Mortgage Rates, Pi Day: Hot Trends

"Mortgage rates" is a trending search topic following the release of Freddie Mac's(FMCC_) weekly survey which showed that the mortgage rates held steady below 5%. The 30-year fixed rate came in at 4.88% on Thursday, up slightly from 4.87% one week earlier, and down from 4.95% a year ago. 

"Pi Day" is a hot search topic because Monday, March 14, is the day that we celebrate the mathematical constant Pi, which is equal to roughly 3.14.

Physicist Larry Shaw created Pi Day in 1989 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Shaw and his fellow staff members made a tradition of marching around the building and eating fruit pies.

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US Aircraft Carrier Ronald Reagan passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan

The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.

The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off.

There was no indication that any of the military personnel had experienced ill effects from the exposure. (Everyone is exposed to a small amount of natural background radiation.)

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