Mortgage rates lower to 4.44 percent as economy sours

Mortgage rates (AP) 

WASHINGTON - Growing pessimism over the weak economic recovery pushed mortgage rates to the lowest level in decades for the seventh time in eight weeks.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit 4.44 percent this week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. And some brokers say homeowners looking to refinance have even managed to do so for as low as 4 percent.
Still, cheap rates have done little to boost the struggling housing market. Instead, they are highlighting investors' fears that the rebound is stalling and the country could be slipping back into a recession.
Investors are shifting their money away from stocks and into safer Treasury bonds. That is sending Treasury yields lower. Mortgage rates track those yields.
And the Federal Reserve is pushing those yields down even further. The central bank said Tuesday it would buy Treasurys to help aid the recovery, using the proceeds from debt and mortgage-backed securities it bought from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That move alone is unlikely to push average rates down to 4 percent, said Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans. But average rates that low are still a possibility if the economic outlook worsens even further.
"The silver lining to a bad economy is that interest rates fall," Walters said. "If you can lower your debt burden by refinancing, that's great."
Up to now, low rates have failed to spark a struggling housing market. Slow job growth, a 9.5 percent unemployment rate and tight credit standards have kept people from buying homes. Applications to refinance have grown but remain well short of a massive boom.
Overall home loan applications rose only 0.6 percent last week from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.
For those homeowners with solid finances, the opportunity to refinance below 4 percent is persuading some to consider 15-year fixed loans. Those average rates dropped to 3.92 percent, down from 3.95 percent last week and the lowest in decades.
More homeowners are choosing that option because it allows them to save money in the long run, though it costs more in monthly payments. Freddie Mac says nearly a third of borrowers refinancing 30-year loans in the April-to-June picked loans with 15-year or 20-year terms.
Still, savvy consumers can already find 30-year fixed rates at or near 4 percent if they are willing to pay a little more upfront.
Chik Quintans, assistant sales manager with Atlas Mortgage in Seattle, said he was able to get two clients into mortgages with a 4 percent interest rate and a fee of 1 percent of the total mortgage amount on Wednesday. But rates have inched up since then.
"Every day's different," Quintans said. "Sometimes people have to ruminate, and then the opportunity's gone."
Refinancing could pick up significantly if rates fall further. An average rate below 4.375 percent could be enough of a drop so that many people who refinanced last year could shave a half of a percentage point of their mortgage rates, said Scott Buchta, chief mortgage strategist with Braver Stern Securities.
Lenders could find themselves in a bind if traffic picks up, Buchta said. Many have laid off thousands of workers over the past three years and don't have enough staff to handle a crush of new applications.
Mortgage rates often fluctuate significantly, even within a given day. To calculate the national average, Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from about 125 banks, thrifts and credit unions around the country in a voluntary survey.
Rate quotes from parts of the country with more lending activity - such as the West and Northeast - are given more weight in creating the average.
Rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.56 percent, down from 3.63 percent a week earlier. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to an average of 3.53 percent from 3.55 percent.
The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. One point is equal to 1 percent of the total loan amount. The nationwide fee for loans in Freddie Mac's survey averaged 0.7 a point for all loans except for 15-year mortgages, which averaged 0.6 of a point.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger: 'I did the wrong thing'

Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger speaks June 4, 2001 during the 2001 Conservative Leadership Seminar at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Copyright (c) 2009 HGTV and Scripps Howard News Service

LOS ANGELES - Radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has issued an apology for saying the n-word several times this week on-air during a conversation with a caller. Dr. Laura says, "I did the wrong thing."
Dr. Laura explained she was trying to "make a philosophical point" during a heated discussion with an African-American caller who wanted advice on how to deal with her white husband. The caller said her husband allows his family and friends to say things she considers racist.
On her show Wednesday, Dr. Laura said, "I talk every day about doing the right thing. And yesterday, I did the wrong thing."
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton gave his take on the incident during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
Sharpton said, "Not only the caller was right that she said the word over and over and in a very animated way, I might add, but that she actually, if you listen carefully to the logic of what she was saying was saying that the n-word was not offensive."
In his reaction specific to Dr. Laura, Sharpton said, "Well, her first reaction was that people use the n-word all along and you are being too sensitive or something to that effect, and at no point until after the outrage that followed did she come back today and say it was wrong."

