For five years, a New York City man managed to live rent-free in a landmark Manhattan hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law. But prosecutors this week said Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed paperwork claiming ownership of the entire New Yorker Hotel building — and tried to charge another tenant rent. On Wednesday, he was arrested …

2023 was not a great year for the mortgage market. Thanks to elevated inflation and the highest interest rates in decades meant to tame it, mortgage interest rates surged, hitting their highest point since 2000. And while they’ve dropped slightly since, they’re still exponentially higher than they were in 2020 and 2021, for example. The long-term forecastfor rate cuts and …

CBS News senior foreign correspondent Debora Patta conducted a rare interview with a Hamas commander and recruiter in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, four months after the group launched its bloody terror attack on Israel, sparking the ongoing war in Gaza. The militant said the war was helping draw new members to Hamas in the West Bank — a point one …