Aurelia Butler

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry for lying to authorities investigating illegal contributions to his 2016 reelection campaign, saying his trial was held in the wrong place.The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Fortenberry should not have been tried in Los Angeles, where the Republican’s campaign allegedly received $30,000 from Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury, just because federal agents who later interviewed him about the money worked there.Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge James Donato said the U.S. Department of Justice could seek a new trial in Nebraska or Washington, D.C., where Fortenberry denied knowing about illegal contributions.Prosecutors said Chagoury donated the $30,000 through “straw donors” who attended a campaign fundraiser for Fortenberry in Los Angeles. Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to campaigns for federal, state and local offices.Donato, a district judge who normally works in San Francisco, said the trial did not belong in California just because Fortenberry’s alleged false statements affected investigators there.”This outlandish outcome cannot be squared with the Constitution,” Donato wrote for the appeals court, which heard the case in Pasadena, California.A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada in Los Angeles in a statement noted the prospect for a retrial, and added: “We are evaluating potential next steps before deciding how best to move forward.”Fortenberry, who turns 63 on Wednesday, represented Nebraska’s 1st congressional district for 17 years before his March 2022 conviction on two counts of making false statements and one count of scheming to conceal material facts.He resigned from Congress that month, and was sentenced in June 2022 to two years of probation and 320 hours of community service.”We are gratified by the Ninth Circuit’s decision,” Fortenberry said in a statement, citing his wife. “Celeste and I would like to thank everyone who has stood by us and supported us with their kindness and friendship.”Chagoury paid a $1.8 million fine in December 2019 to resolve a Justice Department probe that he illegally conspired to donate $180,000 to four candidates in federal elections.The case is U.S. v. Fortenberry, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-50144. More

After meeting with acting President Geraldo Alckmin, Haddad told reporters they discussed “a commitment we have to the industry to allow entrepreneurs to deduct (machinery) depreciation from income tax more rapidly than the law currently allows.”The current tax code allows companies to deduct capital goods purchases gradually as the asset depreciates.Vice President Alckmin had long been discussing the program as a promise from the leftist government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to boost the industry.By Thursday, the government will send to Congress measures to offset the fiscal impact of an approved bill that extended payroll tax exemptions for 17 sectors until 2027, Haddad said. More

“With this project authorization, we’ve begun winter construction,” CEO Ryan Lance said.Environmental and indigenous groups in November asked a federal court in Alaska to temporarily bar ConocoPhillips from going forward with construction of the project in the state’s Arctic, arguing a stay is necessary to stop imminent cultural and environmental harms.The Willow project area holds an estimated 600 million barrels of oil, and ConocoPhillips has said the project will produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak.The project development has been backed by Alaskan officials, who are hoping it will help offset oil production declines in a state whose economy relies heavily on the oil and gas industry. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Annual home prices in October rose again, pointing toward continued recovery of the housing market, data on Tuesday showed.A Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) report showed home prices grew 6.3% on a yearly basis, up from a revised 6.2% the month prior. Annual price growth began to accelerate in June after declining steadily since February 2022. Prices increased moderately by 0.3% on a month-to-month basis after climbing by 0.7% the month before.Rates on the most common home loan neared 8% in October, reaching a two-decade high on the back of the Federal Reserve’s rate hike cycle.The Fed left its policy benchmark interest rate unchanged for three consecutive meetings, bolstering expectations of a closing rate hike cycle and stoking a rally in the bond market.The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell below 7% in December, as yields on mortgage-backed securities headed down. Existing home sales have risen moderately since then, gaining 0.8% in November and indicating softening rates may draw sellers from the sidelines and open up inventory to prospective buyers, a National Association of Realtors report released in December showed.”The lack of inventory in the housing market has continued to affect the sector and has reduced the effects of higher mortgage rates,” said Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James. “This decline in mortgage rates is likely to push future HPI readings higher as more buyers enter the market and the supply of homes remains limited.”A separate national price index released by S&P Core Logic/Case-Shiller showed home prices gained by 4.8% on a yearly basis in October, the largest rate this year. The Mid-Atlantic and New England regions experienced the largest gains in October, of 9.9% and 9.7%, respectively, according to the FHFA report. On a city basis, Detroit and San Diego posted the largest annual growth in home prices, the Case-Shiller data showed. More

The increase is lower than the 3.7% growth Mastercard forecast in September, and has slumped from last year’s 7.6% as higher interest rates and inflation pressured consumer spending.In the United States, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT) have ramped up promotions through November to entice bargain-hunting shoppers, but analysts have said the discounts were not as deep as the prior year, when retailers were saddled with excess stock.Some of those discounts were rolled back starting December, when customers had expected to buy last-minute gifts and household goods on the Saturday before Christmas – dubbed “Super Saturday”.Ecommerce sales grew at a slower pace of 6.3% from last year’s 10.6% as the popularity of online shopping came off pandemic highs, the report showed.Sales in the apparel and restaurant categories rose 2.4% and 7.8%, respectively, during the holiday shopping period, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse report, while sales of electronics fell 0.4%.Mastercard SpendingPulse measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. It excludes automotive sales. More

MUMBAI (Reuters) -India’s current account deficit narrowed more than expected in the July-September quarter largely due to a lower merchandise trade deficit while services exports also grew, the central bank said in a statement on Tuesday.The current account deficit stood at $8.3 billion, or 1% of GDP, in the second quarter of fiscal 2023/24 compared with $9.2 billion or 1.1% of GDP in the preceding quarter. The CAD had been at $30.9 billion or 3.8% in the same quarter a year ago.The median forecast in a Reuters poll of 18 economists was for a deficit of $9 billion.”Following the expansion in the merchandise trade deficit in October 2023, we expect the CAD for the ongoing quarter to widen appreciably, to around $18-20 billion,” said Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist, Head – Research at rating agency ICRA, adding that the Q2 number was well below their forecast of $13 billion. “Nevertheless, we now foresee the FY2024 CAD in a range of 1.5-1.6% of GDP, unless commodity prices chart a sharp rebound.”Merchandise trade deficit narrowed to $61 billion in the quarter, from $78.3 billion in the year-ago quarter.”Services exports grew by 4.2% on a y-o-y basis on the back of rising exports of software, business and travel services. Net services receipts increased both sequentially and on a y-o-y basis,” the central bank said.India’s merchandise trade deficit narrowed sharply to $20.58 billion in November from the previous month’s record levels as imports of gold, petroleum and electronic goods moderated, latest data showed. Private transfer receipts, which are mainly remittances by Indians employed overseas, rose 2.6% to $28.1 billion on year.The country’s balance of payments recorded a small surplus of $2.5 billion in the September quarter, compared with a deficit $30.4 billion a year ago. The surplus, however, narrowed sharply on a sequential basis from $24.4 billion in the June quarter. More