Motorola Droid 2 teardown

The guys at iFixit have done it again, this time tearing down a Motorola Droid 2 handset.

I think one of the most interesting points made by the guys at iFixit about the Droid 2 is how similar it is to the original Droid.
“Motorola made significant evolutionary changes to the Droid 2’s internals (1 GHz processor, 802.11n, etc.) that provide an overall speedier experience for the user,” said Kyle Wein, CEO of iFixit. “Yet, the phone’s internal layout is so similar to the original Droid that it is difficult to discern which is which once they’re apart. Motorola certainly took the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it route” by keeping everything people didn’t complain about exactly the same, and upgrading the bits that mattered. Who wouldn’t like smoother games and faster browsing?”
Some teardown highlights:

• The Droid 2 has a 3.7V, 1390 mAh Li-Ion Polymer battery, identical to the one found in the Droid. But Motorola is advertising a 575 minute usage time for the Droid 2, compared to a 385 minute usage time for the Droid. That’s a claimed 49% improvement while still using the same battery.
• Unlike the iPhone 4 battery’s “Authorized Service Provider Only” pull tab, the Droid 2 has a helpful note stating “Battery Removal Here.”
• The Droid 2’s 5 MP rear-facing camera with dual-LED flash supports DVD-quality video recording at 6 more FPS than the original Droid - 30 FPS vs. 24 FPS.

• The Droid 2 uses the same 3.7 inch, Full WVGA, 854×480 TFT LCD as the original Droid.

• The Droid 2 has a SanDisk SDIN4C2 8 GB NAND flash package soldered to the main board. This part wasn’t included in the original Droid. The Droid 2 only comes with a 8 GB micro SD card, so its storage capacity out the box is the same as the original. We didn’t investigate how Android handles the filesystem being split across two physical devices.
• The TI WL1271B WLAN Bluetooth/FM chip gives the Droid 2 802.11n capability, a substantial upgrade over the Droid’s 802.11g.

Another great teardown guys!

Wife ot MBTA chief leads Fenway lawsuit against agency

 

 

FAMILY AFFAIR: MBTA General Manager Richard Davey is married to Attorney Jane Willis, as seen on the Ropes & Gray Web site, who represents a property owner suing the T over the Fenway station. 

 

 

 

 

 

The wife of the MBTA’s general manager is the lead attorney in a lawsuit that centers on the construction of a new Yawkey Commuter Rail Station, the Herald has learned.
Jane Willis, a partner at Ropes & Gray, is married to MBTA general manager Richard Davey. In March 2009, Willis filed a lawsuit on behalf of HRPT Medical Buildings Realty, a neighbor of the Yawkey station - which is set to be renovated and connected to Fenway Center, a proposed $500 million residential and retail development that would straddle the Massachusetts Turnpike.
HRPT is suing the city of Boston zoning board over its approval of the Fenway Center project, and to keep the development moving forward, the board must win the suit. But Fenway Center developer John Rosenthal said he believes the lawsuit is aimed at trying to land a financial windfall from the MBTA, which wants to upgrade Yawkey station, by forcing it into an eminent domain taking.

 

“It’s outrageous,” said Rosenthal, when asked about the revelation that Davey is married to HRPT’s attorney.

