Business

(NEW YORK) — If your Christmas wish list includes a nostalgic real estate investment, then the perfect property just hit the market: the house from A Christmas Story.

The iconic Cleveland, Ohio, home where Ralphie Parker begrudgingly dawned a pale pink bunny onesie and shot his spectacles in the backyard with his brand new Red Ryder BB gun, is officially for sale.

The main property, located at 3159 W 11th St., is part of a package deal with the Bumpus House, a museum and a detached garage that’s home to a 1939 Ford LaFrance firetruck — just like the one in the movie, according to the listing.

The 1.3 acre property boasts five buildings on seven parcels and includes two public and one private parking lots, plus two empty lots for possible further expansion.

Upon emailing the listing agent from the site, interested buyers will receive the following automated response:

“Thank you for your interest in the sale of A Christmas Story House & Museum. There is no list price for this opportunity. We are simply putting it our there and letting the market decide,” the email reply stated. “We will try to answer your questions. However, depending on the volume of inquires we receive we may not be able address every question.”

The email then points people to the frequently asked questions page on the listing site and encourages anyone looking to “make an offer” to respond with the following information:

1. Yourself and your background.

2. Your finances: Income, net worth, source of funds for purchase.

3. A Theme: Why I want to buy A Christmas Story House & Museum.

Chad Whitmer, the agent representing the home for Hoff & Leigh, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

The famed house was built in 1895 and was purchased for $150,000 in December 2004 off eBay, according to the listing information, which at the time “required a massive renovation to restore it to its original movie splendor.”

Since the house opened its renovated doors on Nov. 25, 2006, for public tours, the property has welcomed over one million guests and counting. The house and the neighbor’s house are also available for overnight rentals.

“Wall-to-wall anecdotes throughout, this lovely classic is both spacious and intimate. Nostalgically upgraded with somewhat ancient appliances, you’ll be sure to be the talk of town when you own this world-famous house and museum based on a beloved Christmas classic film,” the listing states.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A flood of fake accounts impersonating public figures and brands overtook Twitter last week after the launch of paid verification badges, raising fears about the supercharged spread of misinformation.

Some of the misinformation carried high stakes. A fake Eli Lilly profile garnered at least 15,000 likes for a false post announcing that the diabetes drug insulin would be given away for free. Twitter ultimately suspended the user.

A slew of other impostor accounts posed as basketball star LeBron James, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, gaming company Nintendo of America and even Tesla, the electric vehicle maker run by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk.

Twitter Blue, the newly revamped subscription service that allows users to access verification if they pay $8 a month, appeared to be unavailable on the company’s Apple iOS app for at least some users on Friday – just two days after its debut.

Before the launch of paid verification, Musk said the service would elevate users who lack the prominence previously required to attain a blue check mark. “Widespread verification will democratize journalism & empower the voice of the people,” he said.

Still, users who subscribed to the service have retained their blue check marks, leaving open the possibility of more impostors. To address the problem, Twitter has temporarily restricted verified accounts from changing their display names, the company said.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here are some simple ways to identify fake accounts on Twitter:

Click the blue check mark on the profile page

Twitter offers one surefire way to determine whether a prankster has replicated a prominent account.

The technique depends on the prior rules governing verification. Previously, Twitter verified celebrities, politicians, journalists and prominent figures on a case-by-case basis using a government-issued ID in an effort to prevent impersonation. Users who accessed verification under the old system retained their blue check mark after the change.

In turn, Twitter allows users to easily determine whether an account was authenticated under the previous, rigorous system or under the relatively lax current one. If the account appears prominent but received verification through the subscription service, then it’s almost certainly a fraud.

If a user navigates to the profile page of the account in question, he or she can click the blue check mark that appears next to the account’s name.

After clicking the check mark, a pop-up box delivers one of two messages. If Twitter authenticated the account under the previous model, the message says: “This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category.”

If Twitter verified the account through the $8 paid verification service, the message says: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.”

If a purportedly prominent account was verified under Twitter Blue, it’s quite likely a fake.

Assess the number of followers

Typically, accounts belonging to well-known figures or brands boast a large number of followers. Musk, for instance, counts 115.5 million followers; while Walmart carries more than a million followers.

