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As mortgage rates top 8%, what home buyers should know

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

By Kate Wood | NerdWalletInterest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have hit yet another high, with lenders offering loans above 8% for the first time since 2000. Mortgage rates have gone up rapidly this year, rising two full percentage points from lows near 6% back in February.That’s been brutal for home buyers, who have watched their buying power erode. At a 6% interest rate, a buyer looking to spend $2,000 a month on principal and interest could afford a loan of roughly $333,500. With interest rates at 8%, that same buyer can afford only $272,500. Their target home price has dropped $61,000 as more of that monthly payment has to go toward servicing interest.Here’s why mortgage interest rates are so high, and why they could remain elevated. Still, there are ways that home buyers can contend with such a challenging housing market.Why mortgage rates climbed so highA year ago, many housing economists, including in forecasts from Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Ass...

Crash closes northbound I-5 lane at Del Mar Heights Road

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- One lane of Interstate 5 remained closed at Del Mar Heights Road Monday morning following a crash.All lanes were initially blocked as a result of the collision, which involved multiple vehicles, Caltrans San Diego reported at 5:40 a.m. FOX 5's Traffic Map By 7:40 a.m., the HOV and left four lanes had reopened. The right lane was still closed.Check back for updates on this developing story.

Brush fire burns 24 acres near Lower Otay Lake

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Cal Fire crews are battling a multi-acre brush fire that broke out near the Lower Otay Lake Sunday afternoon.The fire, called the "Border 34" fire, was stopped at 24 acres, according to officials. As of 8:30 p.m., it was 60% contained.The fire, which broke out around 3:30 p.m., had a moderate rate of spread with the potential to reach 75 acres, the department said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.No structures or homes were threatened with the fire, officials said. Brush fire near border prompts closure to I-8 The cause of the fire remains under investigation by Cal Fire. However, it came as the Santa Ana winds continued strengthening, giving way to elevated ignition risk across the county.Gusty eastern winds are expected to continue at high speeds through Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.Farther north, parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties were placed under a red flag warning through Monday due to the risk of fire ignition wit...

Venezuela’s high court has suspended the opposition’s primary election process, including its result

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s high court on Monday suspended the opposition’s entire primary election process, including its result, in the latest challenge by the government of Nicolás Maduro to its adversaries ahead of the 2024 presidential vote.The court ruled the opposition’s Oct. 22 contest may be in violation of the law. It was not immediately clear whether the suspension would effectively result in the nullification of the primary vote.The Associated Press could not immediately seek clarification from the head of the National Primary Commission as he entered the attorney general’s office minutes after the ruling was issued. The commission is an independent body that formed to organize the opposition’s primary.Maduro and allies have ridiculed and minimized the primary all year, but they escalated their attacks after the election exceeded participation expectations. More than 2.4 million Venezuelans in the country and abroad voted, including in areas once co...

Climate change: Droughts, heavy rain turn Canada’s pumpkin harvest spooky

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

Severe weather across Canada caused by climate change has wreaked havoc with the pumpkin harvest this year.Nova Scotia pumpkin farmer Danny Dill says the spring planting season was arid because of wildfires, then heavy rains in the summer flooded his fields.Dill, owner of Howard Dill Enterprises in Windsor, N.S., calls this year’s pumpkin season “spooky,” adding that it’s the worst harvest he’s had in his 40 years of farming.Pumpkin farmer Mike Williams of Ponoka, Alta., says the weather was so dry when the season began that he irrigated his farm with 12,000 litres of water every week for two months — and the bill to run the pump won’t be covered by the harvest.This year’s severe weather — climate change-exacerbated droughts followed by heavy rain — has also hit pumpkin farmers hard in the United States.Some growers in states like Texas, New Mexico and Colorado lost 20 per cent or more of their predicted yields, while others left their land ...

