Former newspaper and AP reporter, currently in search of trouble
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Articles by Doug Page
Opinion: Leveraging opportunities in a rapidly shifting real estate market - Springfield Business Journal
For the last few years, high interest rates and soaring home prices have helped create affordability issues for potential homebuyers nationwide, including here in the Springfield market. Over the last roughly 30 days, however, mortgage interest rates have fallen below 6.5% and begun approaching rates in the upper fives. Opportunities in real estate are once again on the rise. Like many potential homebuyers, we’ve been waiting for these market conditions for a while now.
Fear Math and Hate Investing? CNBC's Jim Cramer is the Cure, San Diego Metro Magazine
With the stocks of more than 4,000 U.S.-based companies publicly traded, how are you supposed to know which ones to buy? And if that doesn’t confuse you, could you pick the best stocks among the nearly 50,000 companies outside of U.S. borders that are also publicly traded? You might. But you might also overlook some great stocks, too, which are often overshadowed by the likes of Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir and many other high-tech darlings. That’s the great thing about CNBC’s Jim Cramer.
Jimmy Lai awaits his verdict
The trial of former Hong Kong newspaper and magazine publisher Jimmy Lai, who was active in the territory’s pro-democracy movement, ended without a verdict. The 156-day trial, longer than the expected 80 days, ended with closing arguments on Aug. 25th. It’s uncertain when the three judges will hand down a verdict but, according to one Hong Kong-based newspaper, the South China Morning Post, it’s expected by the end of the year.
California’s Simmering Cauldron: The Dowry of the Dragon Lady
Adorned with moderate coastline temperatures, golden beaches, plush, vibrant blue waves, towering cinnamon-colored Redwood trees, and sunny skies, California’s seductress’ appointments lure in and keep many people in the Golden State because they sense it’s nirvana.
The prophecy and the perils of price controls: Three economic assessments
With grocery prices stubbornly high and the packages selling the products reduced – nicknamed “shrinkflation” – there’s a chance the United States will see price controls on food if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency – a first in more than 50 years.
Big-Box, Online and the Smaller One: The Mishmash of Food Retailing in the Post-Pandemic, Inflationary Economy
The country’s more than 96,000 grocery stores and supermarkets, generating about $1.1 trillion in annual revenue, are undergoing a metamorphosis attributed to events they never expected – a global pandemic and inflation – leaving them vulnerable to being bushwhacked by financially formidable competitors and acquired, too. That’s the case with Winn-Dixie and Harveys supermarkets, once owned by Southeastern Grocers.
Workers vs. The Robots: Minimum Wage and California’s Fast-Food Offering
California’s new minimum wage for fast-food restaurant workers – upped April 1st to $20 an hour – impacts the Golden State’s most vulnerable workers, leaving effects that could last well beyond just a missing paycheck. “The kids are the canaries in the coal mine,” Los Angeles-based economist Christopher Thornberg told SD METRO, referring to teenagers seeking or working summer jobs.
The Golden State burn: Climate’s impact on homeowners and their wealth , San Diego Metro Magazine
California burns, with more than 3,300 wildfires and 150,000 acres charred so far this year, Cal Fire reports, while 1,100 plus tornadoes, says AccuWeather, tore up the landscape from the Central Plains to the Midwest, the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, plus one – for the first time in 20 years – in Alaska.
Miami County CASA supervisor retires after 39 years of service
By Doug Page Guest columnist For four decades the stories of children and families in crisis have flowed from and through her fingers. Since 1984, Karen DeVilbiss has chronicled for referees, magistrates, probation officers and others the ups and downs of those who live amid poverty, crime, mental illness and/or addiction in Miami County.
Thinking Inside The Big Box
Lenders One is betting thinking inside the big box is its key to future success; happiness doesn’t outsmart intelligence; don’t get tripped up by sloppy data practices; and so much more.
Lenders One Sees A Future With WalMart
Starting in high school and continuing through his collegiate years, there were few opportunities for Justin Demola to engage in usual adolescent and student behavior like sleeping in or slacking off. Instead, during vacations and breaks, he was put to work in his uncle’s mortgage business, Walsh Securities/Equity Rewards, in Parsippany, N.J. “I was held hostage,” said the 48-year-old Demola, who now leads the mortgage cooperative Lenders One, when asked about his upbringing.
