By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage held steady this week at its lowest level in nearly 10 months, an encouraging sign for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by stubbornly high home financing costs.

The long-term rate was unchanged from last week at 6.58%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.46%.

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Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, edged lower. The average rate dropped to 5.69% from 5.71% last week. A year ago, it was 5.62%, Freddie Mac said.

Stubbornly high mortgage rates have helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump since early 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Home sales sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years and have remained sluggish this year.

For much of the year, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has hovered relatively close to its 2025 high of just above 7%, set in mid-January. Since last week, the average rate has been at its lowest level since Oct. 24, when it averaged 6.54%.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump this week called on a Federal Reserve governor to resign over an accusation of mortgage fraud, the latest effort by his administration to exert greater control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington.

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook says she won’t leave her post.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell, who will speak Friday at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, which Powell says could push up inflation.

FILE – Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, right, listen during an open meeting of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, June 25, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt. Trump has also accused Powell of mismanaging the U.S. central bank’s $2.5 billion building renovation project.

Firing the Fed chair or forcing out a governor would threaten the Fed’s venerated independence, which has long been supported by most economists and Wall Street investors. Here’s what to know about the Fed:

Why the Fed’s independence matters

The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate — which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation — it can weaken the economy and cause job losses.

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Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car, or appliance more expensive.

The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Former Fed Chair Arthur Burns has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from President Richard Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.

Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11%, and spurred widespread protests.

Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.

Investors are watching closely

An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to spike higher, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.

Most investors prefer an independent Fed, partly because it typically manages inflation better without being influenced by politics but also because its decisions are more predictable. Fed officials often publicly discuss how they would alter interest rate policies if economic conditions changed.

If the Fed was more swayed by politics, it would be harder for financial markets to anticipate — or understand — its decisions.

The Fed’s independence doesn’t mean it’s unaccountable

Fed chairs like Powell are appointed by the president to serve four-year terms, and have to be confirmed by the Senate. The president also appoints the six other members of the Fed’s governing board, who can serve staggered terms of up to 14 years.

Those appointments can allow a president over time to significantly alter the Fed’s policies. Former president Joe Biden appointed four of the current seven members: Powell, Cook, Philip Jefferson, and Michael Barr. A fifth Biden appointee, Adriana Kugler, stepped down unexpectedly on Aug. 1, about five months before the end of her term. Trump has already nominated his top economist, Stephen Miran, as a potential replacement, though he will require Senate approval. Cook’s term ends in 2038, so forcing her out would allow Trump to appoint a loyalist sooner.

Trump will be able to replace Powell as Fed chair in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. Yet 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the Chair doesn’t guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.

Congress, meanwhile, can set the Fed’s goals through legislation. In 1977, for example, Congress gave the Fed a “dual mandate” to keep prices stable and seek maximum employment. The Fed defines stable prices as inflation at 2%.

The 1977 law also requires the Fed chair to testify before the House and Senate twice every year about the economy and interest rate policy.

Could the president fire Powell before his term ends?

The Supreme Court earlier this year suggested in a ruling on other independent agencies that a president can’t fire the chair of the Fed just because he doesn’t like the chair’s policy choices. But he may be able to remove him “for cause,” typically interpreted to mean some kind of wrongdoing or negligence.

It’s a likely reason the Trump administration has zeroed in on the building renovation, in hopes it could provide a “for cause” pretext. Still, Powell would likely fight any attempt to remove him, and the case could wind up at the Supreme Court.

By MIKE CATALINI and HOLLY MEYER, Associated Press

James Dobson, a child psychologist who founded the conservative ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.

Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson started a radio show counseling Christians on how to be good parents and in 1977 founded Focus on the Family. At its peak, the organization had more than 1,000 employees and gave Dobson a platform to weigh in on legislation and serve as an adviser to five presidents.

FILE – Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, right, speaks as his wife Shirley Dobson, left, looks on during a “Yes on 8” prayer event held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, Nov. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, file)

He became a force in the 1980s for pushing conservative Christian ideals in American politics alongside fundamentalist giants like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. He campaigned for bringing religious conservatives into the political mainstream, and in 1989, Falwell called Dobson a rising star. Decades later, he served on a board of evangelical leaders that advised President Donald Trump in 2016. He supported Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns.

He celebrated the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade — including Trump’s conservative appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court credited with the landmark decision that allowed states to ban abortion.

“Whether you like Donald Trump or not, whether you supported or voted for him or not, if you are supportive of this Dobbs decision that struck down Roe v. Wade, you have to mention in the same breath the man who made it possible,” he said in a ministry broadcast.

Dobson left Focus on the Family in 2010 and founded the institute that bears his name. He continued with the Family Talk radio show, which is nationally syndicated and is carried by 1,500 radio outlets with more than half a million listeners weekly, according to the institute.

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“Dr. Dobson’s impact endures through the many lives he touched, the families he strengthened, and the unshakable faith he proclaimed,” his family said in a statement announcing his death.

Gary Bauer, a senior vice president at Dobson’s institute, called him a “pioneer” who helped families in a world of shifting values. Dobson interviewed President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985, thanking him for concentrating on issues important to families.

Dobson’s radio program promoted guests who said they abandoned their homosexuality and instead embraced Christianity.

Dobson was not just an influential voice that helped lead the rise of the Christian, conservative movement to today, where such a large portion of Republican voters consider themselves evangelical conservatives. He was also mentor to today’s leading Christian conservative voices.

Dobson, as a board member on Family Research Council, approached Tony Perkins, then a Louisiana state legislator, to become president of the organization. That was after Perkins grew up in his family church, watching Dobson’s films and following his lead with his own work in the Louisiana Legislature.

