Business Briefs: Mortgage rates drop, reports

Nation

Mortgage rates drop, Freddie Mac reports

WASHINGTON — Mortgage rates dropped this week, providing a dose of welcome news to prospective home buyers. Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, reported Thursday that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.20 percent for the week ending Nov. 6. That was down sharply from 6.46 percent last week. Thirty-year mortgage rates hit a high for the year of 6.63 percent in late July, and then dropped to a seven-month low of 5.78 percent for the week ending Sept. 18. Rates on other types of mortgages also fell this week.

Smucker adds Folgers to its cabinet of brands

ORRVILLE, Ohio — Jelly and jams maker J.M. Smucker Co. has completed its $3 billion deal to buy Folgers coffee from Procter & Gamble Co. The previously announced deal closed Thursday and nearly doubles the size of Smucker. Smucker expects to add 150 to 200 jobs in the next year to its headquarters staff of 1,300 in Orrville in northeast Ohio. Smucker products include Crisco cooking oil, Jif peanut butter, Uncrustables sandwiches, Pillsbury baking mixes and Hungry Jack potatoes and pancakes.

Salvagers expect riches in Atlantic shipwrecks

TAMPA, Fla. — Florida deep-sea explorers who struck it rich in 2007 on the wreck of a Spanish galleon say they have found two more shipwrecks in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Odyssey Marine Exploration filed documents in Tampa federal court Wednesday seeking exclusive salvage rights to the unnamed wrecks found more than 300 miles outside the English Channel. The company believes both sites could yield valuable cargo.

Southwest Airlines Ready for Twin Cities

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Twin Cities travelers are getting a look at what it will mean to have Southwest Airlines Co. come to their town. Southwest on Thursday announced its fares and schedule — eight flights a day to Chicago Midway, as low as $69 each way, although walk-up fares will be higher. Southwest’s entry into Minneapolis has been closely watched because it is an assault on a so-called fortress hub of Northwest Airlines.

Contaminated drugs seized in Cincinnati

WASHINGTON — Federal agents Thursday seized quantities of a contaminated blood thinner made in China from a small manufacturer in Cincinnati, officials said. The blood thinner heparin, given to patients undergoing heart surgery and kidney dialysis, was the focus of a major recall earlier this year after crude drug material from China was found to be contaminated. Hundreds of frail patients suffered severe allergic reactions. The government received reports of nearly 250 deaths.

World

French retailer bans Chinese footwear

PARIS — A popular French clothing chain has stopped selling Chinese-made boots and shoes containing an anti-fungal sachet previously blamed for causing rashes, the store said Thursday. The store, Etam, pulled the product off its shelves, cut commercial ties with the supplier and forbade its other suppliers from using the sachets. They contain dimethylfumarate, meant to fight humidity and mold. But the substance was blamed in a similar case in France.

AP Wire

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