7% in Hong Kong Friday following its loss warning, as well as a report from Chinese news outlet Yicai that the firm was preparing for a debt restructuring, citing unidentified sources.

CNN has not independently confirmed Yicai’s reporting.

The company had said in its filing that it would “consider adopting various debt management measures,” without elaborating further, as well as lean on a task force newly set up to “cope with” its challenges. Country Garden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As of early afternoon in Hong Kong Friday, its stock had reached a record low of 95 Hong Kong cents, below its previous low of 98 Hong Kong cents reached in October 2008.

Earlier this week, Country Garden stoked concerns by missing two bond payments, according to analysts. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CNN on the matter.

Its failure to pay up raised concerns about its overall liabilities, which racked up to a whopping 1.4 trillion yuan (about $194 billion) as of the end of last year.

Some of the company’s debt — roughly $4.3 billion in onshore and offshore bonds — will come due or “become puttable” through the end of 2024, meaning the company will face obligations to bondholders, according to Moody’s.

For the rest of this year alone, “we estimate that CGH needs to fulfill at least $137 million of bond interest payments through the rest of 2023,” Morningstar analyst Jeff Zhang wrote in a report Thursday.

News of the missed payments led to the company being downgraded, with Moody’s bumping down its credit rating from B1 to Caa1 on Thursday.

The downgrade reflects Country Garden’s cash flow problems, “in view of its deteriorated liquidity and financial flexibility, sizable refinancing needs and still-constrained access to funding,” Kaven Tsang, a Moody’s senior vice president, said in a report.

“The negative outlook reflects the uncertainty over Country Garden’s ability to service its debt obligations, including coupon payments, in a timely manner over the next [six to] 12 months,” he added.

Zhang also said Morningstar believed the missed payments “may not be an isolated event.”

“Country Garden is likely to default,” he wrote in his report.

The company is working to stem the bleeding.

In its filing Thursday, it attributed the expected first-half loss to a series of problems, from falling property sales to lower profit margins.

New home sales by China’s 100 biggest developers dropped by 33% in July from a year ago, according to data released last week.

“Facing such an extremely difficult situation industry-wide, the company [has] worked together to carry out self-rescue by all means,” Country Garden told investors.

But “the overall market has not yet recovered, the absolute scale of the industry has declined, and the capital market needs time to restore its confidence.”

The company also detailed how its chairwoman, who is also its controlling shareholder, had personally tried to contain the crisis.

Since the company’s listing in 2007, Yang Huiyan and her family have pumped in approximately 38.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($4.9 billion), in the form of new loans and share and bond purchases, the firm said in its filing.

Some of that debt — about 6.6 billion Hong Kong dollars ($844 million) is unsecured, it added.

But Yang alone won’t be able to turn things around. In its report, Moody’s cited “the absence of new external financing” as one reason it now considers the firm’s liquidity “weak,” compared to its previous classification of “adequate.”

The assessment was reached despite Yang’s willingness to provide “funding support to the company,” the agency added.

One of China’s wealthiest women, Yang has seen her own fortune plunge recently, dropping 84% since June 2021, or $28.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index.

That’s the biggest wealth drop of any billionaire in the world over the past two years, according to its calculations.

The impact of Country Garden’s problems won’t be felt in China alone, according to Alfredo Montufar-Helu, head of the China center for economics and business.

“The global economy is losing one of its engines of growth,” he told CNN.

“That’s why everyone should care about what is happening to real estate. Real estate is the main drag right now on confidence levels, on demand, and on industrial productivity.”

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August 11, 2023
Mortgage rates rise to just short of 7% | CNN Business

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Washington, DC
CNN
—

US mortgage rates remained elevated this week, rising for the third week in a row, but stayed just under the market’s 7% threshold.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.96% in the week ending August 10, up from 6.90% the week before, according to data from Freddie Mac released Thursday. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate was 5.22%.

“There is no doubt continued high rates will prolong affordability challenges longer than expected,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, upward pressure on rates is the product of a resilient economy with low unemployment and strong wage growth, which historically has kept purchase demand solid.”

The average mortgage rate is based on mortgage applications that Freddie Mac receives from thousands of lenders across the country. The survey includes only borrowers who put 20% down and have excellent credit.

The rate stayed elevated this week after the Federal Reserve highlighted its reliance on data on jobs and inflation in its July monetary policy meeting and in recent comments.

Markets had been waiting for July’s inflation report, released Thursday morning, which showed consumer price hikes rose 3.2% annually, the first increase in 12 months. The data also showed that shelter costs contributed 90% of total inflation last month.

“July’s Consumer Price Index holds significant importance for the Fed’s upcoming decisions,” said Jiayi Xu, an economist at Realtor.com.

Since inflation rose, it could support the Fed’s concern that the battle is not over, Xu said. The Fed also will consider the forthcoming August employment and inflation data prior to the next policy meeting, in September.

In addition, the most recent jobs report offered some mixed signals about the labor market, Xu said, including a smaller number of net new jobs added and a dipping unemployment rate.

“While July’s jobs report itself is very unlikely to have a direct impact on the Fed’s upcoming decision, the decline to a 3.5% unemployment rate may imply that more significant slowing is needed to align with the Fed’s projected year-end rate of 4.1%,” she said.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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August 10, 2023
Bob Graham Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the life of Bob Graham, former United States senator and Democratic governor of Florida.

