CHICAGO — After eight years on the waitlist, Mikia Knighten was excited to learn in October 2022 that she had received a housing voucher from the Chicago Housing Authority. The rental subsidy would allow her to move to a better neighborhood with better opportunities for her and her now 4-year-old daughter, she said. It was going to “take a little bit of a load off” in a high-cost housing market, she said. But after spending about eight months applying for apartments, Knighten found no landlord willing to accept her rental subsidy, and her allotted time from CHA to find a unit where she could use her voucher was up, according to the lawsuit she filed in August alleging that housing providers discriminated against her based on her source of income. Knighten’s lawsuit alleges that housing providers said they did not accept housing vouchers, did not work with CHA or did not respond when she told them she had a housing voucher. “It was really dehumanizing,” Knighten said. There’s “a real stigma behind having the voucher.” Within the last year and a half, housing attorneys have filed some of the first lawsuits, including Knighten’s, allowed under Illinois’ nearly two-year-old statewide law preventing discrimination on the basis of someone’s source of income. All the complaints allege that the plaintiffs, who had housing vouchers, were discriminated against. Advocates said the discrimination is still widespread across the city and state despite the law, and they’re eager for legal rulings to help hold real estate professionals accountable. As the cases wind their way through the court system, housing counseling and legal aid organizations are continuing to enforce the law through other means, such as filing claims with local and state human rights agencies. Before the new state law took effect, attorneys were not legally allowed to sue alleging source of income discrimination; the local human rights commissions in Chicago and Cook County were the primary route for holding housing providers accountable, and their rulings do not come with consequences as severe as lawsuit verdicts. Knighten, who lives in Lansing, is suing 14 parties, ranging from individuals to real estate brokerages to smaller corporations. Some defendants did not return requests for comment. Others said they did not know they were being sued, that they were no longer the owners of the property in question, had not heard of the plaintiff or declined to comment on pending litigation. Knighten’s voucher was through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the primary federal housing voucher program. Formerly known as Section 8, it allows public housing authorities to provide subsidies to low-income residents to find housing in the private market. The multi-billion-dollar program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through local public housing authorities, helps more than 2 million households nationwide. The Chicago Housing Authority is supplying vouchers to more than 52,000 renters through the program, according to HUD data. Residents with vouchers from the CHA pay 30% to 40% of their income toward rent and utilities; the CHA covers the rest. It can take years, sometimes decades, to get off the waitlist for a housing voucher. About 18,000 households are on the CHA’s waitlist. When the agency last opened the waitlist for four weeks in 2014, it got 280,000 applications, 70,000 of which were approved for the list. In Illinois, the majority of voucher holders are Black, like Knighten, as the Black population has historically faced racial discrimination preventing them from building wealth, making them more likely to use vouchers. Housing advocates said source of income discrimination is another form of racial discrimination. For those who do get off the waitlist, in 2022 only 61% were able to use their CHA vouchers, the agency’s most recent year with complete data. The CHA data are consistent with national figures. Only 60% of voucher holders are able to use them to lease homes, according to a 2024 national study conducted with data from 2015 to 2019 by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The numbers are worse for markets with an older housing stock and for voucher recipients of color, the study says, both of which apply to Chicago. Michael Mini, executive vice president of the Chicagoland Apartment Association, a trade group that represents housing providers, said he has not heard of any problems or concerns related to source of income discrimination. The “vast majority” of his members are “very familiar” with the voucher program and had already been following the city and county laws prior to the statewide law’s passage, Mini said. He said his organization notified its members downstate and beyond when the state law was passed. “Source of income is a protected class. Like any other protected class, we expect our members to comply with the law,” Mini said. But housing advocates said source of income discrimination happens overtly and covertly. Sometimes real estate professionals explicitly say they will not accept a housing voucher; other times they do not count the voucher toward a renter’s income and say the renter does not have sufficient income to qualify for the unit. Many property owners and managers require a renter’s monthly income to be three times the monthly rent. And sometimes required credit scores and high application fees are limiting factors for voucher holders. “There are always emerging strategies ... that a landlord can employ that really accomplish the same thing,” said Susan Theiss, an attorney focused on fair housing rights with Legal Aid Chicago. “Landlords are always shifting the ground when they really don’t want to rent to people with housing assistance.” Theiss and other advocates said the number of callers alleging source of income discrimination has increased since the state law passed, a sign that information about it is getting out. In one case, fair-housing counseling organization Open Communities and one of its clients filed a lawsuit in 2023 in federal court in Chicago against national property management company Harbor Group Management and software company PERQ. The lawsuit alleged that Harbor Group Management employed an artificial intelligence chatbot that systematically rejected online applicants who had Housing Choice Vouchers. In January, the parties settled for monetary damages and entered into a two-year consent decree that requires Harbor Group to provide Open Communities data and access related to its fair-housing policies and practices, including its use of PERQ software. Advocates and their clients are also