Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, September 10, 1998
U.S. mortgage rates nearing 30-year lows
WASHINGTON -- Mortgage rates fell to a five-year low this week, nearing a level not seen since the late 1960s. The average interest rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 6.77 percent from 6.82 percent, the mortgage company Freddie Mac said today.
That's the lowest since 6.74 percent in late October 1993 and nearly half a percentage point lower than the high for the year, 7.22 percent, reached in late April. If the average falls below 6.74 percent next week, it will reach a 30-year low.
Freddie Mac also said 15-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, averaged 6.43 percent, a decrease from 6.51 last week and also the lowest since October 1993. On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.50 percent, down from 5.51 percent and the lowest in eight months.
Delta Air to combine first, business sections
ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. will discontinue separate first and business classes on international flights, opting for a single premium service section at the front of its planes.The plan will take effect this winter on transoceanic flights and flights to Brazil. Seats in the new section will be priced about the same as current business fares, Delta said yesterday.
Atlanta-based Delta said it will spend more than $125 million to refit its 57 planes that fly internationally. Rivals such as Continental Airlines Inc. and Trans World Airlines Inc. already have combined the two services.
The combined-service strategy is aimed at helping carriers lure more business travelers, who frequently have permission to fly in business class, but not first class. A Delta spokeswoman said demand for business-class seats on international flights is seven times higher than for first class.
U.S. satellites lost in Russian launch accident
MOSCOW -- A rocket launched by Russia to put 12 U.S. commercial satellites into orbit failed minutes after blastoff today and burned up in the atmosphere along with its cargo, officials said.The Ukrainian-made Zenit-2 booster was launched shortly after midnight by Russia's space agency from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Moscow rents from the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan. The rocket's control system failed within five minutes, shutting down the engines.
Fragments of the rocket and the Globalstar satellites fell in a sparsely populated area in southern Siberia, the Russian Space Agency said in a statement carried by the ITAR-Tass news agency. The satellites were built and operated by Space Systems/Loral, a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications Ltd. of New York.
The space agency blamed the Ukrainian manufacturer of the rocket, the state-owned design and production center Yuzhnoye, for the failed launch, ITAR-Tass reported.
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