Birth date: November 9, 1936

Birth place: Coral Gables, Florida

Birth name: Daniel Robert Graham

Father: Ernest “Cap” Graham, Florida state senator, dairy farmer and cattle rancher

Mother: Hilda (Simmons) Graham, teacher

Marriage: Adele (Khoury) Graham (1959-present)

Children: Kendall, Suzanne, Cissy and Gwen

Education: University of Florida, B.A., 1959; Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1962

Graham’s family operates dairy, beef cattle and pecan farms in Florida and Georgia.

Was a primary author of portions of the Patriot Act that dealt with improving and sharing intelligence between US and foreign agencies.

Co-chaired the congressional investigation into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Voted against going to war with Iraq in 2003.

Graham’s daughter, Gwen, represented Florida’s 2nd Congressional District (Tallahassee), 2015-2017.

1966-1970 – Member of the Florida House of Representatives.

1970-1978 – Member of the Florida Senate.

1979-1987 – Governor of Florida.

January 3, 1987-January 3, 2005 – US Senator representing Florida.

2001-2003 – Chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

January 31, 2003 – Undergoes heart surgery to repair a valve.

February 27, 2003 – Files papers to form a presidential campaign committee.

May 6, 2003 – Formally launches his presidential campaign.

October 6, 2003 – Announces he is dropping out of the presidential race.

November 3, 2003 – Announces that he will not seek reelection to the Senate in 2004.

September 2004 – Graham’s book “Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror,” written with Jeff Nussbaum, is published.

2005-2006 – Senior Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

2006 – The Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida is established.

May 16, 2008 – Congressional leaders appoint Graham to chair the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. In December 2008, the commission issues a report, saying it is likely a WMD attack will occur somewhere in the world by 2013 if nothing is done to enhance security.

2009 – Graham’s book “America, The Owner’s Manual: Making Government Work for You,” written with Chris Hand, is published.

May 2010 – President Barack Obama establishes a commission led by Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency Commissioner William Reilly on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill and offshore drilling. The commission ends its work in January 2011.

June 2011 – Graham’s first novel, “Keys to the Kingdom,” is published.

September 2012 – Graham calls for the investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks be reopened. He asserts that Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attacks has been covered up.

January 2014 – Graham visits Cuba as part of a group sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in order to investigate Cuban plans to drill for oil offshore.

September 9, 2016 – Graham has an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the release of more documents related to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

November 24, 2020 – Graham’s children’s book, “Rhoda the Alligator,” is published.

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August 2, 2023
Plunging sales of new homes show China’s real estate crisis isn’t over | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
—

Plunging sales of new homes and the reported cancellation of a share placement by China’s biggest property developer on Tuesday underscored the depth of the country’s real estate crisis.

Reports that Country Garden had abruptly pulled an attempt to raise $300 million by issuing new shares in Hong Kong coincided with the release of data late Monday showing new home sales by China’s 100 biggest developers dropped by 33% in July from a year ago.

“No definitive agreement has been entered into with respect to the proposed transaction and the company is not considering the proposed transaction at this stage,” Country Garden said in a statement. Its shares fell as much as 11% on the Hong Kong stock exchange. They were last down 7%.

The drop in new home sales in China is the steepest monthly decline since July 2022. For the first seven months of this year, new home sales by the 100 developers fell 4.7% from a year earlier.

“Overall, the current market demand and purchasing power are overdrawn, and industry confidence is still at a low level,” the China Real Estate Information Corp. — a leading industry data provider — said in a statement.

China’s huge property industry was long an important engine of economic growth, accounting for as much as 30% of the country’s GDP. Investors see the revival of the sector as crucial to the recovery of the world’s second largest economy following three years of self-imposed coronavirus pandemic isolation.

“Recent signals from top policymakers… suggest Beijing is getting increasingly worried about growth and have clearly recognized the need to bolster the faltering property sector,” said Nomura analysts on Monday.

“They are starting a new round [of] property easing, and may introduce some stimulus to redevelop old districts of large cities.”

Premier Li Qiang pledged Monday to “adjust and optimize” policies to ensure the healthy and stable development of the property market, according to a readout from a State Council meeting. Cities should roll out measures that meet their own needs, he added, without elaborating on the details.

Four of the biggest cities in China said they would introduce measures to boost local property markets, also without announcing specific new policies.

Shanghai’s housing regulator said Monday it would implement the pledges of the top policymakers. Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing also made similar statements over the weekend.

“So far these steps are still far from enough to stem the downward spiral of the property sector, in our view,” Nomura analysts said, adding that there is no clear policy roadmap to boost the sector at a time of slow growth in household income, weak confidence about the future and a shrinking population.

Chinese households have grown reluctant to purchase new homes, as the now-defunct Covid curbs, falling home prices and rising unemployment have discouraged would-be buyers.

A series of major defaults by property giants in 2021 also undermined confidence in the sector and led to many home buyers paying for apartments they never received, sparking protests.

As a result China’s property industry has been mired in a historic downturn in the past two years.

New home prices had fallen for 16 straight months through last December. They stabilized earlier this year, but then resumed their decline in June, highlighting the challenges of reviving demand.

Last month, the People’s Bank of China said it would give developers another 12 months to repay their outstanding loans due this year.

And late last year Beijing unveiled a 16-point plan to ease a liquidity crisis in the real estate sector. Key measures include allowing banks to extend maturing loans to developers and boosting other funding channels for property firms.

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August 1, 2023