×

Quick Takes

NEW OFFICER: John F. Murray, a 2010 graduate of Catholic Central High School, graduated from the Newport News, Va., Police Academy on June 1. He is now a rookie officer with the Newport News Police Department.

EL AL CORRECTNESS: The Israel Religious Action Center filed a case on behalf of Renee Rabinowitz — an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor who had said she felt humiliated when an El Al flight attendant asked her to move from her seat at the request of an ultra-Orthodox man. Laws observed by some ultra-Orthodox Jews stipulate strict separation of the sexes.

According to the decision, requesting a passenger to move their seat based on gender amounts to discrimination.

“Just as they wouldn’t move someone if they said ‘I don’t like Arabs, I won’t sit next to an Arab,’ they would say ‘we are sorry, we can’t accommodate that’, it’s the same thing now with gender,” Rabinowitz said.

The center called the ruling “revolutionary.” It said El Al was ordered to pay Rabinowitz about $1,700 in damages.

In a statement, El Al said the sides had reached an agreement and that the airline would respect the ruling.

GM FREEDOM: General Motors Co. is no longer under government supervision stemming from its defective ignition switches.

GM agreed to a three-year consent order in 2014 that required regular discussions with government regulators about recalls and other safety issues.

The order was prompted by GM’s recall of 2.6 million small cars with defective ignition switches that have been linked to more than 120 deaths. The government found that GM had stalled for at least a decade before recalling the cars.

GM said it has proposed continuing monthly meetings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to discuss safety issues.

always be closing: Sears is closing another 20 stores as the ailing retailer tries to turn around its business.

Real estate investment trust Seritage, which owns the 20 real estate properties, confirmed the closings– 18 Sears stores and two Kmart stores — in a government filing Friday.

In 2015, Sears Holdings Corp. sold 235 Sears and Kmart store locations to Seritage as part of an agreement in which Sears leases the stores back from the real estate company.

A Sears spokesman says the stores will close in mid-September; liquidation sales will begin by the end of June.

This is an addition to the closing of a total of 226 stores — 164 Kmart stores and 62 Sears stores — announced so far this year, according to research firm Fung Global & Retail Technology, which tracks retailers’ closings.

Locally, Sears closed its Fort Steuben Mall store in 2016.

NEW HOME SALES: Sales of new homes rebounded in May, helped by strong sales gains in the South and West.

Sales new single-family homes rose 2.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 610,000, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

That followed a 7.9 percent drop in sales in April which was the biggest monthly decline in eight months.

Sales gains of 6.2 percent in the South and 13.3 percent in the West overcame big declines of 25.7 percent in the Midwest and 10.8 percent in the Northeast.

The Midwest drop was the largest in that region in nearly three years.

The median price of a home sold last month rose to a record $345,800, up 16.8 percent from a year ago. Prices have been increasing as demand has outstripped supply.

From staff and wire reports

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.73/week.

Subscribe Today