Selena Gomez Just Pocketed $5.4 Million Selling Tom Petty’s Old Encino Mansion, and Her Closing Price Landed Suspiciously Close to a Tax Line Every Los Angeles Seller Tries Hard to Dodge

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Selena Gomez closed the sale of her Encino estate on September 9 for $5.4 million, according to The Real Deal — a price that landed right at the edge of a tax threshold nearly every seller of a high-value Los Angeles home tries to avoid. The house itself has a history that predates Gomez by … Read more

Homeowners Insurance Premiums Have Outpaced Almost Every Other Household Expense Over the Past Five Years, Federal Data Shows, and Roofs Are Quietly Driving Most of That Entire Increase

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Close-up of an asphalt shingle roof on a suburban home in warm sunlight

Homeowners insurance premiums climbed 45.8% between 2020 and 2025, according to an analysis of regulator-approved rate filings compiled by LendingTree using S&P Global RateWatch data alongside Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation figures. Over that same five-year window, the overall cost of living rose 26.1%. Insurance costs didn’t just outpace inflation — they outpaced wage growth … Read more

Selling a House During the Six Weeks Around Halloween Nets a Measurably Different Final Price Than Listing It in Spring, Real Estate Data Shows, and Most Sellers Get the Timing Exactly Backward

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Suburban house with a For Sale sign on the front lawn

Homes sold in March fetched a median 10.7% above their estimated market value, while homes sold in October averaged just 7.9% — a gap of nearly three full percentage points that shows up consistently across more than 52 million single-family home and condo sales analyzed by ATTOM Data Solutions going back to 2015. September performed … Read more

Homeowners Who Wait to Call an Insurance Adjuster Until a Roof Actually Leaks Get Denied at a Far Higher Rate Than Those Who Document Storm Damage Within 72 Hours, Industry Data Shows

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Home inspector holding a clipboard checklist while examining a house exterior

No insurance trade group publishes a single national figure for how much faster a homeowner needs to document storm damage to avoid a denial — anyone who tells you the industry has settled on a precise number, 72 hours or otherwise, is rounding a much messier reality down to a soundbite. What state insurance regulators … Read more

Federal Regulators Just Pulled a Popular Kids’ Busy Board Toy for Lead Levels That Violate a Paint Ban That’s Been on the Books for Decades, and the Sets Were Still for Sale Online Last Month

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Generic wooden toddler busy board sensory toy with buckles and zippers

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled roughly 1,835 Lontcs Busy Board toys after testing found lead levels in the zipper components that violate the federal lead paint ban — a standard that has been law for decades — and the toys were still being sold on Amazon.com as recently as July 2026, about … Read more

This Year’s Corn and Cotton Harvest Is Coming In Well Below Forecast While Soybeans Are Blowing Past Expectations, Fresh USDA Numbers Show, and Grocery and Garden Prices Could Both Feel the Ripple

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Hands holding soybeans during harvest in Paragominas, Brazil, showcasing agriculture.

The USDA’s September Crop Production report landed with a split verdict on America’s biggest row crops: corn and cotton are coming in lower than forecasters expected, while soybeans are outperforming projections, and the gap between the two stories carries real implications for anyone buying groceries or planning next year’s garden budget. The numbers, straight from … Read more

Homeowners Relying on a Private Well Are Quietly Facing Repair Bills That Dwarf Anything a City Water Customer Will Ever See, Industry Cost Data Shows, and Almost Nobody Ever Budgets for It

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A city water customer who loses water pressure calls the utility. A private well owner who loses water pressure calls a drilling contractor, and the bill that follows can run into the thousands before the faucet works again. More than 23 million U.S. households, roughly 43 million people, get their drinking water from private wells … Read more

Ohio Homeowners Have Been Slammed With the Same Flash Flood Warning Over and Over This Week, and Forecasters Say the Soil Is Now Too Waterlogged to Soak Up Another Single Drop

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Flooded suburban street in Ohio after repeated heavy rain

Ohio homeowners have been hit with the same flash flood alert again and again this week, and forecasters at the National Weather Service say the ground itself has become part of the problem: soil across southern and central Ohio is now so saturated that it can barely absorb another inch of rain before it starts … Read more

Two Completely Unrelated Baby Product Brands Just Got Told by Federal Regulators to Stop Selling Immediately This Month, and the Reason Traces Back to the Exact Same Design Flaw

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An infant lounger pillow with padded bumper sides on a nursery floor

Federal regulators issued back-to-back stop-use warnings this month for two infant products sold by unrelated companies, and the underlying problem comes down to hardware that was never built to hold up under a real baby’s weight and movement. The CPSC warned on September 10 that roughly 2,355 CooCooBaby baby loungers violate the mandatory federal standard … Read more

Child Independence Has Quietly Collapsed From 86 Percent of Kids Walking to School Alone Back in 1971 to Just a Quarter of Kids Today, a Massive New Study of English Schoolchildren Reveals

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Two children with backpacks walking to school alone on a quiet sidewalk

In 1971, 86 percent of British seven- and eight-year-olds were allowed to walk to school without an adult. By 2010, that number had fallen to 25 percent, and researchers who just finished tracking nearly 9,000 English children and teenagers say the drop is not just nostalgia bait for parents who remember riding bikes alone until … Read more