News For Reasonable People

Bob Pinnegar, the president and CEO of the National Apartment Association (NAA), argued on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" on Thursday that "the backbone of the nation’s rental housing stock" is at risk with the latest eviction moratorium.  Pinnegar was referring to independent rental owners who own a building with one to four units, which he noted is more than half of the America’s h...

Breakneck. That's the best way to describe the pace of the 2021 housing market. The bidding wars got so intense this year that home price growth set an all-time record. But the tide is turning. The rush of buyers into the housing market during the pandemic absolutely crushed housing inventory—the number of homes on the market—with that figure falling for 12 consecutive months. By April, housi...

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday that he had pardoned Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who were charged with waving guns at a group of Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home last year. Mark McCloskey was seen holding a semi-automatic rifle while his wife was holding a handgun on their property on June 28, 2020, as a group of protesters passed by their house, p...

The homeless encampment next to the King County Courthouse in Seattle is so dangerous that Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht is ordering most of her professional staff members to work 100% remotely. Johanknecht cites the “unsafe environment around the courthouse, administration, parking garage, and corrections facilities,” along with labor union concerns, as contributing factors in her decision. The annou...

The latest act of violence at the King County courthouse has one County Council member saying it's time to move its operations out of Seattle. "We talked about this in October of 2019 and we’re still talking about it and so it’s time to take action," said County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, adding that massive security changes need to be made to improve safety or it should relocate....

Over 200 officers have left the Seattle Police Department since the 2020 summer protests, including Carmen Best, the city's first Black police chief. Officers have quit in protest of calls to "defund" the police, which includes cutting salaries and cutting jobs for as many as 100 police officers. Interim police Chief Adrian Diaz said the department's reduced numbers have led to...

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new, targeted federal eviction ban to replace the one that expired over the weekend, setting up a potential clash with the Supreme Court. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new ban will apply to “counties experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels” of Covid-19 and will last until Oct. 3, the agency said. P...

At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state te...

The median price of an American house has increased by 28 percent over the last two years, as pandemic-driven demand and long-term demographic changes send buyers into crazed bidding wars. Might the fact that corporate investors snapped up 15 percent of U.S. homes for sale in the first quarter of this year have something to do with it? The Wall Street Journal reported in April that an investment f...

Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) is shedding light on a recent marketing research report that estimates the end of federal unemployment benefits will lead to nearly 2 million jobs being filled through the end of the year. Morning Consult reported that 26 governors chose to prematurely terminate the extra $300 per week unemployed workers were receiving under the American Rescue Plan because they argue...

The Washington Food Industry Association (WFIA) is calling on the City of Seattle to address its crime problem. The association argues its members feel conditions are not safe for employees and shoppers.  “Simply put, we need the city council to work with the Seattle Police Department to bring staffing levels up in a way that meets basic levels of public safety. Action must be taken to increase th...

As the most sweeping police reform in the nation takes effect in Washington state over a year after the death of George Floyd, law enforcement agencies outside of Seattle are arguing new restrictions set on officers when interacting with the public may further incentivize criminal activity.  The nearly a dozen bills, passed by a legislature controlled by Democrats and signed by Democratic Gov. Jay...

A NEW REPORT has confirmed the anecdotes: Seattle rent prices are almost as ridiculously high as they were before the pandemic. The median monthly cost for a one-bedroom in July is $1,633, and a two-bedroom now fetches $2,037 citywide, according to Apartment List’s latest rent review. The site found that rents across Seattle have climbed to just 5 percent below their pre-pandemic levels, a trend t...

The White House and the Federal Reserve broadly agree: Inflation isn't here to stay. Red-hot prices will cool off as the US economy reopens. Most economists seem to concur that inflation is "transitory," as the Fed puts it. Investors aren't freaking out either about the biggest price hikes since 2008. But the stakes couldn't be much higher here. If the consensus is wrong (...

Boeing will put its battered engineering reputation on the line again this week when its Starliner spacecraft blasts off from Florida with a load of supplies for the International Space Station. The mission is a do-over of a 2019 trip that almost ended in calamity, and a dress rehearsal for the Boeing capsule’s first flight with astronauts later this year. If successful, it would narrow the gap wi...

Washington state is embarking on a massive experiment in police reform and accountability following the racial justice protests that erupted after George Floyd’s murder last year, as nearly a dozen laws took effect Sunday. But two months after Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bills, law enforcement officials remain uncertain about what they require, leading to discrepancies around the state in how offic...

COVID mandates resulted in nearly 150 Seattle businesses permanently closing. But as the Seattle economy finally reopens, residents and tourists have a new retail outlet to buy clothing and alcohol. It’s a few blocks away from Pike Place Market, occupying prime real estate near Sub Pop Records and trendy restaurants Serious Pie and Shaker + Spear. But there’s a problem: It’s an illegal bazaar appe...

The city of San Francisco could spend $20,000 on a trash can. It could be the first of thousands like it, but officials say others would cost less. In the current cans around the city, trash goes in, but much too often comes out. “They go looking for drugs. They go looking for things to recycle,” said resident Isaac Stevens. “In the neighborhood I live in, they bust them open. They pull things out...

A group of at least five self-proclaimed "sovereign citizens" moved into an empty Maryland mansion and tried to claim it as their own, The Baltimore Sun reported Thursday. The group, which included a dentist and a convicted sex offender, moved in, changed the locks, and put a chain across the driveway with a "private property" sign. The homeowner, who did not want to be named d...

After a deadly weekend of gun violence in Seattle, many people who live in these impacted neighborhoods are now criticizing the City Council for not showing up to check on constituents or answer questions about public safety. “The silence is deafening,” says former City of Seattle Safety Advisor Scott Lindsay Councilmember Andrew Lewis represents Pioneer Square, the scene of several shootings on S...

There were four people killed in Seattle early Sunday, plus at least six more injured in unconnected shootings. That was in addition to another deadly shooting that happened Friday night bringing the weekend total to five deaths. Today Mayor Jenny Durkan gave a press conference about the weekend violence in which she pointed out that lack of police staffing was part of the problem. “Over the past...

As crime surges across the nation, Democratic mayors in approximately 20 U.S. cities that have called for defunding the police have received millions in taxpayer funds towards their own personal security details, according to a new report. New data compiled by Forbes auditor Open the Books through Freedom of Information Act requests reveals that the city of Chicago, for example, spent $17.3 millio...

State and local officials have managed to dole out just $3 billion of the over $46 billion in rental aid allocated by Congress for the coronavirus pandemic, according to Treasury Department data released Wednesday, as the looming expiration of the federal eviction moratorium at the end of this month prompts mounting criticism of the Biden administration’s management of the aid program.  The Treasu...

Even as the search for victims of the Surfside condominium collapse continues, a question has surfaced: What will become of the land? Although beachfront property is a hot commodity in South Florida, survivors, families who lost loved ones and neighbors are struggling to imagine another apartment building or hotel in a space that has suffered so much loss. Instead, many condominium owners have exp...

We’ve felt the uptick in gun violence, but now new numbers show the true severity of that surge. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s latest report on shootings in the county released on Thursday says 197 people have been shot so far this year – up 61% over the past four-year average. “What we’re seeing right now is a very disturbing trend. It doesn’t show any signs of slowing down – often one a...