Grandson Kahlil on his three-wheeler

Fresh Fall in Home Prices Is Headwind for Economy; Other Signs Still Strong

Housing Recovery Stalls

Fresh Fall in Home Prices Is Headwind for Economy; Other Signs Still Strong

By S. MITRA KALITA And SUDEEP REDDY, The Wall Street Journal

December 29, 2010

A new bout of declining home prices is threatening to hamper the U.S. recovery, just as consumers and the overall economy have been showing signs of healing.

WSJ's Mitra Kalita discusses October's U.S. housing price decline with Yale University economics professor Robert J. Shiller, who says the struggling housing market will likely continue to weigh on the overall economy.

Home prices across 20 major metropolitan areas fell 1.3% in October from September, the third straight month-over-month drop, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday. Many economists expect the declines to continue into at least next spring, erasing most of the gains made since prices bottomed out in early 2009.

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In ‘Daily Show’ Role on 9/11 Bill, Echoes of Murrow

December 26, 2010

By BILL CARTER and BRIAN STELTERThe New York Times, December 26, 2010

Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Brutal Artist Crackdown

by Omid Memarian Info

Omid Memarian is columnist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. He was a World Peace Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2007-2009 and the 2005 recipient of the ‘Human Rights Defender Award’, the highest honor bestowed by Human Rights Watch.

The harsh sentencing of a world-renowned director prompted protests from Martin Scorsese and other artists this week. Omid Memarian on escalating repression in Iran.

When world-renowned filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, was sentenced to six years in prison earlier this week, the verdict reverberated both inside and outside Iran

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