Politics and Current
Biden proposes tax breaks to increase homeownership
During the State of the Union address on March 7, President Joe Biden introduced a tax relief proposal aimed toward reducing the financial burden on first-time homebuyers and those that sell their starter homes.
The centerpiece of Biden’s proposal is a tax credit for first-time home buyers, offering $5,000 a yr for 2 years. At the identical time, the plan features a $10,000 tax break for people selling their starter homes. The aim is to provide assistance to people fighting the results of skyrocketing home prices and historically high mortgage rates of interest. However, the proposal depends upon congressional approval to materialize into a selected policy.
The housing market is facing challenges from a mixture of rising mortgage rates and residential prices. Monthly mortgage and interest payments on a median-priced home nearly doubled to $2,111 in December compared to the pre-pandemic era, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. This growth has made home ownership unattainable for a lot of aspiring buyers.
Tax relief for starter home sellers solves the issue of market stagnation brought on by home owners’ reluctance to sell due to higher mortgage rates. The decline in housing inventory has led to continued price increases despite falling demand. Many homeowners secured low-interest mortgages in the course of the pandemic and are hesitant to convert them to recent loans at current rates of interest, leading to 2023 being the weakest yr for home sales since 1995.
The White House, while acknowledging the challenges working families face in accessing inexpensive housing, emphasized the necessity to break the impasse within the housing market. The tax credits, a revival of ideas from Biden’s first election campaign, are a part of a broader set of housing policies.
Biden’s proposed measures also include asking Congress to authorize a $25,000 down payment for first-time homebuyers without homeowner parents. While the fate of those ideas stays uncertain in a divided Congress, the administration is issuing executive orders to federal agencies, including a pilot program led by the Federal Housing Finance Administration to reduce closing costs on home refinances and the establishment of a task force by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to address “anticompetitive closing costs “.
Additionally, Biden supports tax breaks for construction firms to construct or maintain 1.2 million inexpensive rental units and 400,000 starter homes. Additionally, a $20 billion competitive grant program has been proposed to help communities across the country construct housing, accompanied by a plan to double the contribution of the 11 government-sponsored Federal Affordable Home Loan Banks, generating an extra $3.8 billion.
Politics and Current
Texas mother who let boyfriend beat 8-year-old son to death and left the children with decomposing bodies faces up to 55 years in prison
A Texas mother has pleaded guilty to charges related to the gruesome death of her youngest son before she and her boyfriend left his decomposing body in a Houston apartment with his brothers for a whole 12 months.
Gloria Yvette Williams pleaded guilty last week to negligently causing serious bodily injury in the death of her son, 8-year-old Kendrick Lee, Law&Crime reported.
Her boyfriend, Brian Ward (*55*), was found guilty of capital murder in the boy’s death and sentenced in April to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors set the date of Kendrick’s death between October and November 2020. His skeletal stays weren’t found until October 2021.
Kendrick’s oldest brother called 911 about the body. He told dispatchers that his brother had been “dead for some time” and that he and his three younger siblings were left alone in the apartment.
According to prosecutors, Williams and (*55*) moved out of the apartment about five months after Kendrick’s death and left the remaining boys in filth, without electricity or beds to sleep in. The boys testified that the couple returned every few weeks to bring food. During these visits, (*55*) beat the younger boys.
One of his brothers testified that he was in the room when (*55*) beat Kendrick to death.
“I saw (Coulter) beating (Kendrick). (Coulter) used his fists.” the boy said adding that he saw Kendrick stop moving and blink at one point during the beating before (*55*) covered his body with a blue blanket.
After deputies were called on October 24, 2021, they found Kendrick’s body inside the home. Investigators described the scene inside the apartment as terrifying. One person stated that the apartment was filled with cockroaches and there was a definite odor.
(*55*) and Williams were arrested at a neighborhood library two weeks after authorities found Kendrick’s body.
Prosecutors accused Williams of failing to provide Kendrick with adequate food, shelter and medical care. The 38-year-old shall be sentenced in November. She faces up to 55 years in prison.
“No matter who you are, if you are human, the facts of this case will shock you to your core. This is a terrible act,” said prosecutor Edward A. Appelbaum.
Williams’ actions drew public scorn, with some calling for her to receive the maximum sentence.
“Heartless, give her 55 years in prison,” one person wrote in response to a news article about Williams’ guilty plea. “Disgusting,” wrote one other.
Politics and Current
Kamala Harris’s winning message was there throughout
The event venue, the Javits Convention Center, was rigorously and strategically chosen for each its large glass ceiling and capability. It can be beautifully symbolic, because the campaign posited, if Hillary Clinton, our newly elected first female president, gave an acceptance speech under a glass dome, celebrating that now we have finally broken the best and hardest glass ceiling for ladies in America.
Of course it didn’t look that way. This is one in every of the the reason why Kamala Harris deliberately avoids advocating for her own “historic” candidacy. Some People I do not like being reminded that a vote for Harris can be a vote for the primary black and Indian woman president; perhaps they would like to say that they’re pulling the lever due to its economic policy or something less related to it. But as we enter the ultimate days of the campaign, Harris must lean on her identity to extend support and turnout from her base.
