Mortgage rates climbed again this week, exacerbating the home affordability crisis that is stifling the housing market.

Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released Thursday, showed that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage jumped to 7.17% this week from 7.1% last week. The average rate on a 30-year loan was 6.43% a year ago.

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The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.44% from 6.39% last week. One year ago, the rate on the 15-year fixed note averaged 5.71%.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday voted to approve a regulation that will reinstate net neutrality rules that allow the agency to regulate broadband internet access as a telecommunications service.

Net neutrality rules were first imposed during the Obama administration in 2015 but were repealed in 2017 after the Trump administration flipped control of the FCC, which returned broadband internet to being regulated as an information service. With the Biden administration having returned the FCC to a majority of Democratic appointees, the agency is reinstating net neutrality rules that allow broadband to be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act.

Ahead of the FCC’s 3-2 vote, Biden appointee and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, said, “I think in a modern digital economy, we should have a national net neutrality policy and make clear the nation’s expert on ommunications has the ability to act when it comes to broadband. This is good for consumers, good for public safety and good for national security, and that is why we are taking this action under Title II of the Communications Act today.”

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Republican appointee who opposed the measure, spoke with FOX Business in an interview ahead of the vote and called the move a “power grab, plain and simple.”

FCC REINSTATING NET NEUTRALITY COULD SLOW INTERNET GAINS: REPORT

“My concern is that there’s no reason for the government to go down this path of granting itself more powers to second guess all the decisions about the internet functions,” Carr explained. “So my worry is that it’s a power grab without any need or justification, and it’s very difficult to predict the harms that could ultimately flow from that.”

Carr noted that many of the concerns expressed by net neutrality’s supporters in the lead up to the regulation’s 2017 repeal didn’t come to pass, and so the advocates for the rule’s reinstatement have shied away from advancing those arguments in the latest debate over broadband internet regulation.

“A lot of people will remember the last time we went through this net neutrality debate back in 2017, and when we repealed the net neutrality rules that were in place, everybody predicted the end of the internet as we know it. People said you would get the internet one word at a time,” he explained. “And obviously, the exact opposite has happened – speeds are up multiple-folds, prices are down in real terms.”

FORMER FCC HEAD AJIT PAI BLASTS NET NEUTRALITY VOTE AS ‘COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME’

“You don’t see those same arguments being trotted out this time around, because Americans’ own experience shows that that’s not true,” he said. “And so the FCC and activists have gone back to this sort of grab bag of reasons for Title II, but not a single one of them withstands even casual scrutiny.”

Carr noted that some have argued that net neutrality rules are needed for national security purposes, but said that there’s “no gap in national security that Title II is necessary to fill – DHS has lots of authorities in this space, other agencies do.” 

Other arguments have focused on the need for privacy rules for broadband, but Carr added “the Federal Trade Commission, our sister agency, already has privacy rules on the books that apply to broadband providers and in fact, once you classify broadband as Title II, you strip the Federal Trade Commission of their jurisdiction because they can’t regulate Title II providers by law.” 

NEW FCC RULES REQUIRE ‘NUTRITION LABEL’ FOR HIGH-SPEED INTERNET PLANS

Carr explained that while consumers are unlikely to see any immediate change in their internet service, the reinstatement of net neutrality could have a chilling effect on industry’s investment in the sector – slowing the pace of innovation and product enhancements.

“In the short run, in terms of consumers’ everyday experience with the internet, I don’t expect to see a sort of flash to something very different from this. In the long run, what we’ve seen is that these regulations create headwinds when it comes to the billions of dollars that need to be invested,” he said. “In fact, when we did Title II in 2015, we saw the first downturn in investment outside of a recession, and that downturn reversed in 2017. “

Carr went on to explain that he expects there will be legal challenges to the FCC’s reinstatement of net neutrality rules that are likely to result in the regulation being struck down.

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“The good news is this is a decision that will ultimately be overturned by the courts, because the Supreme Court has been articulating an increasingly skeptical view of agencies reading statutes to give them powers that Congress never said they had,” Carr said. 

“I’m very confident that whether it’s in the court of appeals or ultimately the Supreme Court, this will get struck down under the major questions doctrine because the statute doesn’t clearly give us authority.”

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Meta Platforms has been increasingly pursuing artificial intelligence and, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, generating significant revenue from it will take a while.

Speaking on the first-quarter earnings call Wednesday evening, Zuckerberg said the corporate parent of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Threads would invest “significantly more” to support and help grow its AI development efforts. 

“As we’re scaling CapEx and energy expenses for AI, we’ll continue focusing on operating the rest of our company efficiently, but realistically, even with shifting many of our existing resources to focus on AI, we’ll still grow our investment envelope meaningfully before we make much revenue from some of these products,” he told analysts and investors tuned into the call.

