Month: November 2025

By Celeste Springer

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    EL PASO COUNTY, Colorado (KRDO) — On Monday, a judge rejected a plea agreement for disgraced funeral home director Carie Hallford in the case of 191 counts of abuse of a corpse.

Carie Hallford, along with her husband Jon, were accused of leaving close to 200 bodies to stack up and decay at their Penrose, Colorado funeral home. The two allegedly gave families fake cremains of their loved ones.

Back in November, the two pleaded guilty to 191 counts of Abuse of a Corpse, a Class 6 Felony, for leaving bodies to decay in the funeral home without cremating them.

During court on Monday, the victims made objections to the plea deal of 15 to 20 years for Carie, noting that they believe the sentence is too short for justice.

Last year, a judge rejected Jon Hallford’s plea agreement for the case. On Monday, the judge said for the same reasons, he is rejecting Carie’s.

Carie’s case will now head to trial, with a date tentatively set for Oct. 6, 2026.

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By Wakisha Bailey

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    PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — On this week’s Spreading the Love, we step aboard the Kidology Mobile Therapy Bus, a first-of-its-kind space designed to make accessible care a reality for children and their families.

Speech pathologist Luba Patlakh Kaplun and occupational therapist Molly spend their days helping children grow through play. But when Kaplun realized some families couldn’t make it to her Kidology clinics in Bucks County and Northeast Philadelphia, she decided to bring the clinic to them.

She bought an old school bus, wrapped it in the Kidology logo, and completely rebuilt the inside to mirror her in-office therapy rooms — complete with a mini sensory gym, colorful mats, and activity stations.

“I recreated the inside to look like one of our one-on-one rooms in the clinic,” Kaplun said. “We grow through play — they’re growing and learning.”

For many parents, simply getting to therapy can be the biggest challenge. The mobile bus parks right outside their homes or community centers, allowing kids to receive speech, occupational, and physical therapy sessions without the travel stress.

Mallory, a mom of two boys, Kieran and Eagan, knows how much this helps.

“With two kids, it’s hard to manage all those schedules — especially for parents who don’t have a car but their kids still need services,” she shared.

Most families use insurance to cover the cost of care — but for those who can’t easily access transportation, this bus makes all the difference.

When the session wraps up, little Kieran waves goodbye from the doorway, already asking when Kaplun and Molly will be back.

“Life is hard enough,” Kaplun said as she drove off in the bright yellow bus. “We just want to make this part a little easier. We hope to help as many families as we can.”

Kaplun isn’t stopping here. She plans to expand Kidology’s services with online programming — a virtual therapy channel to help parents guide their children’s development at home. She also offers courses to help families better understand their child’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) process.

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WFOR

By Erika Gonzalez

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    MIAMI (WFOR) — They bought homes with big dreams, and even bigger mortgage payments, hoping to refinance once rates dropped. But with interest rates still hovering near 6%, real relief hasn’t arrived.

When Eddie Capote and Beatriz Lora bought their first home together in Miami in 2023, interest rates were climbing, but so was their dream of finding a place to start a family.

“It was a full rehab project for the both of us, but now I think we’ve little by little we’ve started to make it more beautiful as the months go by,” Lora said.

But fixing up their new home was just part of the challenge. What’s been harder to rebuild is their budget.

“We’ve been waiting for rates to come down for two years,” Capote said. “Obviously, we were expecting that when we purchased they would come down sooner.”

Melinda Payne with The Truth About Lending said she’s hearing that same frustration from many of her clients stuck in refinancing limbo.

“There’s a tremendous amount of demand that is going on right now, even with the slight decreases we’ve seen over the last several months in interest rates,” Payne said.

Payne said for some homeowners who bought when rates peaked around October 2023, refinancing could finally make sense.

“We see that there are clients out there that have interest rates in the high sevens, maybe even in the low eights,” she said. “So right now, with interest rates being in the high fives to the low sixes, it’s a significant savings for them.”

Even as rates inch lower, experts say homeowners need to crunch the numbers before they refinance, factoring in the new rate, closing costs and how long they plan to stay in their home.

Payne said it’s not a one-size-fits-all decision.

“A perfect example is we have a client who owns a house right now that’s at a much higher interest rate, but he’s moving, he’s selling,” she said. “So even though he may have a 7.8% interest rate, the closing costs that he would pay just don’t make sense for him to refinance right now.”

For now, Payne said the best strategy isn’t rushing to refinance, it’s getting ready for when the right moment comes by paying down other debt, keeping your credit score high and building equity.

“What’s that magic number if it were to drop, what do we need to have? What papers do we need to have in place to to be able to refi?” Lora said.

Mortgage rates are determined by several factors, including the 10-year treasury bond yield, federal reserve policy, investment activity and other economic conditions. But this fall, many experts say the jobs market and inflation will be the top influencers on where mortgage rates head next.

As for Capote and Lora, they’re just waiting for rates to hit their goal and they hope it happens soon.

“Like a 5, 5.25%, we’re, gonna pull the trigger. I mean that’d be like $1,000 a month in savings,” Capote said. “Who wouldn’t want to do that?”

One piece of advice Payne gives her clients who are still house hunting: make sure you’re comfortable with the payment at today’s rate, not the rate you hope to get later. Because while refinancing may save you money down the line, it shouldn’t be the only plan keeping that dream home within reach.

This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate partner and does not contain original CNN reporting.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.