Is Fintech a Threat to Home Equity Business As We Know It?
Relationships are more like journeys than they are destinations. In romance and in business alike, staying connected and continuing the exchange of resources is an obvious choice when the needs of all parties are fulfilled. However, much like the relationship between traditional home equity lenders and borrowers, when one grows complacent as the other evolves, challenges arise, making other options appear more attractive.
For The Fed, 2022 May Be 1979 All Over Again
Today’s Fed’s faces similar challenges – high energy and food prices plus inflation KEY TAKEAWAYS Real estate prices are coming down. With inflation running at a 40-year high of 9.1%, there are predictions that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will prescribe the same bitter medicine a long-ago predecessor, Paul Volcker, did by taking the country into a recession.
Non-QM Lenders Could Face Serious Headwinds
BY DOUG PAGE, STAFF WRITER, NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL The recent abrupt closure of two Non-QM lenders - one that shuttered its doors and another that's now under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection - may have prompted Flagstar Bank's warehouse lending division to send out a text message, saying funding advances for Non-QM mortgages will require advance approval.
UWM: Will Revenue Continue To Slide?
One analyst predicts a great fourth quarter, but annual earnings could tell a different story. With day a to go before United Wholesale Mortgage Holdings (UWMC) reports its fourth-quarter and year-end earnings, there’s at least one stock analyst predicting the mortgage lender will present strong quarterly results. “The fourth-quarter number will be huge,” said Argus Research Analyst Kevin Heal. “I don’t know exactly what the number will be for the year, but they should have a great fourth quarter.
155 School Committees demand state reimbursement for COVID-19 costs
By Doug Page, Correspondent Friday Jul 17, 2020 at 8:29 AM Jul 17, 2020 at 5:23 PM Over 150 local school committees, including those in Worcester, Shrewsbury, Framingham, Milford and Gardner, are demanding the state reimburse them for expenses they’ll incur to abide by its requirements for reopening their schools for the 2020-21 academic year amid the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Communities vary on rules for absent elected officials
Miami Valley cities and villages vary on how long their charters or state law will allow an elected council or commission member to serve in absentia before the seat is declared vacant. Troy, for instance, is a statutory city governed by the Ohio Revised Code that allows 10 unexcused absences before the seat is declared vacant. Trotwood, Beavercreek, Kettering and Piqua city charters all allow for three unexcused absences.
Barton’s Fennell named Conference Carolinas Baseball Pitcher of the Week
HIGH POINT, N.C. – For the second time this season, Barton College senior Trent Fennell has been named the Conference Carolinas Baseball Pitcher of the Week, the league announced Tuesday. Fennell fanned seven batters and tossed five innings to improve his record to 6-4 on the season for the Bulldogs.
Parents, Lawmakers Push For Later Public School Start Times
Mary Hamaker, a Southborough mom, lawyer, and president of the Massachusetts chapter of Start School Later, wants a law preventing the Commonwealth’s public high schools from starting classes earlier than 8:30 a.m., saying it’s the remedy to a significant health issue. “The pillars of being healthy include eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep,” Hamaker said.
MCAS Results Show Income, Race Continue to Affect Student Performance
This year’s recently released MCAS results show, with few exceptions, that children from high-income communities outperformed their less-advantaged peers, and a demographic achievement gap continues to persist. Demographically, Asian and white students performed best, according to information provided by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), which administers the test and oversees the Commonwealth’s K-12 public schools.
Concern Rises Over Future MCAS 2.0 Passing Rates
Concerned that high numbers of Bay State tenth graders will fail the new version of the MCAS test — and, as a result, not graduate high school — Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Acting Commissioner Jeff Wulfson is offering a lifeline. At the Oct.
BOE Chairman Hires Search Firm to Find New Education Commissioner
Massachusetts Board of Education (BOE) Chairman Paul Sagan was lightly chided at last month’s meeting for hiring an executive search firm to help find the state’s new commissioner of education. “It surprises me that [the BOE’s] search committee wasn’t consulted or had input into this, especially when other board members didn’t, either. I hope we can improve on that going forward,” member Mary Ann Stewart said.
BOE Chairman Sagan repeats last year’s speech on campaign contributions
His critics likely gave him the one thing they never intended — a platform to defend his actions and sell his position. But if readers look closely at what Massachusetts Board of Education (BOE) Chairman Paul Sagan told his fellow members regarding the issue of adding new charter schools, they’ll note he didn’t so much sell his position on the topic – he’s for them – as he defended his actions, repeating much of what he said a year ago.
Thomas J. Straka: Nevada forests: Seldom out of sight but often slighted
I travel to Nevada once or twice a year and it's not for the gambling. As a forester I love Nevada's beautiful forests. It would be impossible to climb up to a bristlecone pine stand, for example, back in my home state. Several decades ago I first flew into Nevada late at night and awoke in a hotel room that faced a mountain range, covered by thousands of trees. It was not what I was expecting and I've been fascinated by the state's forests since.
Now Hiring: Who Will Be the Next Head of Massachusetts Public Schools?
Education is to Massachusetts what oil is to Texas — it put the state on the map. Since the Commonwealth’s earliest days, when it was settled by the Puritans, education has been at the forefront, leading it to establishing world-renown universities and, in time, what many now consider the country’s best public K-12 schools.
Bay State’s Education Commissioner Dies
Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester passed away Tuesday, June 26, and has been replaced, in the interim, by Deputy Commissioner Jeff Wulfson, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced. Wulfson had been named acting commissioner by the state’s Board of Education (BOE) earlier this year. Chester, 65, had scaled back his workload due to illness.
State Education Commissioner Chester Scaling Back Workload
Commissioner Mitchell Chester, who leads the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), which oversees the Bay State’s K-12 public schools, has scaled back his workload due to illness and Deputy Commissioner Jeff Wulfson was appointed acting commissioner, sources close to DESE tell baystateparent.
Teachers Fight the World’s Largest Testing Company
The country’s second-largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), along with teachers’ unions from five other countries, urged the board of directors of Pearson PLC, whose questions appear on Massachusetts’s MCAS test, to fire Chief Executive Officer John Fallon during the company’s recent annual shareholder meeting.
Report: Rhode Island to Adopt MCAS 2.0
While key details are still unknown, the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) announced it’s tossing out the Common Core-aligned PARCC to test its public school children in Grades 3-8 and adopting the MCAS 2.0 test from Massachusetts. Massachusetts first rolled out MCAS 2.0 this spring as a “hybrid” test, featuring a mix of Common Core questions from the controversial PARCC exam and those unique to Massachusetts.
BOE Sets Scoring Levels, Definitions for MCAS 2.0
While the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) remains opaque about the level of Common Core-related content in the new MCAS 2.0 test, what is clear is the test’s achievement levels and their definitions. As in the previous version of the exam, there are four achievement, or scoring, levels that gauge how well children in Grades 3-8 performed on the exam.
State Officials Vague on New Standardized Test
Massachusetts students in Grades 3 through 8 will take a new standardized test this month, but it’s unclear how new the test really is. Dubbed “MCAS 2.0” in October 2015 by Mitchell Chester, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the new test was proposed by Chester as a compromise between the aging MCAS and the controversial Common Core-aligned PARCC exam.
Book Review: Bulletins from Dallas
In an era of social media scuttlebutt and fake news flashes, it’s difficult to believe two American news wire services, Associated Press and United Press International, once competed ferociously to not only get the news first but to first get it right.That’s what makes Bill Sanderson’s recently-published book, Bulletins from Dallas, recommended reading for President Donald Trump, who questions the honesty of the mainstream media, and Silicon Valley titans, whose websites distribute fake news.
Massachusetts Required Children Learn to Read Starting in the 1640s
When it comes to standardized test results, whether it’s those from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), it’s no historical accident that Massachusetts performs near the top, one education expert says. “The first public schools started in Massachusetts during the Colonial period,” said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, a think-tank that examines public policy issues.
