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Above rates are based on a 720 credit score and are subject to change.  Quoted as of 10-08-2008.

Central banks around the world Wednesday cut interest rates in a coordinated move amid mounting losses on global stock markets, as the credit crunch continued to seize up lending.

The Federal Reserve lowered its federal funds rate a half a point to 1.50 percent. It also lowered its discount rate by half a point. The Fed, whose decision was unanimous, last cut rates a quarter point in April.

Central banks in the UK, European Union, Switzerland, Sweden, and Canada also trimmed lending rates.

The action is “just the kind of support the global financial markets need to bring back much needed confidence,” said Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi economist Chris Rupkey.

The European Central Bank, which had long resisted a rate cut because of inflation concerns, trimmed its key rate by a half-point to 3.75 percent, as did the Bank of England, taking its rate to 4.5 percent.

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A U.S. spacecraft beamed hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.

The images show scientists never-before-seen landscapes on the planet’s surface.

Four of the high-resolution images were made public at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, posted by NASA on its MESSENGER Web site. Taken during a three-hour span before and after the spacecraft’s closest approach to Mercury, the photos offer detailed new glimpses of the barren planet.

One shows the bright Kuiper crater just south of the center of the planet. Most of the terrain east of Kuiper had never before been photographed.

A close-up of Mercury’s surface, the highest-resolution color image ever taken of the planet, shows a round basin about 83 miles in diameter and named Polygnotus, after a Greek painter.

Another close-up captures a region between the sunlit day side and dark night side of the planet, where shadows are long and prominent. Two long, jagged scarps — visible fault lines — appear to crosscut each other on the planet’s surface. The easternmost scarp also cuts through a crater, meaning it formed after the impact that created the crater.

The MESSENGER spacecraft, launched in 2004, buzzed 124 miles (200 km) above Mercury’s surface Monday at almost 15,000 mph.

It’s the second Mercury flyby for MESSENGER — formally known as the Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging craft.

The NASA ship is more than halfway through a five-billion-mile journey that should take it around the sun 15 times and put it into the Mercury’s orbit in March 2011.

The American spacecraft Mariner 10 flew by Mercury in 1974 and 1975, but MESSENGER is focusing on a part of the planet that was not viewed then or during the craft’s first pass in January.

Photos taken during its first pass showed that volcanic eruptions produced many of Mercury’s plains. They also revealed that the planet has contracted more than previously thought, NASA said.

“The results from MESSENGER’s first flyby of Mercury resolved debates that are more than 30 years old,” said Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission’s principal investigator. “This second encounter will uncover even more information about the planet.”

MESSENGER’s major goal is to become the first spacecraft to enter Mercury’s orbit. If that happens, it should help scientist understand the composition of Mercury’s surface, NASA said.

Wilmington City Council is already forging a relationship with its future neighbors just north of the convention center.

At its meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at City Hall, the council is expected to schedule a public hearing for next month on an agreement with the developers of 45 acres on the Cape Fear Riverfront between the Isabel Holmes Bridge and the convention center.

The agreement would spell out the city’s financial role in providing infrastructure to the developer, Riverfront Holdings II, including extension of the Riverwalk, construction of the bulkhead and the purchase of land for a small park near Harnett and Nutt streets.

Riverfront Holdings II LLC eventually plans to spend $750 million redeveloping the former industrial land adjacent to the convention center, said developer Chuck Schoninger, who owns the property.

The first phase, which will cost about $240 million, includes boat slips, an 8- to 12-story hotel, retail space and about 110 residential units, he said. It will take three to four years to build and begin as soon as next month. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON — Faced with an economic and financial market crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday sent a strong signal that officials may lower interest rates against a backdrop of waning price pressures.

“The combination of the incoming data and recent financial developments suggests that the outlook for economic growth has worsened and that the downside risks to growth have increased,” while the price outlook has “improved somewhat,” Mr. Bernanke said in prepared remarks to the National Association for Business Economics.

“In light of these developments, the Federal Reserve will need to consider whether the current stance of policy remains appropriate,” he said. (See the full text of Bernanke’s remarks.) Read the rest of this entry »