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WASHINGTON - Mortgage rates around the country edged down this week, with rates on 30-year home loans sinking to their lowest point in a month, good news for prospective buyers.

Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.68 percent. That was down slightly from 6.69 percent last week [...]

WHAT: One-level condominium in downtown San Mateo; 2 years old; 2,440 square feet; three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, library, gourmet kitchen with center island; two deeded parking spaces in security garage; 228-square-foot storage room; shared fitness center, terrace and gardens.

WHERE: 222 Sixth Ave., Unit [...]

WASHINGTON - A major credit card company is ending a longstanding, controversial practice that critics say raised many of its customers’ borrowing costs when they applied for home mortgages and equity loans.

Capital One Financial, based in McLean, Va., says it will now report all cardholders’ credit limits to the [...]

TOKYO - Sony is recalling 416,000 digital cameras because the case may warp, creating an edge that can cut or scratch the user’s hands, the company said Thursday.

The company will replace the bottom casing, where the problem occurs, at no cost.

The recall affects 350,000 Cyber Shot DSC-T5 cameras sold [...]

MIAMI - A Japanese computer science student fails to take a full load of university classes and loses his student visa. A 10th-grade Indian girl is detained because of a high school essay she wrote on the Department of Homeland Security.

These are two of the characters in “ICED!” - a new video [...]

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. will test a free, advertising-supported version of Works, an already inexpensive package of word processing, spreadsheet and other programs, but would not say whether it is exploring a similar Web-based suite.

The company said Wednesday that a limited number of computer makers will pre-install Microsoft Works 9 SE on [...]

WASHINGTON - U.S. factories saw demand for their products improve in June - but not as much as some hoped.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that new orders placed with manufacturers rose 0.6 percent. That was better than the 0.5 percent drop registered in May. Economists, however, were forecasting a more robust, 1 [...]

NEW YORK - Corn prices climbed Thursday as traders bet on the potential for a smaller-than-expected crop this year, just when demand for the grain is running strong.

In other commodity markets, energy prices rose, while gold prices fluctuated and the market for industrial metals was mixed.

At the Chicago [...]

FRANKFURT, Germany - The European Central Bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 4 percent on Thursday as inflation in the 13 nations that use the euro remains relatively tame.

Some analysts had said the bank would act cautiously amid the global market volatility that has been fed by worries about the [...]

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. will delay the release of Office 2008 for Apple Inc.’s Macintosh computers until the middle of January 2008, in order to fix lingering bugs in the software.

The software maker previously said the new suite, which is to include Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the Entourage e-mail program, would [...]