Davey, who is also transit administrator of Massachusetts Department of Transportation, disclosed his wife’s involvement in the suit in a July 29 letter to state transportation secretary Jeffrey B. Mullan, four months after he was appointed and after the MBTA was subpoenaed in the suit.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said Davey recused himself when Rosenthal joined the lawsuit to aid the city. Pesaturo said there was no potential conflict prior to the developer’s involvement in the suit.
Pesaturo released a statement saying Davey has acted with “an abundance of caution” and “will remove himself from any and all real estate and construction matters pertaining to the Fenway Center development.”
State officials said yesterday that Davey disclosed his potential conflict to his “appointing authority,” as required by law.
A math whiz, Willis was portrayed by Kate Bosworth in the film “21,” which depicted a group of brainiacs from MIT and Harvard who made a fortune counting cards in Las Vegas blackjack games.
She did not return a call, but Ropes & Gray released a statement saying HRPT has been a client “for many years,” and noting that Davey was appointed a year after the suit was filed.
The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County land court on March 27, 2009, contends a property easement required by the Fenway Center project would hinder the loading operations at HRPT’s building, located at 109 Brookline Ave.
But the renovation of Yawkey station, which is critical for the MBTA, requires access to the HRPT property.
“The project is intended as a transit-oriented development, the benefits of which relate to the construction of the New Yawkey Station,” HRPT’s complaint, signed by Willis, reads.

 

Aid group: Fighters not thieves killed 10 workers

 

 

 

Photo by AP

In this combination of photos from various family and organizational sources, the ten civilian volunteers who were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday, Aug, 5, 2010, are shown. 

 

 

 

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Christian charity group said Thursday that it believes militants, not robbers, killed 10 members of its medical team last week in a remote area of northern Afghanistan.
In the first days after the attack, the group’s leaders had said they suspected the team was set upon by robbers, despite a Taliban claim of responsibility. Local police had also said they suspected a criminal motive behind the killing of six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton in the northern province of Badakhshan.
"Our own research suggests that the murders were not a robbery," Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said in a statement. "We are now working on the assumption that the attack was an opportunistic ambush by a group of non-local fighters."

 

Frans said the team was attacked as they made their return trip toward Kabul from their mission to dispense medical care to villagers in remote Nuristan province. They were set upon by gunmen as they got out of their vehicles to take a rest after crossing a swollen river just across the boundary in Badakhshan.

The account squares with that given by the lone survivor — the team’s Afghan driver Safiullah — whom Frans said has been released by Afghan authorities after questioning. An official who who was familiar with Safiullah’s testimony recounted it to The Associated Press. The official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release details of an ongoing investigation.
According to Safiullah — who goes by one name — an Afghan man in the area offered to help the team as it was trying to cross the river. Two members of the team — including leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York, who had worked in Afghanistan since the late 1970s — rolled up their pants legs and waded in to find a spot shallow enough for the vehicles to ford the river.
After successfully crossing, the team stopped to take a break in a forested area at the side of the road, which ran through a narrow valley. They wanted to get ready for their long journey back though Badakhshan province and on to Kabul.
The Afghan man who had offered to help the group left. Then came the attack. The gunmen rushed in, firing bullets over the medical team members’ heads. Moments later 10 of the team were dead.
It appears from accounts of survivors that the gunmen came from the Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan which is closer to the Pakistani border. Insurgent infiltration has increased in that area since the U.S. abandoned small combat outposts that proved too difficult to defend and resupply.
Safiullah told investigators he believes the lead gunman was Pakistani because he yelled "Jadee! Jadee!" — a word used in several regional languages that means "hurry up." It is more commonly used in Pakistan and India than Afghanistan. He said all the attackers understood Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan, but conversed in Pashaye, a local dialect used only in parts of the northeast corner of Afghanistan.
Safiullah was taken hostage by the attackers and said they walked toward a flashing light that Safiullah said was meant to guide them to a village near Barg-e-Matal, scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks between government forces and militants who crossed over from Pakistan.
The attackers later let Safiullah go and he fled on foot, eventually finding his way back to the town in Nuristan where the group had left their three four-wheel-drive vehicles and rented eight horses at the beginning of the trip.
Frans said that since the killings, International Assistance Mission has received hundreds of e-mails, phone calls and letters. "All but a few have paid tribute to the team members who were killed, to their selfless service and to IAM’s commitment to continue working alongside the Afghan people," he said.
In a statement issued Thursday from its headquarters near Geneva, the World Medical Association condemned the attack as a violation of international law.
"It is a tragedy that these doctors were killed while trying to provide medical care to desperate people in need of help. Physicians must always be given free access to patients, to medical facilities and equipment as well as the protection needed to carry out their professional activities," the association said.

