October 2023 – World Top News Now

The average long-term US mortgage rate rises for 7th straight week, 30-year loan reaches 7.79%

27Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

The average long-term US mortgage rate rises for 7th straight week, 30-year loan reaches 7.79%

NEW YORK (AP) — The average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan rose for the seventh straight week, creating an increasingly high bar to home ownership for Americans. The rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage is at 7.79%, up from 7.63% last week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago the rate was 7.08%. As mortgage rates rise, they can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford in a market already out of reach for many Americans. They also discourage homeowners who locked in far low rates two years ago, when they were around 3%, from selling. The national median mortgage payment was $2,155 in September, up 11%, or $214, from a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes ...

Many Israelis are furious at their government’s chaotic recovery efforts after Hamas attack

27Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

Many Israelis are furious at their government’s chaotic recovery efforts after Hamas attack

JERUSALEM (AP) — More than two weeks after Hamas militants rampaged through a string of sleepy farming towns, many Israelis are furious at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, not just for failing to prevent the attack, but for failing to come to their aid afterward. While the military is launching unrelenting airstrikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops are massing for a possible ground offensive, government infighting and lack of help for those in need have left traumatized survivors to mourn on their own and volunteers — many of whom spent the past year protesting the government — to take on recovery efforts. “It has to be clear. The government is completely incompetent,” said Ruvi Dar, a clinical psychologis...

Texas counties trying to prevent people from using roads to get an abortion grows

25Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

Texas counties trying to prevent people from using roads to get an abortion grows

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A Texas county near New Mexico — where abortion is legal — has banned helping people traveling to get an abortion in one of the newest ways conservatives are trying to restrict abortion access since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Lubbock County is the largest of four Texas counties that have now adopted a version of the measure, which would be enforced through lawsuits filed by private citizens against people who help women obtain abortions. It is the same legal mechanism Texas used to enact a strict abortion law in 2021 before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state last year to ban nearly all abortions entirely. Commissioners in the west Texas county adopted the measure 3-0 at a meeting Monday, rejecting some requests to postpone the vote. The ordinance “has man...

25Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

The US is sharing hard lessons from urban combat in Iraq and Syria as Israel prepares to invade Gaza

WASHINGTON (AP) — The prospect of Israeli forces launching an assault into Gaza’s dense urban neighborhoods, where militants use civilians as human shields, brings back searing memories of the deadly battles the U.S.-led coalition fought against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. For U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his military leaders, that intense combat and the thousands of civilians killed in airstrikes and neighborhood gunfights in Mosul and Raqqa are lessons to be shared as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion against Hamas. “In our conversations with the Israelis, and as we’ve made very clear, we’re continuing to highlight, the importance of mitigating civilian casualties and ensuring that ... things like safety corridors are thought through,” Brig. G...

GOP’s Jim Jordan fails again on vote for House speaker as frustrated Republicans search for options

19Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

GOP’s Jim Jordan fails again on vote for House speaker as frustrated Republicans search for options

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Rep. Jim Jordan failed again Wednesday on a crucial second ballot to become House speaker, but the hard-fighting ally of Donald Trump showed no signs of dropping out despite losing support from even more of his GOP colleagues. Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options. A bipartisan group of lawmakers floated an extraordinary plan — to give the interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., more power to reopen the immobilized House and temporarily conduct routine business. But that seems doubtful, for now. What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost. He was opposed by 22 Republicans, two more than he lost in first-round voting the day before. Many view ...

19Oct

By AdminsNo Comments

Israel will let Egypt deliver some aid to Gaza, as doctors struggle to treat hospital blast victims

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza’s struggling medical system. The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as U.S. President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region. There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible. Hamas officials in Gaza blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds we...