If an account claims to be a prominent figure or business but lacks a significant number of followers, that’s a dead giveaway that the user in question is likely a fake.

Check the profile picture

Another hint for account sleuths centers on the profile picture. Oftentimes, a fake account features a stock image or no image at all.

By contrast, authentic accounts offer high-quality images or authentic logos that mark the account as legitimate.

Look for a bio

Similarly, fake or bot accounts often forgo the inclusion of a bio, personal information that appears on a profile page below an account’s username.

Prominent users, however, almost always include a tagline or resume as part of their profile.

Closely examine the spelling of the username

A sneaky tactic deployed by fake accounts relies on close mirroring of the official account’s username.

Soon after the launch of Twitter Blue, a fake account popped up mimicking the streaming service Apple TV+, but the fraud carried a very slight modification.

The username for the streaming service appears as @AppleTVPlus but the impostor simply replaced the second “l” with a capitalized “i,” making the fake name appear almost identical as: @AppleTVPIus.

The lesson: Look very closely at the username of a potential fake, or even copy-paste the two usernames into a different interface that allows for easier comparison.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX is now the subject of an investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Prosecutors join regulators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in investigating the circumstances of FTX’s bankruptcy.

At issue, the sources said, is whether FTX violated securities laws when it reportedly gave customer funds to Alameda Research, the trading firm of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

Authorities in the Bahamas, where FTX was located, have also launched a criminal investigation, according to a statement from the Royal Bahamas Police.

Earlier this month, concerns of financial instability at FTX — a top platform where users buy and sell crypto — triggered a wave of customer withdrawals totaling billions of dollars. But FTX lacked sufficient funds to pay sellers, instead imposing a halt on withdrawals altogether.

On Friday, FTX began bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S., as it assesses the value of its remaining assets, a company announcement said.

Bankman-Fried, 30, a prominent crypto entrepreneur and the CEO of FTX, resigned on Friday, the announcement added.

The fall of FTX centers in part on the cryptocurrency exchange’s close relationship with Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund also founded by Bankman-Fried.

FTX lent customer deposits to Alameda Research to help it meet its liabilities, and top executives at Alameda Research were aware of it, The Wall Street Journal reported.

FTX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

FTX faced a sudden selloff last week of a native cryptocurrency called FTT after news outlet CoinDesk reported that a significant portion of Alameda Research’s assets consisted of the token, calling into question the financial independence of FTX.

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of rival crypto exchange Binance, announced that he would sell $580 million worth of the token, causing a further spike in customer withdrawals that totaled $5 billion in a single day.

The selloff, akin to a bank run, put FTX in a difficult position of meeting the sudden demand for customer funds.

Some crypto traders on the platform have said they cannot access their money and may never get it back. The debacle coincides with a rough year for crypto, as the value of bitcoin has fallen more than 60%.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Twitter Blue, the newly revamped subscription service that allows users to access verification if they pay a monthly fee of $8, appeared to be unavailable on the company’s Apple iOS app for at least some users on Friday. A rise of fake accounts on the platform had coincided with the rollout of Twitter Blue two days earlier.

The flood of fake accounts impersonating public figures and brands on Twitter after the the launch of paid verification badges prompted the company to reinstate a second layer of “official” tags on Thursday, the company said in a statement.

Impostor accounts posed as a slew of well-known people and companies, including basketball star LeBron James, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, gaming company Nintendo of America and even Tesla, the electric vehicle maker run by Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk.

On Wednesday, the company said it had opted against a second layer of verification for some prominent accounts that would add an “official” tag as a means of distinguishing them from impostors. A day later, the company said that it had reversed course and would add the “official” label to some accounts.

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat, said Friday that his account was among the well-known users that had been impersonated.

“Safeguards like blue checks let users be smart, critical consumers of news and information in Twitter’s global town square,” Markey said. “Truth can’t be put on sale for $8.”

Previously, the company verified celebrities, politicians, journalists and prominent figures on a case-by-case basis in an effort to prevent impersonation.

