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Bay Area real estate market: Will mortgage rates keep going up?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

Thinking of jumping into the Bay Area home market? Beware: Mortgage rates have been on the rise again in recent months — and are threatening to top 7% before the end of the year.As a result, steeper home loan payments continue squeezing out many house hunters. But growing demand from those who can still afford to buy — combined with a lack of properties coming up for sale during the traditionally busier summer months — is stoking competition, pushing the Bay Area’s typical single-family home price above $1.3 million.Despite the higher rates, which began to surge last year from historic sub-3% lows, buyers are now “biting the bullet” and moving forward with home purchases, said Matt Rubenstein, a real estate agent in Contra Costa County.Home seekers who had been holding out for rates to drop are accepting the increased borrowing costs just in time for the summer homebuying season. It signals something of a return to normalcy following a pandemic real estate boom tha...

They said it: Let the fun shine in

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

“I called the chief of police last night, called city manager this morning and said they need to yank that right away. They’re harmless. It’s part of the tour, part of the phenomenon of Taylor Swift, and it’s good fun for people attending.”— Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor, on Levi’s Stadium, where singer Taylor Swift will perform later this month, saying “friendship bracelets” traded by fans at her concerts won’t be allowed. Stadium management has since dropped the ban.

Did California’s DMV kill its no-party voter registration buzz?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

The announcement five years ago from California’s elections chief was sobering: Voters registering with no political party had edged out Republicans for the first time — relegating the GOP of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln to third place in the Golden State and stirring speculation that traditional party structures were on their way to irrelevance.The trend proved short-lived. In the years since Democratic registration has continued its long rise, and even Republican registration has edged up slightly. But no-party registration has unexpectedly plummeted.What killed the Golden State’s decades-long embrace of independent voter registration? A new analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California points to one of the state’s biggest buzz-kills as a likely culprit: The Department of Motor Vehicles.“California’s version of automatic voter registration is playing a big role in this shift,” PPIC policy director Eric McGhee wrot...

2024 San Jose mayoral and council races will be one for the record books

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

In just the past 13 months, San Jose’s political machinery has seen two major upheavals: Voters approved changing the year in which the mayor is elected. And two councilmembers were appointed to their seats in January for the first time in nearly three decades, a move deemed as a power grab by the city’s moderate wing.Those developments are likely to prove consequential as candidates line up to compete in the city’s primary race on March 5, 2024, with Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 — along with the mayor’s seat — all up for grabs and fundraising set to begin Aug. 8.Here is a shortlist of who is running in the 2024 primary so far.District 2: Two candidates have officially registered for the seat now filled by Councilmember Sergio Jimenez. His term ends next year and the district he represents encompasses the far-reaching corners of south San Jose. Babu Prasad, an employee at Kaiser Permanente’s admitting department, has already garnered a long l...

Driving with hazard lights flashing might seem like right thing to do, but it’s illegal: Roadshow

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

Q: I believe you may be incorrect in saying that using your hazard lights while driving is illegal. Having just had to take a test to renew my driver’s license, I recently studied the California Driver’s Handbook. On page 67 it says to turn on your emergency flashers to warn other drivers about a traffic break. Isn’t that the same as hazard lights?Jo Anna WattA: I checked that section of the handbook, too, and it refers to use of hazard lights when you are in a law enforcement traffic break, but does not address hazard lights in other driving situations.Q: Using hazard lights while driving can be legal in some situations. See CVC 25251 for one example. I think being tailgated on a curvy road counts as a hazard on the roadway.Michael GraffA: This covers use of warning lights while passing by an accident or hazard on the roadway.Q: Tailgating is also illegal and I’ve found that turning on the hazard blinker gets tailgaters to back off every time. When they do, I turn off the blinker. ...

Denver Weather: High heat through Tuesday

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Denver’s weather will stay hot and sunny through the beginning of the workweek.Weather today: Sunny, hotterSunday will be hot and sunny again and even a touch more so than yesterday. An isolated storm is possible to the west, but most look to stay dry today. Looking ahead: Hot ahead of afternoon thunderstormsHigh heat will continue into the workweek.Monday will be the hottest day of the week, climbing to the upper 90s with plenty of sunshine.Tuesday is still hot but will start to bring in some more afternoon storms. The best chance for afternoon thunderstorms will be on Wednesday.Despite a daily chance for a few evening showers, high temperatures will continue to reach the low to mid-90s during the second half of the workweek.

2 people in custody following overnight rollover car wreck at Pelican Harbor Marina

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

The scene has cleared after North Bay Village Police investigated a severe rollover wreck overnight in Pelican Harbor Marina.The marina’s boat ramp is opened up for the public once again, which had shut down Sunday morning due to the on-scene investigation. According to officials, the accident happened just before 4 a.m. along the Kennedy Causeway and Northeast 79th Street in North Bay Village, where the car flipped upside down and engulfed in flames.Both occupants of the vehicle fled on foot after the crash.Cameras caught the police extracting a man from the water shortly after the wreck, who is now in custody along with the passenger in the car. Fire rescue also responded to the scene to extinguish the flames, but it’s unclear if anyone was transported for medical attention. A tow truck removed the car from the site after crime scene technicians collected evidence from the vehicle.Police report that the crash was a result of the driver fleeing from an attempted traffic...

12-year-old boy found safe after being reported missing from Little Haiti

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

The Miami Police Department has located a 12-year-old boy who was reported missing from Little Haiti. Kemarien Branton stands at 4 feet, 9 inches tall, weighs approximately 105 lbs, and has brown hair and brown eyes.He was last seen wearing a white shirt and black shorts.

Overnight shooting in Davie sends at least 1 person to hospital

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

Authorities responded to a reported shooting in Davie overnight. The incident occurred between Northwest 67th Avenue and Sterling Road.A man was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital.Please check back on WSVN.com and 7News for more details on this developing story.

Putin’s war is slowly destroying Europe’s breadbasket

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:08 GMT

ODESA, Ukraine — July begins the Ukrainian wheat harvest, and the stalks from the humus-saturated soil near the Black Sea are chest-high and golden. A 20-minute car ride separates the port city of Odesa from wheat fields that, aside from a line of low trees, extend north and east without visible end. The only natural sound is a loud whisper the wind elicits every minute or so from the expanse of grain.But it isn’t a time of plenty in the breadbasket of Europe, and not only because Russia, for now, says it won’t continue the arrangement it made with the United Nations and Turkey that for a year permitted 32 million tons of Ukrainian grain to be exported from the country’s massive southern ports. The present war has stunted Ukraine’s grain industry at every stage, beginning months before harvest time.Though blessed with an abundance of wheat-friendly chernozem — the Russian term for “black earth” — most Ukrainians fertilize their soil. “There’s a great shortage of nitrogen fertilizers...