Microchip reunites missing dog with her owner after 12 years – National & International News – MON 21Feb2022

Dog reunited with owner after 12 years. Rise in home, rental prices shows no sign of slowing down. U.S. claims Russia has Ukrainian “kill list”. 

NATIONAL NEWS

Microchip reunites Dog with her owner after 12 years

A call from a rural property owner to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office resulted in an unexpected reunion. The property owner said that a black SUV had dumped a dog on their property, which they described as “old and unwell”. Deputies retrieved the pooch and scanned her for a microchip. They discovered that the dog, named Zoey, had been reported missing in 2010.

Zoey had been missing for so long that the microchip company had listed her as “deceased” in 2015. 

Deputies were able to contact the owner, who still had the same phone number after all these years. The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office posted a video of the reunion on Facebook.

The owner, Michelle, said she was “still in shock”. “I definitely didn’t expect this to ever happen so I’m really excited,” she said. Michelle said she had adopted Zoey and her twin sister as puppies. Six months later, Zoey went missing while Michelle was on a shopping trip.

Michelle said she has another 13-year-old dog at home. “I’m excited to hopefully bring [Zoey] back, get her healthy and let her live the rest of her life”.

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Rise in home, rental prices shows no sign of slowing down

Own your own home? Congratulations, you are now a member of the upper class! That’s according to economist Daryl Fairweather: “Unfortunately, the middle-class dream of homeownership has been fading away”. Home ownership in the U.S. is now “a signifier of the upper class” Fairweather says. 

A shortage of homes for sale has sparked increasing competition in the market. Middle-class homebuyers are finding themselves priced out, outbid by wealthier buyers for a shrinking pool of available properties.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has found that there are just 250,000 homes on the market in the U.S. that are affordable for buyers earning $75,000-$100,000 annually. Pre-pandemic, there about 656,000 homes in that bracket. Now, there are about 65 households within that income bracket for every available listing, compared with24 households in 2019.

Even rentals are growing further out of rich for the middle class in many markets. According to a Realtor.com analysis of properties with two or fewer bedrooms, median rent rose by 19.3% between December 2020 and December 2021 in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. In the Miami metro area, median rent rose by nearly 50%.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Ukraine: Shelling continues; more talks ahead

Shelling by Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has not slowed over the weekend. According to the State Department, between 150,000-190,000 Russian troops remain poised on Ukraine’s borders. A joint training exercise in Belarus involving some 20,000 Russian troops ended yesterday, but there so far has been no sign those troops are planning to depart as promised. This along with fears of a Russian naval blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast has the West convinced that an invasion is a matter of when, not if. 

Anonymous U.S. intelligence sources say that the Kremlin has even drawn up a “kill list”. The sources say the list contains the names of Ukrainian politicians, activists, and Belarusian and Russian dissidents who’ve sought asylum Ukraine. The list is also purported to target “vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons”. The sources fear these targets would be rounded up and arrested or killed in the event of an invasion.  

U.S. officials claim to have intel that Russian commanders have orders to proceed with an invasion. But, the official stressed, that doesn’t mean that Putin couldn’t still change his mind.

More talks to come

French President Emmanuel Macron has been attempting to broker a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. He has also pushed to set up a meeting between Biden and Putin. Biden has apparently agreed to the meeting “in principle” contingent on whether an invasion has occurred by then. But the Kremlin says that plans for such a summit are “premature”. For now, they say they are content to leave negotiations in the hands of diplomats. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Thursday.

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