State Official Offers Update on MCAS 2.0
Editor’s Note: Our reporter Doug Page caught up the Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester at a recent Askwith Forum at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge. This is an edited transcript of that interview. baystateparent: When will you have a decision on MCAS 2.0 test, which I guess is still under development, in terms of the percentage of MCAS and PARCC questions? Commissioner: Those decisions are being made as we speak.
Standardized Science Tests Show Mixed Results for Mass Students
Are Massachusetts’s public school students all-stars or also-rans in science compared to their fellow students around the country and the world? The answer depends on who’s talking and which standardized test is under the microscope. One measure of how well Bay State kids are performing recently came from the 8th grade science test designed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which tested students and their peers across the United States.
Be quick to listen in a quick-to-speak world - The Kaufman Herald : Community
In what is widely thought to be one the oldest Christian writings, James - the brother of Jesus - wrote these timely words in James 1:19-20, “You must understand this, let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” As we consider these words and lay them alongside our own life experience we might find that we tend to be a people that move more quickly to talking and anger than listening.
Local gang maintains power, influence in city
Dayton View Hustlers walk deadly trail: Four of 10 gang or criminal group killings in 2011 involved Hustlers, police say April 1: Police arrested Richard Lee Burton, 25, in the fatal shooting of Marcus Bean during a shootout at the Big E Bar on North Main Street. Burton, a Hustler member, remains in the Montgomery County Jail on $750,000 bond. A trial is expected this summer. April 6: Shajuan Dorsey, a 26-year-old Hustler, was shot and killed in what appeared to be a drug-related killing.
Local gang maintains power, influence in city
DAYTON — The Dayton View Hustlers, a street gang with a sophisticated organizational style that divides members into specialized shooters, robbers and street dealers, has weathered a coordinated four-year gang suppression campaign by law enforcement. The well established Hustlers are already into a third membership generation, said FBI Senior Resident Agent Tim Ferguson.
Air Force chaplain charged with inducing panic
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Boy, 13, faces charges in bus assault
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Greene County authorities seek links in attempted tire theft
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6 running for Beavercreek School Board
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Mistakes cost township taxpayers thousands
Xenia Twp. taxpayers have lost at least $5,000 during the past 18 months with more to come from late fees, penalties and interest because the newly elected fiscal officer did not make pension contributions, insurance payments, federal taxes and vendors’ fees in a timely matter.
Credit card thieves hit Panera customers
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Jammers Earn Playoff Berth in "Wild" Fashion
Jamestown, NY- Jamestown's mission sounded simple enough entering play Wednesday night, "Win and you're in". The only thing standing in the way of the Jammers and their third playoff appearance in the last five seasons would be none other than the State College Spikes. In the end, Jamestown would pick the right time to snap their eight game losing streak against the Spikes en-route to a 9-4 victory and securing the fourth and final NY-PL playoff spot.
State cuts cost local governments millions
A survey of more than 20 localities by the Dayton Daily News found they expect to lose more than $28 million in state aid this year compared to what they received in 2009 because of cuts in funding and the phasing out of three taxes.
B’creek school board places $10.4 million emergency levy on...
The Board of Education approved placing a $10.4 million emergency levy for operating costs on the November ballot on Monday night. It is the fourth time in two years the district has tried to pass an emergency levy for operations.
KKK pix at fair draws ACLU rebuke
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Last of suspects in fatal Fairborn burglary pleas guilty
The last of the four surviving suspects in a fatal Fairborn home invasion pleaded guilty Friday to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated burglary in Greene County Common Pleas Court. London Norman, 23, changed his plea before Common Pleas Judge Michael Buckwalter. Norman and the three other surviving suspects will be sentenced Sept. 12. Prosecutors plan to recommend 10-year prison terms for each.
Police recount Xenia shootout
A 21-year-old suspect fired five rounds from 10 feet into a Xenia police cruiser, shooting out all of the windows and missing both officers, before a third officer arrived on the scene, taking the shooter down with a round to the back.
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