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s securities fraud trial set for April, more than 8 years after indictment

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will stand trial on securities fraud charges in April, a judge ruled Monday, more than eight years after the Republican was indicted and a month after his acquittal in an impeachment trial over separate corruption accusations.Paxton was in the courtroom when state District Judge Andrea Beall of Houston set the April 15 trial date in the long-delayed criminal case, which began in 2015 when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of duping investors in a tech startup. At the time, the felony charges appeared to threaten his political career. But Paxton, who has pleaded not guilty, has instead become an even more dominant figure in the Texas GOP and won reelection twice since his indictment.The scheduling of the trial comes at a moment when Paxton has appeared politically recharged after the Texas Senate acquitted him on impeachment charges over accusations that he used his office to help a political donor. Since then, Paxton has retu...

Federal charge says former North Dakota lawmaker traveled to Prague with intent to rape minor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A former, longtime North Dakota lawmaker has been indicted on a federal charge alleging he traveled to Prague with the intent to rape a minor.The four-page indictment against former state Sen. Ray Holmberg also charges him with one count of receiving images depicting child sexual abuse. The indictment was filed Thursday in federal court in North Dakota. It accuses the 79-year-old Holmberg of traveling from North Dakota to the Czech Republic from about June 2011 to November 2016 to rape a person under age 18. Phone and text messages left with Holmberg’s attorney on Monday were not immediately returned. A text message sent to Holmberg was not immediately returned and voicemail on his phone was not set up, so a message could not be left. Jack Dura, The Associated Press

Halloween weekend shootings across US leave at least 11 dead, scores injured

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Shootings across the U.S. over the weekend before Halloween have left at least 11 people dead and more than 70 injured, authorities said.The deaths between Friday and Sunday included two in Tampa, Florida, three in Texarkana, Texas, and two each in Dodge City, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; and Mansfield, Ohio, according to police. Many involved altercations arising from Halloween celebrations, including the mass shooting in Tampa’s Ybor City section early Sunday as bars were closing and scores of people in costumes spilled out on the streets before groups began arguing.The spate of weekend violence unfolded as people mourn the 18 people killed by a gunman last week in Lewiston, Maine. More than 1,000 people turned out Sunday for a vigil.“A neighborhood bar. A bowling alley. A Halloween party. It seems we can’t go one day without a mass shooting in America,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, a gun violence prevention group. “Anger plus firearms is a...

Passenger rights overhaul will barely dent bottom line, Air Canada says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

MONTREAL — Air Canada says the country’s passenger rights overhaul will hardly hurt its bottom line.On a call with analysts Monday, chief financial officer John Di Bert said the financial impact of the reforms will be “incremental.”He says the full impact of the updated rights charter will become more apparent in 2024, noting there would be some added pressure.In April, the federal government announced sweeping reforms to the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, with the specifics now being hashed out by Canada’s transport regulator.The changes appear to scrap a loophole through which airlines have denied customers compensation for flight delays or cancellations when they were required for safety purposes.The new rules also ratchet up the maximum penalty for airline violations to $250,000 — a tenfold increase — and put the regulatory cost of complaints on carriers.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2023.Companies in this story: (T...

Tropical Storm Pilar heads toward El Salvador and is expected to bring heavy rain to Central America

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:25 GMT

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Tropical Storm Pilar threatened to bring heavy rain and flash flooding to El Salvador and other parts of Central America as it sat just off the Pacific coast Monday.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Pilar was located about 225 miles (360 kilometers) southwest of San Salvador with winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was moving east-northeast at 6 mph (9 kph).The storm was expected to maintain that general track for the next day or two, stall for a day or more just off the coast and then abruptly turn around and head back out to sea without making landfall, the center said.The storm was forecast to dump five to 10 inches (12-24 centimeters) of rain from El Salvador to Costa Rica with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some areas.El Salvador’s government put the country on alert Sunday and Congress declared a national emergency, which allows civil defense authorities to force evacuations for people who are at risk.Classes were suspended across the ...