QUICK HITS

1 Sales of new homes rise:

Sales of new U.S. homes rose in November to a seven-month high, underscoring strong demand for housing against a backdrop of low borrowing costs and desire for more space during the pandemic. Purchases of new single-family homes increased 12.4% to a 744,000 annualized pace following a downwardly revised 662,000 in October.

Teens charged in carjacking: 2

Five teenagers were charged Thursday after the vehicle stolen at gunpoint in Philadelphia from U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon was found in neighboring Delaware, police said. Scanlon’s blue Acura MDX was located Wednesday night in Newark, Delaware, Delaware State Police said. The five were apprehended as they tried to flee, police said.

Actor arrested: “Home Alone”

3 actor Devin Ratray surrendered to authorities in Oklahoma on Wednesday after he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend, police said. Ratray, who played older brother Buzz Mcallister in the 1990 Christmas movie, was released from jail shortly after his booking on two domestic assault and battery complaints, police said.

Novelist dies: Joan Didion,a

4 virtuosic prose stylist who for more than four decades explored the agitated, fractured state of the American psyche in her novels, essays, criticism and memoirs, and who as one of the “New Journalists” of the 1960s and ’70s helped reportorial nonfiction acquire the status of an art form, died Thursday at home in Manhattan. She was 87.

Biden signs Uyghur Act:

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President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that bans imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless the importer can prove they were not made with forced labor.