cnn's rahel solomon is with us now.ahel, like i said, this is the gift that keeps on giving, the story of 2023 is an economy that just stayed strong. >> yeah, john, it's the story of 2023, it's the story of 2022 because, as you pointed out, this is the 35th month of job growth. so this is the gift that's been giving for almost three years now. so let's go through the numbers. 199,000 jobs, as you pointed out, in the month of november. to put that in perspective, the expectation had been closer to 180,000. when you look at the prior two months, so october, that actually remained at 150,000, that was not changed. september, however, was revised lower by about 35,000. if you look at the chart on your screen, you can see, look, this is a strong report, but you can clearly see a slowing there, a cooling there, but it is gradual in the way that i think a lot of people would like to see. now, part of the boost this month, john, was that strikes came to an end, right? you think about the auto workers joining the payrolls again,

joining us katheryn rampall and rahel solomon. thank you for being here. what a year.iously taylor swift, beyonce, so many other women boosting this economy. >> yeah. i mean, really boosting consumer spending at a time when we thought consumer spending would fall. what you have to understand, poppy, you did a good job going over numbers, these women have monumental fan bases. the women and the men who support them are spending a lot of money. colorado for its part said it expected taylor swift and its tour to pump $140 million into the colorado gdp. on average they expect that the average swifty who was attending to spend about $1300. what you have to remember is we're not just talking -- >> per person. >> per person. that's more rent. not in new york but what you have to remember is we're not just talking about the ticket sales but we're talking about the flight to perhaps get to denver, colorado, or to philadelphia. the philadelphia fed has talked about taylor swift and the impact on the hotel occupancy. also the apparel. you have to look good once you go to see thes

. >>> we have cnn's rahel solomon joining us now for this. filed an appeal not too long ago, we will have more on that in a moment, what which watches are impacted and tell us why this is happening? >> reporter: good afternoon, ladies. this is the series nine and alter two, the newer models of the apple watch. if you go to an apple store, you will likely not sit there. you certainly will not see it online. i checked myself not too long ago. it's as currently unavailable. what this really focuses on the technology that apple uses in its watches, its newer watches, to read blood oxygen levels. it is a light-based technology and it's a technology that maximal, a california-based company, says is rightfully theirs. it is covered by their patent. so this is an issue that the company and apple have sort of been in dispute over the last few years. that's where we're too october and that is when the u.s. international trade commission essentially sided with masimo. it gave sort of 60 days of review period, which is standard, which technically the bid

rahel solomon, thank you for explaining that. i was so confused and now i get it. >> a black eye we could all use. and now, the wake of trying to end affirmative action, should college students put their race on college admissions? masimomasimo. >>> months after the supreme court's decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, college students are grappling with the real-life consequences of it and if they should add their race in the admissions forms. what is the stressor of this? >> well, sara, it is the uncertainty. the college process has been a little bit mysterious and ambiguous, but it is to another level for the students who figure out the right way to approach the application, ands a result of that, the students that i am speaking with are taking starkly different approaches. >> hello, i'm lanija and i'm a black girl in s.t.e.m. >> reporter: she is one of the millions of students applying to college six months after the supreme court struck down affirmative action in college admissions navigating how and when

rahel solomon has more. >> good morning. mortgage rates continue to fall. the fifth consecutive week. 30-year u.s. mortgage rates are coming in at 7.22%. that's according to data from freddie mac. it's a bit of relief. some slight relief for homebuyers. the federal reserve began the historic rate setting campaign more than two years ago remaining laser focused on cooling the red hot housing market. investors and analysts turn their tension to the upcoming fed meeting later this month and that decision, that meeting could shape future mortgage rate movements going forward. jerome powell saying it's still too early to tell whether it's time to slam the brakes and start talking about cutting rates. take a listen. >> and in many other countries around the world, high inflation imposes a significant hardship on all households and is especially painful for those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing, and transportation. it would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance or to sp

