CNN BUSINESS | Zillow will now make cash offers for homes based on its ‘Zestimates’

New York (CNN Business)  – Zillow is no longer just an online platform for browsing available homes or for creeping on the value of your neighbor’s house. In recent years, the company has also begun actually buying, fixing up and selling homes itself through a new division called Zillow Offers — a major shift in its business model.

On Thursday, the company announced a new feature aimed at streamlining the process for homeowners considering selling to Zillow.

For certain homes, Zillow’s “Zestimate” — the online estimate of the home’s value — will now represent an initial cash offer from the company to buy the property. That could mean an even quicker timeline for homeowners looking to close a sale without going through the hassle of a formal listing, or a source of helpful data for would-be sellers who want to know how much money they’ll have to buy their next house.  –read more—

CNN | He had to drop out of Morgan State for financial reasons. Now he’s given $20 million to the university

(CNN) – Two years after Calvin Tyler first enrolled at Morgan State College, he had to drop out because he couldn’t afford it.

He took a job as a UPS driver, one of the first 10 in Baltimore. Now — almost 40 years later — Tyler has made the largest-ever private donation from an alumnus to the historically Black school, now Morgan State University, it announced Tuesday.  —read more— 

CNN BUSINESS | Housing market concerns begin to emerge

New York (CNN Business) – The housing market is still red hot. But there are growing concerns about how much longer this strength can last.

Home Depot (HD) reported earnings and sales that topped Wall Street’s forecasts Tuesday. Lowe’s (LOW) also reported better-than-expected earnings and sales on Wednesday morning, and CEO Marvin Ellison said in a statement that sales were lifted thanks to “broad-based demand driven by the continued consumer focus on the home.”

Still, rising interest rates could eventually be a problem for Home Depot and Lowe’s. Even though the Federal Reserve is expected to keep its key short-term rate near zero for the foreseeable future, longer-term bond yields have started to spike. And mortgage rates are influenced more by the 10-year Treasury than Fed rates.  –read more— 

CNN style Arts | Bereft of visitors, the Louvre keeps busy with major refit and restorations

As the world’s most visited museum awakens, escalators that once carried up to 40,000 pairs of feet a day loop quietly through the empty lobby.

Lockdown restrictions shuttered the Louvre in late October, leaving world-famous artworks like “Venus de Milo,” “Liberty Leading the People” and the “Mona Lisa” without their usual crowds of admirers.

But they’re not completely alone — the museum is making the most of the closures by carrying out long-planned renovations.

“(The Louvre) is still living, even though it seems really asleep from the outside,” says project manager Gautier Moysset, standing in front of a set of 19th-century doors that once opened onto the bedchamber of French kings.  –read more—

CNN SPACE + SCIENCE | NASA shares first video and audio, new images from Mars Perseverance rover

(CNN) – During its harrowing descent to the surface of Mars last Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance rover captured video that the agency is calling “How to Land on Mars.” The video, along with other newly released footage, gives earthlings back home a better sense of the sights and sounds on the red planet.

Cameras on “Percy,” as the rover is affectionately called at mission control, show for the first time the perspective of a spacecraft landing on Mars. The video begins 230 seconds after the rover entered the Martian atmosphere, with the inflation of the rover’s parachute 7 miles above the Martian surface, and ends with the rover touching down on the surface.  –read more— 

CNN US | Before MLK Jr. or Rosa Parks, there was this 15-year-old

Meet Claudette Colvin, a Civil Rights hero you’ve probably never heard of. In 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus — 9 months before Rosa Parks. This is part of our “History Refocused” series — stories from America’s past you should have heard about, but probably didn’t.  –see video— 

CNN politics | Black women’s roles in the civil rights movement have been understated — but that’s changing

Washington (CNN) – Claudette Colvin did a revolutionary act nearly 10 months before Rosa Parks.

In March 1955, the 15-year-old was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

The teenager and others challenged the law in court. But civil rights leaders, pointing to circumstances in Colvin’s personal life, thought that Parks would be the better representative of the movement. “People said I was crazy,” Colvin recently told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “Because I was 15 years old and defiant and shouting, ‘It’s my constitutional right!’ ”  —read more— 

National Women’s History Museum | Bessie Coleman – The first Black woman to become a pilot

Bessie Coleman soared across the sky as the first African American, and the first Native American woman pilot. Known for performing flying tricks, Coleman’s nicknames were; “Brave Bessie,” “Queen Bess,” and “The Only Race Aviatrix in the World.” Her goal was to encourage women and African Americans to reach their dreams. Unfortunately, her career ended with a tragic plane crash, but her life continues to inspire people around the world.  –read more—