Some of Meta’s recent AI efforts have included Llama 3 and its Meta AI assistant that uses the large language model.

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For 2024, Meta on Wednesday changed its prediction for capital expenditures, lifting it to $35 billion to $40 billion. It also indicated capital expenditures would grow more in the following year too, without giving a specific range.

Zuckerberg noted Meta shares have experienced “a lot of volatility” in the past while in the period of “investing in scaling a new product but aren’t yet monetizing” like Reels and Stories.

“I also expect to see a multi-year investment cycle before we fully scaled Meta AI, business AIs and more into the profitable services I expect as well,” he said. 

META ROLLS OUT UPGRADED AI ASSISTANT ACROSS FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM AND WHATSAPP

“Historically, investing to build these new scaled experiences in our apps has been a very good long-term investment for us and for investors who have stuck with us and the initial signs are quite positive here too. But building the leading AI will also be a larger undertaking than the other experiences we’ve added to our apps and this is likely going to take several years,” he continued.

The Meta CEO mentioned several ways the company planned to improve cost efficiency amid its AI scaling efforts, including the open source community and building more of its own chips.

He said he viewed the feats Meta teams have notched so far in AI products as “another key milestone in showing that we have the talent, data and ability to scale infrastructure to build the world’s leading AI models and services.”

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In the first quarter, the company generated $36.46 billion in revenue, marking a 27% jump from the same three-month period in 2023. Its net income, meanwhile, went from $5.91 billion to $12.37 billion.

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A woman who grew up terrified of the ocean is now a professional mermaid — making thousands of dollars in a short period of time. 

Elle Jimenez is a 34-year-old mermaid originally from Puerto Rico. She now lives in Miami, Florida, and performs a mermaid act for a living — telling Fox News Digital she can earn up to $10,000 an hour for some events. 

She claims to be the “busiest professional mermaid entertainer in the world — sometimes with triple bookings in a day.”

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After overcoming a fear of water, Jimenez said she had to train to become a mermaid, she told SWNS, a British news service.

“I took three months of swimming lessons, then went on to get my scuba certification and lifeguard certificate,” she said.

“It was so inspiring but also the scariest experience of my life,” she said.

Jimenez told Fox News Digital that most mermaids are paid around $300 an hour — but she charges anywhere from $500 to $10,000, depending on the event and venue.

MERMAID MOMENT: WOMEN TEACHES PEOPLE ‘HOW TO BE’ AN OCEAN MERMAID

“I perform at all sorts of events, from birthday parties, charging my minimum of $500, to corporate events, residency shows, upscale and celebrity events,” said Jimenez, known as Mermaid Elle on social media. 

After dreaming of becoming a performer as an adult, Jimenez started her own entertainment company in 2016.

She’s spent the last eight years performing as a mermaid in a $5,000 silicone tail, per SWNS.

Jimenez said she must repurchase the silicone tail every three years.

Jimenez also said it takes her about 15 minutes to get into the tail and another five or so to get comfortable in the space, SWNS reported. 

MERMAIDING GROWS IN POPULARITY AMONG SWIMMING PROFESSIONALS, HOBBYISTS

She also has 30 fabric tails that are eco-friendly and made of recycled materials — but still cost about $500 each. 

On top of that, she owns 10 different silicone tops, which also cost roughly $500 each, according to SWNS. 

Jimenez’s boyfriend, photographer Darren Joshua Leonardi, travels with her for safety reasons and “looks like Aqua Man.”

She said, “I have trained him to be a mermaid, so he will be starting to perform with me,” as SWNS noted.

Over the years, Jimenez has performed for many different celebrities, including the Jonas Brothers, DJ Khaled and more.

She told Fox News Digital that performing for Bruno Mars was “a dream come true.”

She added, “I’ve performed as a mermaid in front of many celebrities, but the vibes were so high during his performance, and he just makes everyone so happy with his music.”

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This year, however, she will have her biggest gig yet, she said: the Formula 1 race in Miami, Florida, in May 2024. 

“We work in sets, so for an hour I am there in the water or sitting by the pool, and then I will take a break,” she told SWNS. 

Jimenez noted that she’s lucky for not getting backlash on social media for her unique career. 

“I think some of the worst I’ve [gotten] is people saying I am fake — but that’s obvious,” she said. 

In Nov. 2022, Jimenez was one of three mermaids who helped save a scuba diver’s life who nearly drowned in open water. 

Jimenez told Fox News Digital that she was teaching an advanced mermaid course certified by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) when she and the other mermaids in training heard someone shouting for help off Catalina Island in California. 

The mermaids were able to help the man in need thanks to their fin propellers — and said it was “incredible” to know that a group of mermaids could save a scuba diver. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Jimenez for further comment. 

Cortney Moore contributed reporting.

For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle.

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