Dow closes above 16,000 for first time
Trouble with Afghan deal
New discord surfaced between the U.S. and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday, with Karzai saying he would prefer his successor sign a new security pact with the United States, and Washington saying that no signatures by the end of 2013 could be a deal-breaker. Secretary of State John Kerry and Karzai agreed this week to language of a proposed security agreement that could allow thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan as trainers and advisers after 2014 when the NATO-led combat mission ends.
Yellen nomination moves ahead
A Senate panel on Thursday advanced Janet Yellen’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, setting up a final vote in the full Senate after lawmakers return from a two-week Thanksgiving break. The Senate Banking Committee approved her nomination on a 14-8 vote. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois was among those supporting her.
Time for phones on planes?
Rules against making cellphone calls during airline flights are “outdated,” and it’s time to change them, federal regulators said Thursday, drawing immediate howls of protest from flight attendants, airline officials and others. Tom Wheeler, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a statement Thursday that the commission was proposing greater in-flight access to mobile broadband. The proposal will be considered at the commission’s Dec. 12 meeting. NEW YORK — The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 16,000 for the first time Thursday as the blue-chip index races toward its best year in a decade. The Dow has been on fire lately, propelled higher by a combination of solid corporate earnings, a steadily strengthening economy and easy-money policies from the Federal Reserve. Since the start of the year, the Dow is up 22 percent and has now topped three 1,000-point milestones in 10 months. It eclipsed 14,000 in February and 15,000 in May. If it holds onto its gains, it would notch its strongest performance since 2003. “The market has come a long way,” said Dan Seiver, an economist at San Diego State University. “It’s a sign of just how far financial markets have recovered.” The Dow has more than tripled since its bear market low in March 2009. Back then, the country was in the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the housing market had collapsed and individual investors had abandoned stocks.
Movie theater shooting trial postponed
The judge in the Colorado theater shootings case on Thursday indefinitely postponed the trial of James Holmes so attorneys can argue whether he should undergo further psychiatric evaluation. Holmes’ trial had been scheduled to begin with jury selection in February.
Jet lands at wrong airport
A Boeing 747 jumbo jet mistakenly landed at a small Kansas airport not far from the Air Force base where it was supposed to land to deliver parts for the company’s new 787 Dreamliner. The 747 intended to touch down at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, which is next to a company that makes large sections of the 787. Instead, the cargo flight landed 8 miles north, at the smaller Col. James Jabara Airport.
Thousands of child abuse reports not investigated
Thousands of cases of suspected child abuse that were reported to a statewide hotline have gone uninvestigated over the past four years, putting children across Arizona at risk, state officials disclosed Thursday. The cases were misclassified as not requiring investigations starting in 2009. About 6,000 cases were not investigated.
Estranged wife: Zimmerman ‘like a ticking time-bomb’
The estranged wife of George Zimmerman said Thursday she thinks her husband has unraveled since he was acquitted in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. “I don’t know who George is anymore,” Shellie Zimmerman said on Katie Couric’s show “Katie.” “I like to think I married a person who was a good person, and going through the past year and a half, I don’t know how that changes a person, or how a person’s spirit breaks, but it certainly seems that’s what happened to him.” Later, she said: “He does seem like a ticking time-bomb.”