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Average long-term US mortgage rate climbs to 6.79 percent this week

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate climbed this week to its highest level since November, driving up borrowing costs for would-be homebuyers at a time when the housing market is being held back by a near record-low inventory of homes on the market. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan rose to 6.79% from 6.57% last week. A year ago, the rate averaged 5.09%. The latest increase marks the third in three weeks and lifts the average rate on a 30-year home loan to its highest level since it surged to ...

Airline asking passengers to weigh in before their flights

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s national airline is asking passengers to step on the scales before they board international flights. Air New Zealand says it wants to weigh 10,000 passengers during a monthlong survey so pilots can better know the weight and balance of their planes before takeoff. But the numbers from the scales won’t be flashing up for all to see. There will be no visible display anywhere, the airline promised, and the weigh-in data will remain anonymous even to airline staff. “We weigh everything that goes on the aircraft — from the cargo to ...

CEO pay growth decreasing

The Associated Press After ballooning for years, CEO pay growth is finally slowing. The typical compensation package for chief executives who run S&P 500 companies rose just 0.9% last year, to a median of $14.8 million, according to data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar. That means half the CEOs in the survey made more and half made less. It was the smallest increase since 2015. Still, that’s unlikely to quell mounting criticism that CEO pay has become excessively high and the imbalance between company bosses and rank-and-file workers too wide. Discontent over that gap ...

Women who sit atop S&P 500 companies, thinner paychecks as median compensation slips

NEW YORK (AP) — Last year was a mixed bag pay-wise for the women who run companies in the S&P 500 -- compensation increased for more than half of them, but the median pay package fell 6%. Of the 343 CEOs in the compensation survey of S&P 500 companies done by the AP and Equilar, only 20 were women. Because they are a small group, changes in pay for only a few can easily skew the overall figures. The drop comes after a 26% jump in the value of pay packages for female CEOs in 2021, a year when compensation reflected a recovering economy and soaring stock prices and profits. Many ...

Tenn. man runs possum rehab facility

By EMILY CRISMAN For The Associated Press CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Chattanooga is home to one of the nation’s largest possum rehabilitation facilities, Opie Acres, where the number of possums and other small mammals is growing every day thanks to a steady influx of babies arriving this spring. “Just within the past month and a half, we have been bombarded all day, every day,” said founder and Clinical Director Jerry Harvey, referring to calls he has received from people finding baby possums and other small mammal newborns. Harvey has been rehabilitating wildlife for 40 ...

Agriculture and Interior Depts. invest $2.8 billion

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior today announced a proposed $2.8 billion in funding for fiscal year 2024 authorized by the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) to improve infrastructure, recreation facilities, federal lands access, and land and water conservation. Enacted in August 2020, GAOA established the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, authorizing up to $1.9 billion per year, from fiscal years 2021 through 2025 to reduce the deferred maintenance backlog on federal lands and at Bureau of Indian Education schools. GAOA also ...