After a brief pullback during much of May, mortgage rates began rising again last week. That had an immediate impact on what had been several weeks of strengthening mortgage demand. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) increased to 7.05% from…
Walgreens announced Wednesday it would continue to cut prices on 1,300 items — making it the latest company to pivot to value amid signs U.S. consumers are experiencing spending fatigue. The pharmacy chain said in a statement announcing a ‘summer of savings’ that the lower prices were in response to…
The business world is increasingly banking on artificial intelligence to be the next big thing, and has found itself turning to one maker of computer chips in particular — Nvidia — to power the revolution. On Tuesday, Nvidia shares were up another 5%, leading the Nasdaq stock index, which represents…
Shares of U.S. Cellular popped nearly 6% Tuesday after T-Mobile announced that it plans to acquire most of the company, including the wireless operator’s stores, some of its spectrum assets and its customers in a deal worth $4.4 billion. The deal includes cash and up to $2 billion of debt, according to a press release…
Ryan Salame, a former top lieutenant of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has been sentenced to 90 months, or seven and a half years, in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Salame has also been ordered to pay more than $6 million in forfeiture and more than $5 million in restitution.…
Nearly six months since McDonald’s opened its first CosMc’s location, the hours-long drive-thru lines have died down, but the chain is just getting started. The burger giant created the spinoff using one of its lesser-known McDonaldland mascots, CosMc, an alien who loves McDonald’s cheeseburgers. While unveiling CosMc’s at an investor event in December, McDonald’s…
The world is mired in $315 trillion of debt, according to a report from the Institute of International Finance. This global debt wave has been the biggest, fastest and most wide-ranging rise in debt since World War II, coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic. “This increase marks the second consecutive quarterly rise and was…
Stellantis plans to offer a $25,000 all-electric Jeep vehicle in the U.S. “very soon” to better attract mainstream consumers amid slower-than-expected electric vehicle adoption, CEO Carlos Tavares said Wednesday. Tavares disclosed few details about the upcoming vehicle, saying it will be priced around $25,000 in the U.S. to emulate Stellantis’ pricing…
Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been indicted on lese majeste charges, authorities said Wednesday, the latest twist in a decades-long political saga in the Southeast Asian kingdom. The case, filed by police, alleged Thaksin violated Thailand’s notoriously harsh royal insult law during an interview he gave in 2015 to the…
Cancer is often regarded as a disease of the modern age. However, medical texts from ancient Egypt indicate that healers of the time were aware of the condition. Now, new evidence from a skull more than 4,000 years old has revealed that ancient Egyptian physicians may have tried to treat certain…