Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, December 24, 1997
Northwest bans smoking on Hawaii-Japan flights
Northwest Airlines has reversed its policy and now plans to ban smoking on its Hawaii-Japan flights starting in spring.The Teamsters Union, which represents Northwest flight attendants who have fought for the change, said the decision "is consistent with the union's belief that the right to smoke should not supersede the right to breath clean air." But the union said it would continue to fight Northwest's decision, also announced yesterday, to continue to allow smoking on Japan-U.S. mainland flights.
In May, Northwest declined to eliminate smoking from Hawaii-Japan flights, saying that doing so would put it at a competitive disadvantage.
Thirty-year mortgages drop below 7 percent
WASHINGTON -- Thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell below 7 percent this week for the first time in nearly two years, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said.Freddie Mac today said its weekly survey shows that 30-year mortgages averaged 6.99 percent, down from 7.07 percent last week and the lowest since they dropped to 6.94 percent during the week of Feb. 15, 1996. On one-year adjustable rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.53 percent, up from 5.51 percent last week. Fifteen-year mortgages averaged 6.57 percent this week, down from 6.65 percent a week earlier.
30 brokerages settle price-fixing class action
NEW YORK -- Thirty brokerage firms agreed today to pay $910 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging they colluded to fix prices on the Nasdaq Stock Market.The settlement, if approved by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in New York, would increase to $1.01 billion the total to be paid by brokerages in the 1994 price-fixing suit. Six others previously agreed to pay a total of $98.9 million.
The firms paying the most are Merrill Lynch & Co., just under $100 million; Lehman Brothers Inc., at least $80 million; Goldman Sachs & Co., $75 million; Salomon Smith Barney, at least $70 million, and Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co., $65 million.