She, Peoplein cooperation with 2040 Strategy Groupconducted questionnaire – one in every of the few polls focused on women of color this election cycle – that provided a deep understanding of how women of color view Harris and where they vote on the last minute. The trend line is positive, with Black women over the age of 40 achieving historically high levels of support. But many ladies of color — especially Asian Americans and Latinas — still do not know Harris well enough to examine her name on the ballot.
To shore up their support, the poll found, Harris must explicitly discuss her identity, a transparent shift in strategy. Telling respondents that she was a black woman increased support by greater than 10 net percentage points. Even reminding voters that Harris will turn out to be the primary female president of the United States makes a splash. Lesson? Identity work news — and you may really want it with Election Day just a number of weeks away.
Harris can expand her voter base even further by talking to women of color about their key issues. Latina women (11% undecided) prefer to speak in regards to the economy, gun violence and immigration. Asian American women, the group almost definitely to stay undecided (23%), also want Harris to debate gun violence and immigration, but in addition abortion. The poll showed a 20% increase in support from undecided voters with a transparent message supporting abortion rights.
Beginning to reveal her identity can be a key change for Harris, and may very well be seen as a dangerous strategy for some Democrats who fear a repeat of 2016. Clinton’s loss caused the course correction we at the moment are seeing within the Harris campaign. But perhaps we overdid our lesson. Applying 2016 logic to the 2024 race means Harris, satirically, is probably not maximizing the bottom base he must win.
Featured Stories
Women of color have never let fear rule their pursuit of progress. That’s why Harris and Democrats cannot let fear rule now.
For years, women of color have been the unacknowledged base of the Democratic Party, its most reliable supporters who influenced their families and communities to vote blue. But in 2020, the party and media finally acknowledged the critical role women of color have long played in Democratic politics, acknowledging that we delivered White House for Biden. And now, in 2024, now we have brought that very same energy to deliver it to Kamala Harris. We have the facility to multiply strength; this was shown in our survey, which found that constructing connections amongst women—that’s, what’s good for me is nice for everybody—can increase support for ladies in color-led politics overall and for Harris as a candidate. That’s why women of color cannot only offer us support, but in addition urge our grandmothers, children, sisters and friends to get out and vote too.
Victory is close by; we feel it at our fingertips; this broken glass ceiling is even closer to breaking. But support for ladies of color will not be a given; you might have to work for it. To win that support, Harris must revert to her identity in the ultimate stretch before Election Day.
There remains to be time for Harris to cross the finish line, but time is running out. By highlighting what can have been feared up to now, we are going to ensure progress in the longer term.
Politics and Current
Pennsylvania teenager expelled from school after racist classmates mercilessly called her a monkey and sang “Baa Baa Black Sheep” until she suffered a mental breakdown
The parents of a Pennsylvania teenager have just been awarded a settlement to resolve a lawsuit alleging that their child suffered extreme racist abuse in her school district.
A judge recently approved a $50,000 reward for the family of a now 17-year-old biracial teenager.
The teenager’s parents, Jenna Swisher and Reginald Gallman, filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the Jersey Shore Area School District, alleging that their daughter experienced repeated racist harassment while she was a student at The Express district’s middle school. reported.
The grievance says the discrimination began in 2018. The lawsuit details specific instances where the kid was called a Black girl’s name and a monkey, was sung “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to her and heard the N-word used. Other black students also reportedly experienced similar treatment.
The lawsuit also states that Swisher reported hostility to district administrators, but her complaints were met with inaction. None of the perpetrators were ever punished.
According to reports within the lawsuit, the kid suffered “sustained racial abuse” that was so intense that she suffered a mental breakdown in 2022, forcing her to completely withdraw from the district.
Middle U.S. District Judge William I. Arbuckle approved the settlement on Monday, agreeing with the parents that it was of their daughter’s best interest. However, the school didn’t need to admit responsibility when settling accounts with the family.
Last summer, 4 school principals who were accused within the case were removed from the grievance.
Of the $50,000 amount, $13,349 in attorney fees and other legal fees will likely be deducted, leaving $36,651 that will likely be placed in a deposit receipt that the girl can have access to when she turns 18.
The Jersey Shore Area School District, positioned in rural Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, enrolled over 2,165 students in three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school through the 2023–2024 school yr.
According to the report report the Pennsylvania Department of Education shows that 94 percent of those students were white, 0.01 percent black, 0.01 percent Hispanic, and 0.03 percent multiracial.
The news concerning the settlement caused a stir in the area people.
“I have no words. It saddens me greatly to hear about the school district I graduated from!” he said Michele Welshans Ticewho used to work at a dis schoolTrit as a teacher’s assistant. “I’m absolutely appalled at this behavior by adults in school systems!! These adults should protect the scholars!! In my opinion, in the event that they don’t do that, their hearts will likely be hardened and stuffed with hatred.”
District teacher Raye Bierly said she has “witnessed all kinds of bigotry throughout my career.”
“There is nothing recent here. I did my best to suppress any of this kind of behavior that I encountered in my classroom. But bullies are smart. Well, cunning and sneaky are higher words. They do most of their cowardly, dirty work outside the reach of teachers and staff,” she said. “I’m glad that so many individuals condemn this behavior of scholars. … But we have now to ask ourselves, how do children learn this disgusting behavior? They are usually not born racist. So much starts at home, whether we would like to confess it or not.
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