Good morning.

The first full day of Spring in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:55 and sunset 7:08 for 12h 13m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM. 

On this day in 1815, after escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

For generations, the National Association of Realtors® has controlled (as though it were part monopoly, part cartel) the process of buying and selling homes. That control has now come to an end with much of the credit going to a personal injury lawyer in Missouri and his five clients. 

The end of the Association’s stranglehold on the housing market is a legal victory that’s brought about a free-market victory for buyers and sellers. See Powerful Realtor Group Agrees to Slash Commissions to Settle Lawsuits (‘The National Association of Realtors will pay $418 million in damages and will amend several rules that housing experts say will drive down housing costs’) and Five Ways Buying and Selling a House Could Change (‘The National Association of Realtors has agreed to change its policies to settle several lawsuits brought by home sellers — a move that could reduce commissions’). 

These changes won’t solve housing shortages in Whitewater or other small towns, but they will benefit buyers and sellers across the nation in reduced commissions. (America has had among the highest commission fees in all the developed world.)

Well, done, Missouri attorney Michael Ketchmark and clients. You’ve helped all the nation end entrenched, expensive, anti-competitive practices. 

Notre Dame Cathedral could reopen at the end of 2024 as new spire emerges: