Spice & Tea to open at Hamilton Corner
The Spice & Tea Exchange is coming to Hamilton Corner near the Hamilton Place Mall.
The new store, which will employ five persons, will be located in a 1,050-square-foot outlet near Jason’s Deli. It will offer more than 140 spices, over 80 exclusive hand-mixed blends, 16 naturally-flavored sugars, an array of salts from around the world, and more than 30 exotic teas.
Owners, Mike and Diane Tobin relocated from Vermont to open the store in Chattanooga.
“Many people don’t realize that spices lose flavor over time,” said Diane Tobin. “We hand mix blends in-store to ensure the very best quality. For people with special dietary concerns, we are also able to custom blend to meet their needs.”
Rates for 30-year mortgages drop this week to 3.48 percent
Long-term U.S. mortgage rates slid to new lows for the year this week amid market upheaval stoked by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Rates are at three-year lows at the height of the spring home buying season.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 3.48 percent from 3.56 percent last week. The benchmark rate is down sharply from 4.08 percent a year ago, and close to its all-time low of 3.31 percent in November 2012.
The average for the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage declined to 2.78 percent from 2.83 percent last week.
Long-term mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which plummeted to 1.52 percent Wednesday from 1.73 percent a week earlier. To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country at the beginning of each week. The average doesn’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
Lions Gate to buy Starz in $4.4 billion
Film and TV studio Lions Gate is buying cable channel operator Starz in a deal worth $4.4 billion.
Lions Gate is the company behind “The Hunger Games” movies and the “Orange Is The New Black” TV series. Starz runs its namesake cable channel, as well as Starz Encore and MoviePlex. Together, Lions Gate said it can tap its library of movies and TV shows and air them through Starz’s channels.
The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
Jobless claims rise but stay at low level
More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the level of jobless claims remains low enough to suggest that most workers enjoy job security.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly U.S. applications rose by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 in the week that ended June 25. The 4-week average, which is less volatile, was unchanged at 267,000.
Unemployment claims are a proxy for layoffs. They have remained below 300,000 for 69 straight weeks, longest such streak since 1973. The number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits stood at 2.12 million the week ending June 18, down nearly 7 percent from a year earlier.
Hiring has slowed this spring. Employers added just 38,000 jobs last month, the fewest in more than five years.
The low level of unemployment claims suggests that the weak numbers on hiring in May “overstated any underlying softening in the labor market,” Daniel Silver, an economist at J.P. Morgan, wrote in a research note.