BoxLunch opens store at Hamilton Place
BoxLunch, a retailer of pop culture-inspired gifts, accessories and apparel for men and women, has opened at Hamilton Place mall.
Located on the upper level near JCPenney and occupying 2,075 square feet, BoxLunch offers a curated selection of licensed shirts, accessories, collectibles, beauty, home goods, gifts and novelty merchandise.
The new-to-the-market store will celebrate its grand opening weekend with live music from KISS FM103.7, trivia games and in-store giveaways and promotions.
“We know that they will bring something fresh and new to the merchandise mix at Hamilton Place and contribute to the Chattanooga community through their civic-minded mission,” said David Meadows, the mall’s general manager.
To fulfill its philanthropic mission of “Get Some. Give Back,” BoxLunch will donate meals to Feeding America for every $10 spent in the store.
Home buying drops 2.3 percent in April
Americans pulled back their pace of home-buying in April, as the shrinking number of houses for sale and rising prices are putting them in a bind as their options dwindle.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes declined 2.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million. Still, a stable job market has supported solid demand from buyers as home purchases are 1.6 percent higher than a year ago.
But the specter of fewer homes for sale is starting to squeeze the market. The inventory of homes for sale has declined on an annual basis for the past 23 months, creating a shortage that has pushed up prices above income growth.
“The demand side of the housing market is just fine, but the supply side is where the issues are,” said Richard Moody, chief economist at Alabama-based Regions Financial.
The number of properties listed for sale has plunged 9 percent over the past 12 months to 1.93 million. Homes are staying on the market for a median of just 29 days, the shortest period since the Realtors began tracking this metric in 2011. The fast-moving market has fueled rising home values that have priced some entry-level buyers out of the market.
The median sales price has risen 6 percent from a year ago to $244,800. But the sales volume of homes worth less than $250,000 has declined over the past year, while homes worth more than the median have experienced sales growth.
J&J pays $33 million over recalled medications
Johnson & Johnson has reached a $33 million settlement with 42 states, resolving allegations the health care giant sold numerous nonprescription medicines that didn’t meet federal quality requirements for a couple of years.
The settlement was announced Wednesday by attorneys general in the states. The case dates to 2009, when Johnson & Johnson began dozens of voluntary recalls of popular over-the-counter medicines for children and adults, including Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl.
Those and several other products, made at J&J factories in Puerto Rico and suburban Philadelphia, were recalled for issues including unpleasant smells, metal shards in liquid medicines and wrong ingredient levels. Many products weren’t available in stores for years.
In a statement, J&J said the recalls were precautionary.
Judges divided over consumer agency power
Federal appeals judges are divided as they hear arguments over whether the president should be able to more easily fire the head of the government’s consumer finance watchdog agency.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a rare hearing Wednesday by all its judges, took up the politically charged case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the power of its director. The judges are reconsidering a ruling last fall by a divided three-judge panel that would make it easier for President Donald Trump to fire CFPB Director Richard Cordray. He was appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama.
Lawyers for the Trump administration and a company sanctioned by the consumer agency argued that the way the CFPB was created, by Obama and Democrats in Congress after the financial crisis, violated the Constitution, by giving the director excessive power.
The 10 judges – six appointed by Democratic presidents and four by Republicans – appeared split along ideological fault lines as they challenged, in turn, the opposing arguments put forward by the Trump administration and the CFPB.
In an unusual turn, the Trump Justice Department is opposing the consumer watchdog agency within its own government.
“This agency goes further than anything Congress has attempted to do in history,” declared Ted Olson, the prominent attorney with Supreme Court victories who represents the mortgage lender in this case, PHH Corp. The company was accused of illegal conduct by the CFPB and was ordered to pay $109 million, then struck back by bringing the case that has raised constitutional issues and moved up to the nation’s second most influential court.
The appeals panel ruled in October that the way the CFPB is organized violates the Constitution’s separation of powers by limiting the president’s ability to remove the director. The law creating the CFPB allows its director to be removed only “for cause” – such as neglect of duty – and not over political differences. The judges said that conflicts with the Constitution, which allows the president to remove officials for any reason.