| Volume 143 Number 66 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
When local stores ran out of the supplies we needed to manage COVID-19, many of us turned to online sources. According to a new Data Spotlight, scammers ran online sites and took orders for scarce items, but didn’t deliver. Click here for more.
Mortgage rates hit record low in July
The cost of financing a home has never been lower. Freddie Mac reports that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit a record low last week.
The rate fell to 3.07 percent, a decline of six basis points from the previous week but more than a half-point lower than the first week of July in 2019.
In reporting on the rate decline, Freddie Mac said mortgage rates could drift even lower over the next few weeks. Before the end of the year, it says the average rate could fall below 3 percent for the first time. Click here for more.
Your Money
If you are a new parent or your kids are young, you'll want to do one thing right now, if you haven't already: Start looking into college savings plans. And then do more than look among the best college savings plans. Pick one and start socking money away. Time is a-wasting. After all, according to data reported to U.S. News in an annual survey last year, the average tuition for the 2019-2020 school year ranged from $41,426 (for private colleges) to $11,260 (for state colleges). That's the average tuition per year. And unless something changes in how people pay for education, college costs in the future are going to be even worse. So if you're looking for a college savings plan that works for you, here are some suggestions: Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Supreme Court upholds Telephone Consumer Protection Act broad ban on autodial calls to cell phones. TCPA exception for call regarding federally backed debt held invalid. The Supreme Court upheld the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's sweeping ban on autodialed calls to cellphones but found that an exception to that prohibition for calls made to collect federally backed debts must fall, rejecting an argument that would have drastically reduced the flood of litigation under the decades-old statute. William P. Barr et al. v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc. et al., case number 19-631, in the U.S. Supreme Court. Click here for more.