Musk, who acquired Twitter late last month, has already made dramatic changes: firing top executives, laying off half of the company’s staff and forming a content moderation council that will review account reinstatements. The rise of fake accounts after the launch of the new subscription service marks a significant shift in the core product and user experience.

The company has vowed to permanently suspend accounts that take part in impersonation without clearly labeling it a parody account. But recent mass layoffs, which affected employees who work in content moderation, have raised concerns over Twitter’s capacity and willingness to police users.

In protest of the impersonation risks posed by the new subscription service, high-profile users like comedian Kathy Griffin over the weekend changed their usernames to “Elon Musk.” Griffin was suspended from Twitter and remained off the platform as of Tuesday afternoon.

Musk later said Griffin could regain access to her account by joining the revamped subscription service, but it was unclear if the offer was sincere.

The rollout of the new subscription offering was planned for Sunday but the company opted to delay the release until Wednesday, the day after the midterm elections, after some users and advocates raised fears over its implications for election integrity.

Amid changes on the platform, several advertisers have paused their presence on Twitter since Musk took ownership, including Pfizer, General Motors and United Airlines.

Musk, who said he overpaid for the platform at the purchasing price of $44 billion, faces pressure to boost the company’s revenue. Last week, he said that the company is losing $4 million each day.

 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk told Twitter staff during an all-hands meeting Thursday that they need to return to the office full-time, or “resignation accepted,” he can be heard saying in audio obtained exclusively by ABC News.

“Let me be crystal clear, if people do not return to the office when they are able to return to the office — they cannot remain at the company,” Musk is heard in the audio telling an employee who asked about his new plans for a 40-hour workweek at the company during an all-hands company meeting. “End of story.”

Audio excerpts from the meeting were obtained first by ABC News via a lawyer representing former Twitter employees in a lawsuit against the company. ABC News has verified the authenticity of the audio.

“Even if people returned to the office,” a Twitter employee can be heard replying to Musk, “the offices are separate offices — we won’t be in person anyways.”

“Yes,” Musk responds on the audio. “But you can still maximize the amount of in-person activity.”

Musk continued throughout the meeting to compare the company to Tesla.

“Tesla is not one place either, but you know, it’s basically if you can, if you can show up at an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted — end of story,” Musk is heard saying.

“There are plenty of people at Tesla and SpaceX that do work remotely… but it is on an exception basis for exceptional people — and I totally understand if that doesn’t work for some people,” Musk is also heard saying. “But that’s the new philosophy for Twitter.”

Twitter began layoffs on Friday that will cut roughly half of its workforce, the company announced in an email, which ABC News reviewed.

The lawsuit alleges that Twitter violated federal and California laws by not giving staff proper notice before termination. The lawsuit was amended this week to include Twitter’s alleged unfair severance offers.

Twitter hasn’t responded to the lawsuit.

The attorney representing former Twitter employees in the class-action lawsuit, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said she plans to use Musk’s words against him.

“The audio makes clear that Musk’s elimination of remote work, with no notice, is an effort to claim employees have resigned when, in fact, they have been pushed out, so that the company can try to avoid obligations under the WARN Act and promises regarding severance,” Liss-Riordan told ABC News. “This new ridiculous move is just one of the schemes Musk has come up with in an attempt to avoid paying laid off employees what they are owed.”

Musk has implemented the same back-to-work policy at Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk closed a deal to acquire Twitter in late October. Some of Twitter’s top executives were fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sam Edgett.

ABC News has reached out to Twitter.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Senior members of Twitter’s privacy and security teams have exited the company, according to an internal message from a company lawyer obtained by ABC News that warns of employment contract violations and legal repercussions if new owner Elon Musk doesn’t comply with an FTC agreement.

Among the staffers that left were chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty and chief information officer Lea Kissner, according to the message. Kissner confirmed their resignation in a Tweet earlier Thursday morning. None have responded to ABC’s request for comment.

The message was posted to Twitter’s Slack by a lawyer on Twitter’s privacy team and viewable to all staff.

“Over the last two weeks, Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter,” the lawyer wrote to fellow employees.

The Verge reported first on the lawyer’s message.

