In north korea, the regime confirming for the first time it has custody of an american soldier who bolted into its territory last month. What the north is claiming he said. And back at home, Soccer Superstar lionel messi propels his miami team to new heights. We begin this morning with a Wildfire Devastation in hawaii. This morning, the white house announced President Biden and the first lady will travel to maui on monday to meet with First Responders and survivors. And as the death toll climbs to 106, were starting to learn the identities of some of the victims. They include 74yearold robert vickman, 79yearold buddy jantoc, franklin teros, who was trying to save a friends dog, Carol Hartley who lived on lahaina for 36 years and a family of four that was trying to escape. And as news crews with Cadaver Dogs Scour the area, a growing number of families are facing a grim reality, one man spoke with our affiliate khnl outside a morgue, saying he was waiting to identify his stepfathers rem
For companies building new homes across america. they are the only option that some people have out there to buy. because of that, you are getting some of the more juiced up housing starts in building permit numbers you mentioned. the thing to watch for in the coming weeks and months is whether or not you start to see some of the home builders getting more aggressive with their discounting or inseine incentives. we see mixed signals for the shopping industry. yeah. specifically the corporate financial results that we got this morning for tjx companies. this is the parent company of tj maxx, marshalls and home goods. they report better than expected profits and sales. better sales growth at existing store locations. it raised its outlook for profits for the year. these are off price retailers, ones that give bigger discounts to shoppers that frequent them.
today is the day where a lot of us are heading back to the malls of the toys and bad gifts that you may have gotten, heading back to the store. last year on this day, december 26th, americans returning more than $260 billion in merchand e merchandise, that s not cheap for retailers either. shopping tres have been shipping a little bit. joining me now is our shop analyst. tast k it is a key day for the shopping industry. talk about what we see for sales this year. yeah, you are right, halie, sales is a bit gang buster this season. part of the season why is that most of everyone is going online and shopping. a lot of people have been going, you know, not just going to their laptops and desktop computers, mobile topping had been up. cell phones to be shopping for gifts as well as ipads.
I want people to realize that you should always expect that it could happen. and i think the verbiage that they use is just it s almost a lawyer type verbiage saying that there s no credible threat. when people hear that, they drop their guard. that s largely based on economics of not trying to trying to rewin the tourist industry or the shopping industry. we just don t live in the day and age anymore where you should be putting people completely at ease. american people are smart tough. teach them that they can make the biggest difference by looking around. i think they could be giving hints to people the what to look, where to look and what to look for. all right. thanks so much, gentlemen. good to see you. so while new york city works at keeping itself protected from terrorism, the french government is trying to stop isis in its tracks in other ways.