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While home prices rose in major cities across the nation during the third quarter, data suggest that the housing market is beginning to shift to a slower rate of growth, according to the economists who put together the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report.

Their statistics show prices rose 3.2 percent in the quarter and were up 11.2 percent from a year earlier.

But economist David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, says in Tuesday's release that "existing home sales weakened in the most recent report, home construction remains far below the boom levels of six or seven years ago and interest rates are expected to be higher a year from now." Those all point to a market that's cooling or soon will be, he says.

Another such sign: The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the number of building permits issued for single-family homes in October was up just 0.8 percent from the month before.

There's one more closely watched economic indicator due Tuesday morning. The private Conference Board is due to release its November consumer confidence index at 10 a.m. ET. We'll update with that news.

Some of the sanctions against Iran will be eased under an agreement reached between Iran and six world powers over the weekend. In return, Iran promises to temporarily curb part of its nuclear program.

There's widespread agreement that sanctions have worked, squeezing Iran financially and bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. Iran's economy is, by any measure, in terrible shape.

When Barbara Slavin visited Teheran in August, she was struck by the rapid deterioration of the economy. As an Iran analyst with the Atlantic Council, it was her ninth trip to the country.

"The cost of living has gone up so fast for Iranians that they are absolutely stunned, and people are simply not able to maintain the middle-class lifestyles that they used to," Slavin says.

Iran's official inflation rate is about 40 percent. By comparison, inflation in the U.S. is less than 2 percent, and many outsiders believe prices are rising even faster in Iran than the government says, especially for food.

"You see that people are not buying meat as much as they used to because it's expensive, so they're subsisting more on rice and vegetables," Slavin says. "Even vegetables and fruits are expensive in some parts of town."

Iran has struggled with inflation on and off for decades, but the massive plunge in the value of Iran's currency — the rial — over the past two years, has made inflation more pernicious. Because the rial is so weak, Iranians have to pay a lot more for imported goods. And oil, Iran's main export and the heart of its economy, is being sidelined by sanctions. Last year, the European Union joined the U.S. in an embargo on Iranian oil.

"That really had a devastating effect," says Danielle Pletka, who tracks the Middle East for the American Enterprise Institute. She says when it was just the U.S. refusing to buy, the Iranians could easily sell its oil elsewhere in the global market.

"[But] when the Europeans came on board and decided not to buy, it had a huge impact and it cut by more than half Iran's ability to sell," she says.

Those EU sanctions last year didn't just ban Iranian oil sales. They blocked Iran from the global clearing system used by banks to process financial transactions, and Danielle Pletka says that added to the pain.

"Iran is a part of the global trading environment and they live economically through the sale of natural resources," she says. "So when you go after their banks, systematically you destroy their ability to get money."

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This week, JPMorgan Chase agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department over the sale of faulty mortgage securities that led to the financial crisis. It's the largest settlement with a single company in U.S. history.

From that settlement, $4 billion must go to help the millions of families who saw the values of their homes plummet and who still struggle to keep up with mortgage payments.

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Commerce has returned to the storm-savaged streets of Tacloban in the past week. People sell bananas along the roads, and a bustling market has sprung up across several blocks downtown.

Jimbo Tampol, who works for a local Coca-Cola distributor, drives across Tacloban selling ice-cold sodas from coolers. In a city where there is no electricity and little refrigeration, a cold soda is a big deal, a symbol of normalcy.

Children crowd around Tampol's flat-bed truck to pay their 50 cents, as if buying ice cream on a hot summer day. They run their hands along the cool, wet bottles.

"It's just now that they've been able to taste cold soft drinks since Typhoon Haiyan," says Tampol, 39, as he hauls bottles out of the water.

To cool the drinks, workers drove 16 hours round-trip to pick up the ice from a factory on the neighboring island of Samar. Because nearly all of the stores here are damaged, Tampol decided to sell the drinks himself and at only a small markup.

"You feel bad for the people," explains Tampol, who wears a Philippines national basketball team jersey. "Some of them, they're even just asking us for it when they don't have money. We just go ahead and give it to them."

Florentino Duero, 67, is a cobbler whose tools were washed away in the storm surge. He gazes at the bottles longingly with his rheumy eyes. A young aid worker hands him a 20 peso note to buy a Coke. But Duero, who wears flip-flops and a plaid shirt, decides to put the cash to something more essential.

"I'll buy rice," he says. "Before I drink, rice first."

That won't be easy; rice has been in short supply.

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