The Twitter lawyer’s message comes after Musk announced he’d require employees to be in the office 40 hours a week, eliminating remote work. The lawyer believes this is a “fundamental change to our employment contracts,” they wrote to the Slack group consisting of over 2,000 members.

“I do not, personally, believe that Twitter employees have an obligation to return to the office. Certainly not on no notice,” the attorney wrote.

“He chose to enter into that agreement,” the Twitter lawyer added regarding Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. “All of us are being put through this as a result of the choices he made.”

The Twitter lawyer reminded coworkers that they still have unlimited PTO.

“Perhaps today is a good day to take some rest and recharge,” they wrote.

This member of Twitter’s senior counsel went on to describe Musk’s apparent disregard for any potential legal repercussions that could present themselves in the near future.

In the message, the attorney brought up the Federal Trade Commission settlement Twitter agreed to in May; the company was caught using telephone numbers and emails for targeted advertising, even though they were only supposed to be used for multi-factor authentication logins. The FTC hit the company with a $150 million fine and provided Twitter with a list of new compliance rules.

If the company refuses to comply with the FTC agreement, Twitter could be fined billions of dollars, according to the company lawyer’s Slack message.

But the lawyer claims in the message that they heard Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer and current head of Twitter’s legal department, say “that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.'”

Twitter’s legal team is asking engineers to “self-certify” compliance with FTC rules and other privacy laws, according to the company attorney’s message.

“This will put a huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers,” they wrote. “I anticipate that all of you will be pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.”

An FTC spokesperson tells ABC News “we are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern. No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

The Twitter lawyer left the number for Twitter’s Ethic’s Helpline and a link to https://whistlebloweraid.org/ at the end of the email.

“It’s been an honor working with all of you,” they wrote. “I’ll be taking a day of PTO today.”

Twitter has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Consumer prices are up 7.7% over the year ending in October, but that’s a significant drop from the 8.2% inflation rate a month prior and below 8% for the first time since February.

On a monthly basis, the consumer price index increased at a rate of 0.4%, rising at the same pace that it underwent in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday.

While year-over-year inflation slowed, it remained near a 40-year high, defying a string of aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve aimed at bringing inflation down to normal levels.

The Fed last week raised its short-term borrowing rate another 0.75%, marking the latest in a string of jumbo-sized borrowing cost increases imposed by the Fed in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by cooling the economy and choking off demand.

The approach, however, risks tipping the U.S. into a recession and putting millions out of work.

The data release arrived two days after the midterm elections, when Democrats outperformed forecasts of a voter backlash against the party in control of Congress and the White House expected in part due to frustration over sky-high consumer prices.

Polling released days before the elections found that 80% of likely voters considered the economy a top issue in their vote for Congress; while 77% said the same about inflation specifically, an ABC News/Washington Post survey found.

Still, a Republican wave election did not materialize. As of Thursday, control of the House and Senate had yet to be determined.

Despite persistent inflation, growing evidence suggests that the Fed’s rate hikes have put the brakes on some economic activity.

Mortgage rates reached a 20-year high last month, as the U.S. faces an ongoing slowdown in home sales and housing construction.

Job growth has persisted at a strong rate but has shown signs of moderating.

The U.S. added 261,000 jobs in October, exceeding economist expectations and demonstrating the continued strength of the labor market.

But the hiring in October fell well below the typical jobs added over a given month in 2022. Monthly job growth has averaged 407,000 thus far in 2022 versus 562,000 per month in 2021, the jobs data showed.

While some data points to an economic slowdown, a government report released last month showed significant economic growth over three months ending in September.

U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.6% over that period; by contrast, economic activity shrank a combined 2.2% over the first six months of the year.

Inflation, however, remains a top concern for federal policymakers.

When facing high inflation, policymakers fear what’s referred to as a price-wage spiral, in which a rise in prices prompts workers to demand raises that help them afford goods, which in turn pushes up prices, leading to a self-perpetuating cycle of runaway inflation.

However, the October jobs data was the latest to ease such concerns. Average hourly earnings rose 4.7% over the past year, well below the inflation rate and a decline from 5% year-over-year wage growth the previous month.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Investors and consumers will closely watch the release of October inflation data on Thursday, little more than a week after the Federal Reserve intensified its fight to dial back inflation last matched four decades ago.

The Fed last week raised its short-term borrowing rate another 0.75%, marking the latest in a string of jumbo-sized borrowing cost increases imposed by the Fed in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by cooling the economy and choking off demand.

The approach, however, risks tipping the U.S. into a recession and putting millions out of work.

Economists expect that inflation over the year ending in October will fall to 7.9% — a highly elevated reading but one that would mark a slight slowdown from 8.2% year-over-year inflation reported the previous month.

The data release arrives two days after the midterm elections, when Democrats outperformed forecasts of a voter backlash against the party in control of Congress and the White House expected in part due to frustration over sky-high consumer prices.

Polling released days before the elections found that 80% of likely voters considered the economy a top issue in their vote for Congress; while 77% said the same about inflation specifically, an ABC News/Washington Post survey found.

Still, a Republican wave election did not materialize. As of Wednesday, control of the House and Senate had yet to be determined.

Despite persistent inflation, growing evidence suggests that the Fed’s rate hikes have put the brakes on some economic activity.

Mortgage rates reached a 20-year high last month, as the U.S. faces an ongoing slowdown in home sales and housing construction.

Job growth has persisted at a strong rate but has shown signs of moderating.

The U.S. added 261,000 jobs in October, exceeding economist expectations and demonstrating the continued strength of the labor market.

But the hiring in October fell well below the typical jobs added over a given month in 2022. Monthly job growth has averaged 407,000 thus far in 2022 versus 562,000 per month in 2021, the jobs data showed.

While some data points to an economic slowdown, a government report released last month showed significant economic growth over three months ending in September.

U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.6% over that period; by contrast, economic activity shrank a combined 2.2% over the first six months of the year.

Inflation, however, remains a top concern for federal policymakers.

When facing high inflation, policymakers fear what’s referred to as a price-wage spiral, in which a rise in prices prompts workers to demand raises that help them afford goods, which in turn pushes up prices, leading to a self-perpetuating cycle of runaway inflation.

However, the October jobs data was the latest to ease such concerns. Average hourly earnings rose 4.7% over the past year, well below the inflation rate and a decline from 5% year-over-year wage growth the previous month.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Nebraska is projected to approve a $15 minimum wage for workers amid a nationwide push for wage hikes that has predominantly taken hold in liberal states like New York, California and Illinois.

The referendum, called Initiative Measure 433, garnered support from 59% of voters in Nebraska, while ballots opposing the measure stood at 41%, according to results reported by ABC News on Wednesday.

The measure will incrementally raise the state’s minimum wage from its current level of $9 per hour to $15 per hour by 2026. Over ensuing years, the minimum wage will move in accordance with inflation.

Nebraska joins at least nine states that have raised their wage floor to $15 per hour, representing a combined 40% of the U.S. workforce, data from the left-leaning National Employment Law Project showed. The majority of those states are liberal.

Battleground or conservative-leaning states have used ballot measures to impose more modest wage hikes in previous years. Voters in Arkansas, Missouri and Arizona brought the wage in their states as high as $12 per hour, according to the nonprofit research firm Ballotpedia.

The nationwide push for minimum wage hikes intensified in 2012, when fast food workers launched a campaign called Fight for $15, aiming to raise wages and unionize the fast food sector. The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, one of the nation’s largest labor organizations, spent tens of millions of dollars in support of the effort.

The last federal minimum wage hike took place in 2009, when Congress raised the pay floor to its current level of $7.25. As of August, 30 states have raised their minimum wage above the federal level, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The ballot measure in Nebraska was not the only wage-related referendum put in front of voters on Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., voters are projected to approve a measure that will gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers from its current level of $5.05 until it matches the wage floor for non-tipped workers by 2027, according to The New York Times.

In July, the minimum wage in Washington, D.C., for non-tipped workers increased from $15.20 per hour to $16.10 per hour.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Meta will be laying off 11,000 of its employees — an estimated 13% of its workforce — and will also be taking “a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company.”

Story developing…

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.