using the new state law to help with eviction cases and are still filing cases through the local and new state human rights commissions. Allison Bethel, director of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at University of Illinois Chicago, said she has clients who are voucher holders and are being evicted and/or are facing poor living conditions or fines because of their source of income. The clinic has settled cases where clients have stayed housed or received money, Bethel said. The Chicago Commission on Human Relations estimates it has received 1,700 complaints related to source of income discrimination since 1990, the year the agency began handling these types of complaints. The commission saw the number more than double from 2022 to 2023, with 101 source of income discrimination complaints filed in 2023, according to agency data provided to the Tribune. In Cook County, fewer than 75 complaints have been filed since 2013, when it made source of income discrimination illegal, according to the county. Since 2022 the Cook County Commission on Human Rights has seen an uptick in filings. The Illinois Department of Human Rights, which began accepting source of income complaints in January 2023, when the statewide law took effect, received 34 complaints in 2023 and 48 in 2024 as of November, according to data provided to the Tribune. Advocates and attorneys say some cases are settled before an investigation is completed. They also said it can take several months to over a year for the IDHR to process and investigate a complaint, with many of its cases still awaiting results. Some of those advocates said they hope this process can be sped up. As Illinois heads into year three of its statewide source of income protections, housing advocates will continue their work and await verdicts that they hope can help guide their paths forward. For Knighten — who works at a call center and is paying more than 1.5 times as much for rent as she would have with a voucher — she hopes her case raises awareness. “Just because people are getting assistance from the government doesn’t make them less of a person,” Knighten said. “(I want to) make sure no one else has to go through what I went through when they are just trying to get help to survive.” Gov. JB Pritzker announces Illinois' new "Help Stop Hate" program during an Oct. 30 news conference. Hate crime incidents are at a record high since the FBI began collecting the data in 1991. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!Finance minister Sitharaman encourages regional rural banks to onboard customers to digital services by December
CLEVELAND (AP) — Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to coach in a Major League Baseball game, is leaving the San Francisco Giants to join the Cleveland Guardians. Nakken made history in 2022 when she took over as first-base coach following an ejection. A former college softball star at Sacramento State, Nakken joined the Giants in 2014 and was promoted to a spot on manager Gabe Kapler's staff in 2020, becoming the majors' first full-time female coach. Nakken has been hired as an assistant director within player development for the Guardians, who won the AL Central last season under first-year manager Stephen Vogt — the AL Manager of the Year. With Cleveland, the 34-year-old Nakken will work with former Giants coaches Craig Albernaz and Kai Correa. Her exact duties are still being determined. "We thank Alyssa Nakken for her incredible contributions to the San Francisco Giants and for trailblazing a path for women in sports,” the Giants said in a statement on Friday. "Her leadership, dedication, and passion for the game have inspired countless individuals, and her impact has been truly transformative for the Giants organization and the baseball community. “As she embarks on this exciting new chapter in her career, we have no doubt that she’ll continue to inspire and achieve great things. We wish her and her family nothing but the best.” Nakken is the second on-field female coach hired by the Guardians. In 2023, the club brought in Amanda Kamekona as their hitting development coach for their year-round training academy in Goodyear, Arizona. Last season, she was an assistant hitting coach at Double-A Akron. Kamekona was twice a third-team All-American at UCLA after transferring from Cal State Fullerton. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlbAP Sports SummaryBrief at 6:08 p.m. EST
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The US says it pushed retraction of a famine warning for north Gaza. Aid groups express concern.Trane Technologies Honored by TIME as a Global Leader in Sustainable Growth
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CELH Announcement: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP Encourages Celsius Holdings, Inc. Investors to Contact the Firm About Securities Fraud Class Action LawsuitCHICAGO — After eight years on the waitlist, Mikia Knighten was excited to learn in October 2022 that she had received a housing voucher from the Chicago Housing Authority. The rental subsidy would allow her to move to a better neighborhood with better opportunities for her and her now 4-year-old daughter, she said. It was going to “take a little bit of a load off” in a high-cost housing market, she said. But after spending about eight months applying for apartments, Knighten found no landlord willing to accept her rental subsidy, and her allotted time from CHA to find a unit where she could use her voucher was up, according to the lawsuit she filed in August alleging that housing providers discriminated against her based on her source of income. Knighten’s lawsuit alleges that housing providers said they did not accept housing vouchers, did not work with CHA or did not respond when she told them she had a housing voucher. “It was really dehumanizing,” Knighten said. There’s “a real stigma behind having the voucher.” Within the last year and a half, housing attorneys have filed some of the first lawsuits, including Knighten’s, allowed under Illinois’ nearly two-year-old statewide law preventing discrimination on the basis of someone’s source of income. All the complaints allege that the plaintiffs, who had housing vouchers, were discriminated against. Advocates said the discrimination is still widespread across the city and state despite the law, and they’re eager for legal rulings to help hold real estate professionals accountable. As the cases wind their way through the court system, housing counseling and legal aid organizations are continuing to enforce the law through other means, such as filing claims with local