 

 

 

 

Wikileaks boss scoffs at appeal to halt disclosures

Photo by AP

Founder and editor of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LONDON - WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange said yesterday he is preparing to release the rest of the secret Afghan war documents his group has on file. The Pentagon warned that would be even more damaging than the initial release of some 76,000 war files.
That initial disclosure of classified military documents on Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010 angered U.S. officials and was welcomed by the Taliban.
The U.S. military has accused WikiLeaks of endangering the lives of soldiers and Afghan informants and demanded that the group refrain from publishing any more secret data. Speaking via videolink to London’s Frontline Club, Assange said he had no intention of complying. He gave no timeframe for their release but he said that his organization was about halfway through about 15,000 remaining files.

 

“We’re about 7,000 reports in,” he said, claiming a “very expensive and very painstaking” process is under way to ensure no Afghans will be harmed.

U.S. authorities, who have thrown the resources of the military and the FBI into investigating the source of his scoop, focusing on Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst accused of leaking a classified helicopter gunship video to Wikileaks. The Pentagon has a task force of about 100 people reading the leaked documents to assess the damage and alert Afghans who might be in danger.
Taliban spokesmen have said they would use the material to try to hunt down informants.
Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders accused Wikileaks of recklessness, showing “incredible irresponsibility.”
“WikiLeaks has in the past played a useful role by making information available . . . that exposed serious violations of human rights and civil liberties which the Bush administration committed in the name of its war against terror,” RWB secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard said in an open letter. “But revealing the identity of hundreds of people who collaborated with the coalition in Afghanistan is highly dangerous.”
Human rights groups have also criticized the disclosure. Meanwhile, the United States has also reportedly urged its allies to look into Assange and his network of activists.

 

 

New Amazon monkey species discovered in Colombia

Photo by AP

A new species of titi monkey, Callicebus caquetensis, was found in the Colombian Amazon region. The monkey is the size of a cat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOGOTA, Colombia — A new Amazon monkey species has been discovered in Colombia, and researchers said Thursday they believe the small, isolated population is at risk due to the cutting of forests that are its home.
The find was announced by Conservation International, a group that helped finance the research in remote rain forests that until recently were considered too dangerous for scientific work due to the presence of leftist rebels.
A team of researchers from the National University of Colombia observed 13 groups of the new species — dubbed the Caqueta titi monkey because it was found in the southern state of Caqueta, near Peru.

 

The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Primate Conservation, believe the species may be critically endangered. They estimate less than 250 of the monkeys exist and say the felling of forest for agriculture threatens their habitat.

The new variety of titi monkey, which has the scientific name Callicebus caquetensis, is the size of a cat and has grayish-brown hair. What sets it apart from other types of titi monkey species is its lack of a white bar on the forehead.
"It’s a spectacular finding," said Jeffrey French, a biology and psychology professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who works with primates in the Amazon in Brazil.
Some formerly rebel-held regions of Colombia have become safer in recent years due to the government’s gains against guerrilla bands, facilitating efforts to search for oil and precious metals as well as flora and fauna.
The research team, including professors Thomas Defler and Marta Bueno and student Javier Garcia, visited Caqueta in 2008 — three decades after Martin Moynihan, an animal behavior expert, first caught sight of the species in the area. Insecurity in the area prevented research to confirm his sighting until the team arrived.
The researchers say the monkeys are monogamous — unlike most primates but common among titi monkeys — and often have one baby a year. They have complex calls and were spotted often moving around in groups of four.
Juan Mayer, a former Colombian environment minister, said that due to deforestation, "huge efforts will have to be made to protect the creature’s habitat."
Paul Garber, a primate researcher and anthropology professor at the University of Illinois, said titi monkeys play important roles in the forest, dispersing seeds, pollinating plants and helping the forest regenerate.
He said the new variety of monkey is important because it shows there are probably other undiscovered primate species in the world’s tropical forests.
"We need to provide resources to aid scientists so that these species can be identified, studied and protected," Garber said.