. ♪ ♪ ♪ >>> thank you so much for joining us this afternoon, i'm boris sÁnchez alongside rahel solomonn's capital, where political gridlock on the capitol hill maybe jeopardizing the fight against russia and ukraine. right now, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is in washington pleading for congress to approve more military aid for his country. next hour, he is scheduled to sit down one-on-one with president biden. this morning, he met with senators and house members and argued that the political bickering over ukraine aid is exactly what vladimir putin wants to see. >> and yet so far, republican seem unmoved. some gop senators walked out of their meeting. also today, we have newly declassified u.s. intelligence about russia's strategy and why the kremlin is aiming for a winter stalemate. we have cnn chief congressional correspondent manu raju. he is on the hill alongside cnn reporter katie bo luis. let's start with, you manu. as we wait this white house meeting, what are you waiting for? >> nothing is changed. in fact, the stalemate persists and there are real fears that the aid

cnn's rahel solomon has more on this. what is the big takeaway from the housing market this year? certainly been a rough year for a lot of people in the housing space whether you were a buyer. whether you were a seller and whether you were an agent and 2023 was a rough year any yet 4.5 million people managed to buy a house in 2023. it seems like when you talk to folks in the space it came to one being clear about what your goals were. so if it was location, if it was affordability that would have been a tough goal and whatever the goal, you would have been clear about the strategy and being prepared to wait it out because it was a tougher year than it has been in a long time and also being willing to be flexible and it wasn't exactly the type of year in the buyer's market and you had to be creative and more compromising. >> and aggressive, i feel like. >> that would definitely help. and so the big story in 2023 was interest rates and we can show you mortgage rates over the last few years or so and take a look at november of 2020 they were practically at zero and they were between

let's get to cnn business correspondent rahel solomon to break down the numbers. >> we were talking on commercial break, this is this hot, robust? it's robust but cooler than we have seen. 199,000, phil, as you pointed out. the expectation was 180,000, right, and that is pretty much in line with the decade before the pandemic. if you look at the prior two months, october actually remained at 150,000 jobs. september was revised down 35,000 jobs. if you look at sort of where the jobs were added, these are industries like health care. they added jobs. government, manufacturing added jobs. now, part of the boost this month is, of course, the striking workers that have come after the payrolls. the auto workers, for example. you think about the actors who have come off the payrolls. that sort of boosting the top line number. we saw some declines in retail trade. wages increased. this is of course huge for the fed, increased on a monthly basis 4%. unemployment, this is something that citibank said is the most important aspect of this report. unemployment edged down slightly. went from 3.9% to

straight to cnn business correspondent rahel solomon to break down the numbers. this iteration telling us where inflation is. what do we know? >> yesterday was cpi, consumer inflation. today ppi, producer inflation. this inflation essentially businesses face. in november we saw that on a monthly basis prices actually were flat. they were unchanged. that's good news. that's actually better than what we had been expecting on an annual basis you saw prices increase slightly less than 1%, 0.9% in the report. when you look under the hood at the differenprices for goods, p things slerss services, things like hotel fares, airfares, those prices on a broad level were unchanged. also good news. i should say that the fall in energy prices was part of this. the reason why we pay attention to this prreport so closely it' what businesses pay. the thinking is that if the inflation that businesses experience could be passed on to consumers. so that's why we pay close attention to it. the fed also paying close attention to it as you said, this is their last meeting of the year.

cnn's rahel solomon with more here. what's this patent dispute over?this is about the technology that reads blood oxygen levels, a light-based technology that a california-based company says that's our technology and accuses of apple of infringing on their patent. they have been back and forth. we can show you sort of what models it applies to. they have been back and forth about this issue for years. fast forward to late october. that's when the u.s., as you said, international trade commission stepped in and essentially sided with the california-based company. so that ruling takes effect today because the biden administration did not intervene. what this means if you are looking for one of those models, one of those newer models of the apple watch, trying to get it directly from apple, you might have a hard time. you can, however, get it from some of the retailers who may have it on their shelves until they run out. the impact to apple, is the big question, a huge massive company, may not be as much as you think. i spoke to dan ives, he has been cove