In Perkins’ first week as president, he and Dobson stood on the steps of the Alabama Supreme Court to support the installation of a monument to the Ten Commandments in the building. The action led to a court case and the monument’s removal.

Dobson belongs on the “Mount Rushmore” of the Christian conservatives, Perkins said, notably for leading an evangelical church-driven counter-movement to a family and parenting ethos of the 1960s embodied in the progressive teachings of Dr. Benjamin Spock.

“Very few people have had such a positive impact in the shaping of the American family, from what we would describe as a biblical standpoint,” said Perkins, who remains the group’s president. “While his passing is sad and it leaves a vacancy, he has a legacy that will live on.”

After developing a following of millions, Dobson considered running for president in the 2000 election, following in the footsteps of former television minister Pat Robertson’s surprise success in 1988.

“He had a big audience. He was not afraid to speak out. He became a very important voice and there was even talk that he might run for president,” said Ralph Reed, a Christian conservative political organizer and lobbyist who founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “If Jim had decided to run, he would have been a major force.”

Reed’s organization presented Dobson with a lifetime achievement award in 2017.

Despite their close association later in life, Reed’s enduring memory was as a younger political organizer traveling through rural America with Dobson’s voice as his sole companion.

“I’d be out there somewhere, and I could go to the AM dial and there was never a time, day or night when I couldn’t find that guy,” Reed said. “There will probably never be another one like him.”

An anti-pornography crusader, Dobson recorded a video interview with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before his January 24, 1989, execution in Florida. Bundy told Dobson that exposure to pornography helped fuel his sexual urges to a point that he looked for satisfaction by mutilating, killing and raping women.

At the time, Dobson’s Focus on the Family program was broadcast daily on 1,200 radio stations.

Months after the execution, Bundy’s attorney James Coleman downplayed the Dobson exchange in an interview with The Associated Press.

“I think that was a little bit of Ted telling the minister what he wanted to hear and Ted offering an explanation that would exonerate him personally,” Coleman told The Associated Press in 1989. “I had heard that before and I told Ted I never accepted it.”

Dobson is survived by his wife of 64 years, Shirley, as well as their children, Danae and Ryan, daughter-in-law Laura, and two grandchildren, his family’s statement said.

Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey, and Meyer from Nashville, Tennessee. Associated Press writer Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.

‘Salt Bones’ by Jennifer Givhan; Little, Brown; 384 pages; $29

The toxicity of the land surrounding moribund El Valle on the edge of the Salton Sea flows into the relationships of family, friends and neighbors who live in the area on the California/Mexican border in Jennifer Givhan’s outstanding “Salt Bones.”

It works well as a story of family drama, revenge, compromise, folklore, loss and limitations. It is both a novel about hopelessness and hope, as Givhan moves her characters on a journey of self-realization and anticipation of the future. Givhan also works in a look at Mexican and indigenous cultures.

Malamar “Mal” Veracruz always wanted to leave El Valle but never could quite make that leap. Here is where she raised her two daughters, where parents and extended family live. And here is where her teenage sister went missing years ago. The police did little to help, believing the Mexican American teenager was “loose,” perhaps leaving with a boyfriend.

(Little, Brown/Courtesy)

Through the years, Mal has endured her mother’s inexplicable loathing toward her and her younger brother, Benny, who was born the night her sister vanished. Her mother’s disdain makes Mal even more determined to protect her daughters, to give them goals beyond the area. Her sister’s disappearance has always weighed on Mal but lately even more so. Mal’s recent dreams about the legend of a horse-headed woman intensify when another girl vanishes.

Givhan’s strong storytelling and affinity at creating a complete world shine in “Salt Bones.”

Archer Sullivan’s series debut takes a deep look at small-town secrets, isolated people and folklore. (Matt Kallish/Courtesy)

‘The Witch’s Orchard’ by Archer Sullivan; Minotaur; 320 pages; $28

Mountain people have their own ways and culture, hanging onto old traditions and how they speak, as Archer Sullivan persuasively shows in “The Witch’s Orchard.”

This series debut takes a deep look at small-town secrets, isolated people and folklore helmed by the insightful private investigator Annie Gore, who “gets” these mountain people quite well as she grew up among them.

Ten years ago, three girls younger than 6 vanished weeks apart in broad daylight from the Appalachian town of Quartz Creek, North Carolina, “a little run-down mountain town.” One child, Olivia, came back but was nonverbal, so she was unable to say where she had been or with whom.

Max Andrews was 8 years old when his 4-year-old sister, Molly, was taken from their home while he was in the middle of a piano lesson and their mother was gardening. The disappearances affected all the families, but especially Max’s family. Three years later, Max’s mother killed herself; his father got rid of most furniture and personal items in the house. He now seldom sleeps there.

(Minotaur/Courtesy)

Max has never been able to move forward. Now 18, he still lives in the family home and keeps a thick scrapbook of the disappearances. He tries to ignore the numerous college acceptance letters he’s received, most of which are offering a full scholarship. Through the years, Max has saved his allowance and money from odd jobs to hire a private investigator to find Molly.

Annie, a former Air Force special investigator, tells Max she doubts she will discover what happened to Molly. But he insists. Annie’s presence seems to draw out secrets as she tries to earn the trust of the residents.

Sullivan delivers a complete representation of the North Carolina region as well as the insular town’s myths and struggles. The author overlays the bleak downtown’s empty storefronts, the rundown houses and harsh economics with the landscape’s sheer beauty.

Annie makes a formidable heroine with her rough childhood and military background combined to shape her. Her intelligence and insight shine in “The Witch’s Orchard.” A sequel would be most welcomed.