and state human rights agencies. Before the new state law took effect, attorneys were not legally allowed to sue alleging source of income discrimination; the local human rights commissions in Chicago and Cook County were the primary route for holding housing providers accountable, and their rulings do not come with consequences as severe as lawsuit verdicts. Knighten, who lives in Lansing, is suing 14 parties, ranging from individuals to real estate brokerages to smaller corporations. Some defendants did not return requests for comment. Others said they did not know they were being sued, that they were no longer the owners of the property in question, had not heard of the plaintiff or declined to comment on pending litigation. Knighten’s voucher was through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the primary federal housing voucher program. Formerly known as Section 8, it allows public housing authorities to provide subsidies to low-income residents to find housing in the private market. The multi-billion-dollar program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through local public housing authorities, helps more than 2 million households nationwide. The Chicago Housing Authority is supplying vouchers to more than 52,000 renters through the program, according to HUD data. Residents with vouchers from the CHA pay 30% to 40% of their income toward rent and utilities; the CHA covers the rest. It can take years, sometimes decades, to get off the waitlist for a housing voucher. About 18,000 households are on the CHA’s waitlist. When the agency last opened the waitlist for four weeks in 2014, it got 280,000 applications, 70,000 of which were approved for the list. In Illinois, the majority of voucher holders are Black, like Knighten, as the Black population has historically faced racial discrimination preventing them from building wealth, making them more likely to use vouchers. Housing advocates said source of income discrimination is another form of racial discrimination. For those who do get off the waitlist, in 2022 only 61% were able to use their CHA vouchers, the agency’s most recent year with complete data. The CHA data are consistent with national figures. Only 60% of voucher holders are able to use them to lease homes, according to a 2024 national study conducted with data from 2015 to 2019 by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The numbers are worse for markets with an older housing stock and for voucher recipients of color, the study says, both of which apply to Chicago. Michael Mini, executive vice president of the Chicagoland Apartment Association, a trade group that represents housing providers, said he has not heard of any problems or concerns related to source of income discrimination. The “vast majority” of his members are “very familiar” with the voucher program and had already been following the city and county laws prior to the statewide law’s passage, Mini said. He said his organization notified its members downstate and beyond when the state law was passed. “Source of income is a protected class. Like any other protected class, we expect our members to comply with the law,” Mini said. But housing advocates said source of income discrimination happens overtly and covertly. Sometimes real estate professionals explicitly say they will not accept a housing voucher; other times they do not count the voucher toward a renter’s income and say the renter does not have sufficient income to qualify for the unit. Many property owners and managers require a renter’s monthly income to be three times the monthly rent. And sometimes required credit scores and high application fees are limiting factors for voucher holders. “There are always emerging strategies ... that a landlord can employ that really accomplish the same thing,” said Susan Theiss, an attorney focused on fair housing rights with Legal Aid Chicago. “Landlords are always shifting the ground when they really don’t want to rent to people with housing assistance.” Theiss and other advocates said the number of callers alleging source of income discrimination has increased since the state law passed, a sign that information about it is getting out. In one case, fair-housing counseling organization Open Communities and one of its clients filed a lawsuit in 2023 in federal court in Chicago against national property management company Harbor Group Management and software company PERQ. The lawsuit alleged that Harbor Group Management employed an artificial intelligence chatbot that systematically rejected online applicants who had Housing Choice Vouchers. In January, the parties settled for monetary damages and entered into a two-year consent decree that requires Harbor Group to provide Open Communities data and access related to its fair-housing policies and practices, including its use of PERQ software. Advocates and their clients are also using the new state law to help with eviction cases and are still filing cases through the local and new state human rights commissions. Allison Bethel, director of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at University of Illinois Chicago, said she has clients who are voucher holders and are being evicted and/or are facing poor living conditions or fines because of their source of income. The clinic has settled cases where clients have stayed housed or received money, Bethel said. The Chicago Commission on Human Relations estimates it has received 1,700 complaints related to source of income discrimination since 1990, the year the agency began handling these types of complaints. The commission saw the number more than double from 2022 to 2023, with 101 source of income discrimination complaints filed in 2023, according to agency data provided to the Tribune. In Cook County, fewer than 75 complaints have been filed since 2013, when it made source of income discrimination illegal, according to the county. Since 2022 the Cook County Commission on Human Rights has seen an uptick in filings. The Illinois Department of Human Rights, which began accepting source of income complaints in January 2023, when the statewide law took effect, received 34 complaints in 2023 and 48 in 2024 as of November, according to data provided to the Tribune. Advocates and attorneys say some cases are settled before an investigation is completed. They also said it can take several months to over a year for the IDHR to process and investigate a complaint, with many of its cases still awaiting results. Some of those advocates said they hope this process can be sped up. As Illinois heads into year three of its statewide source of income protections, housing advocates will continue their work and await verdicts that they hope can help guide their paths forward. For Knighten — who works at a call center and is paying more than 1.5 times as much for rent as she would have with a voucher — she hopes her case raises awareness. “Just because people are getting assistance from the government doesn’t make them less of a person,” Knighten said. “(I want to) make sure no one else has to go through what I went through when they are just trying to get help to survive.” Gov. JB Pritzker announces Illinois' new "Help Stop Hate" program during an Oct. 30 news conference. Hate crime incidents are at a record high since the FBI began collecting the data in 1991. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!Advisors Asset Management Inc. cut its stake in shares of Ventas, Inc. ( NYSE:VTR – Free Report ) by 11.3% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,988 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 254 shares during the period. Advisors Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Ventas were worth $127,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in VTR. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Ventas by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 60,052 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $3,851,000 after purchasing an additional 1,177 shares during the period. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG purchased a new position in shares of Ventas during the third quarter worth $1,365,000. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Ventas by 42.2% in the third quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,443 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $349,000 after buying an additional 1,615 shares in the last quarter. Caprock Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ventas in the third quarter valued at $224,000. Finally, MAI Capital Management raised its holdings in shares of Ventas by 5.1% in the 3rd quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 15,969 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,024,000 after buying an additional 782 shares during the period. 94.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Ventas Trading Down 0.7 % Shares of NYSE:VTR opened at $64.07 on Friday. Ventas, Inc. has a 52 week low of $41.45 and a 52 week high of $67.61. The company’s 50 day moving average is $64.17 and its two-hundred day moving average is $58.00. The company has a market cap of $26.88 billion, a PE ratio of -376.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 1.36. The company has a current ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. Ventas Announces Dividend Insider Buying and Selling at Ventas In other news, CEO Debra A. Cafaro sold 6,004 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, October 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.11, for a total value of $396,924.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 986,717 shares in the company, valued at approximately $65,231,860.87. This represents a 0.60 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link . Also, CEO Peter J. Bulgarelli sold 6,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.99, for a total transaction of $389,940.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 90,795 shares in the company, valued at $5,900,767.05. This trade represents a 6.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders have sold a total of 140,079 shares of company stock worth $9,241,311 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In VTR has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Ventas from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the company from $61.00 to $71.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Ventas to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 9th. Wedbush increased their target price on shares of Ventas from $64.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Scotiabank boosted their price target on shares of Ventas from $59.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Ventas from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ventas has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $63.63. View Our Latest Analysis on VTR Ventas Profile ( Free Report ) Ventas Inc (NYSE: VTR) is a leading S&P 500 real estate investment trust focused on delivering strong, sustainable shareholder returns by enabling exceptional environments that benefit a large and growing aging population. The Company's growth is fueled by its senior housing communities, which provide valuable services to residents and enable them to thrive in supported environments. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding VTR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Ventas, Inc. ( NYSE:VTR – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for Ventas Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ventas and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
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Carolina Hurricanes (16-6-1, in the Metropolitan Division) vs. Florida Panthers (14-9-1, in the Atlantic Division) Sunrise, Florida; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Panthers -123, Hurricanes +103; over/under is 6.5 BOTTOM LINE: The Florida Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes hit the ice in Eastern Conference action. Florida has gone 7-5-1 at home and 14-9-1 overall. The Panthers have a 3-0-1 record in one-goal games. Carolina has a 7-4-1 record on the road and a 16-6-1 record overall. The Hurricanes are 7-2-0 when they commit fewer penalties than their opponent. Saturday's game is the second meeting between these teams this season. The Panthers won the previous matchup 6-3. TOP PERFORMERS: Sam Bennett has 11 goals and 11 assists for the Panthers. Sam Reinhart has seven goals and four assists over the last 10 games. Jack Roslovic has 12 goals and three assists for the Hurricanes. Seth Jarvis has four goals and six assists over the past 10 games. LAST 10 GAMES: Panthers: 4-6-0, averaging 3.1 goals, 5.6 assists, 4.1 penalties and 10.7 penalty minutes while giving up 2.9 goals per game. Hurricanes: 6-3-1, averaging 3.7 goals, 6.3 assists, 2.7 penalties and 5.6 penalty minutes while giving up 2.8 goals per game. INJURIES: Panthers: None listed. Hurricanes: None listed. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Rams in search of offensive consistency in New Orleans
Alyssa Nakken, first full-time female coach in MLB history, leaving Giants to join GuardiansNoneGay Couples Rush to Marry Ahead of Trump’s Second Term
