WASHINGTON (AP) — Record-low mortgages below 3% are long gone. Credit card rates will likely rise. So will the cost of an auto loan. Savers may finally receive a yield high enough to top inflation. The half-point hike in its benchmark short-term rate that the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday won’t, by itself, have much immediate effect on most Americans. But additional large hikes are expected to be announced in June and July, and economists foresee the fastest pace of rate increases since 1989.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve intensified its drive to curb the worst inflation in 40 years by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate by an sizable half-percentage point. The half-point hike in the Fed’s key rate — its largest since 2000 — raised it to a range of 0.75% to 1%, the highest point since the pandemic struck two years ago.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York's attorney general is announcing that the company behind the TurboTax tax-filing program will pay $141 million to customers across the United States who were deceived by misleading promises of free tax-filing services. Under the terms of a settlement signed by the attorneys general of all 50 states, Intuit Inc. will suspend TurboTax’s “free, free, free” ad campaign and pay restitution to nearly 4.4 million taxpayers.

ATLANTA – Electric vehicle startup Rivian and state and local officials signed off Monday on a deal announced last December to build a $5 billion manufacturing plant east of Atlanta that will create 7,500 jobs.

An inflation gauge closely tracked by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.6% in March compared with a year ago, the highest reading in four decades, further evidence that surging prices are pressuring household budgets and the health of the economy. Yet there were signs in Friday’s report from the Commerce Department that inflation might be slowing from its galloping pace and could be nearing a peak, at least for now.     

The death toll from two coal mine accidents last week in southern Poland has risen to 13 after another injured miner died. The man died Tuesday at a hospital where 20 other coal mining workers are still being treated for burns from methane gas blasts, a doctor said. His death means that seven miners and rescuers were killed by repeated blasts Wednesday and Thursday at the Pniowek mine. Search for seven others who are missing was suspended after Thursday's blasts hurt 10 rescuers. In the nearby Borynia-Zofiowka mine 13 teams of rescuers are searching for four miners gone missing after a tremor and methane gas discharge Saturday. Six miners died in that accident.

Hunger is soaring across conflict-ridden Burkina Faso, a result of increasing violence by jihadi rebels linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, which has killed thousands and displaced millions, preventing people from farming. According to the latest food security report by the government and U.N. agencies, some 3.5 million people in Burkina Faso are food insecure, with nearly 630,000 expected to be on the brink of starvation. This is an 82% increase from last year of people facing emergency hunger. Jihadi rebels are also expanding and pushing south and west into Burkina Faso’s breadbasket, stealing crops and livestock and chasing people from their rural farms and into cities.   

Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion on Monday, promising a more lenient touch to policing content on the social media platform where he — the world's richest person — promotes his interests, attacks critics and opines on a wide range of issues to more than 83 million followers.

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN is shutting down its CNN+ streaming service less than a month after its launch, a spectacular flameout for a venture that had attracted stars like Chris Wallace and Alison Roman and was seen as a way to attract a new generation of news consumers.

Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years. Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 184,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which levels out week-to-week volatility, rose by 4,500 to 177,250. About 1.42 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment benefits in the week of April 9, the fewest since February 21, 1970. Two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a brief but devastating recession, American workers are enjoying extraordinary job security.