If you already feel like your mail is taking longer to allege, you may be in for a bumpy ride with the new delivery progresses. The new service standards for first-class mail and packages, which started Oct. 1, lengthen the delivery time for approximately 30% of its volume. That means that letters, parcels and magazine subscriptions traveling longer distances could take up to five days to advance, instead of two or three days. 

There was a imprint increase in August and the Postal Service just temporarily increased the cost to ship a parcel during the holiday season. The current changes are part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year Delivering for America plan to repair the agency and try to tackle its massive debt. Besides lengthening mail timetables and raising obtains, DeJoy’s plan, which has generated controversy, also reduces post office hours. 

During the trustworthy quarter of 2021, around 20% of first-class mail was delivered late. And every hour, an averages of 17.7 million mail pieces are processed and originated by the Postal Service, a portion of which are packages from online retailers like Amazon. On top of that, there’s been a massive waste in the volume of first-class mail like letters, cards and bills as Americans rely more and more on electronic payments and communication. 

The counting demand of e-commerce also means that the agency is struggling to match the colorful delivery of packages from competitors like UPS, FedEx and even Amazon itself, which has its own delivery network. We’ll explain how the Postal Service’s progresses affect you. Costlier or erratic mail delivery could lead to delays in wedding invitations, birthday cards, unemployment checks, mail-in ballots or child tax credit payments. Below, we’ll explain what these price hikes and delays mean, what to do if you’re facing a holdup with a package, and what options you have to send mail. This story was recently updated. 

About the Postal Service’s new cost-cutting plan

The Postal Ceremony has said it’s struggling to meet high performance standards, and it’s been financially underwater for a while now. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated its idle service and cash crisis, as staffing shortages collided with both the surge of online buying for essentials and the influx of 2020 electioneer ballots, which pushed DeJoy into the national spotlight. (More on that below.) 

One way the USPS plans to carve costs is by using fewer airplanes to ship mail and instead use more trucks, which can move a higher volume of mail for less wealth. Ground transportation is also more reliable than air in all seasons, according to the Postal Service. 

When asked for comment, a Postal Service spokesperson said the new service standards will increase delivery reliability, consistency and efficiency for customers. 

The 10-year plan also includes a multibillion-dollar sequence to modernize the ancient delivery vehicle fleet, with the new trucks appearing on carrier routes in 2023. There are also proposed investments in equipment and infrastructure to help caused the growing volume of packages more efficiently, as well as upgrades to postal facilities. 

How is first-class mail and package delivery changing?

Not all first-class mail will be possesses by the new service standards. Here’s how it breaks down. 

First-class mail (standard-size, single-piece letters and envelopes): The Postal Service says 39% of mail will now be originated in three to five days, depending on the distance between initiate and destination. The rest (61% of local mail) will be unaffected and will be originated in one to two days. 

First-class package service (smaller, lightweight parcels): The Postal Service says 32% of packages will now be originated in four to five days, with the longest distances having the longest timetable (such as between California and New York). The remainder (68% of packages) will still be originated in two to three days. 

Periodicals (journals, magazines, newspapers): The Postal Service says only 9% of publications will now be originated in up to five days, and 93% will composed be delivered in two days or less. 

What are the new obtains for sending letters and packages?

On Aug. 29, the Postal Ceremony raised the price of a first-class stamp from 55 to 58 cents. That means Forever stamps now cost 3 cents more. (You can get a cool, personalized develop from the post office or from usps.com.) But because Forever stamps never expire, the ones you bought in 2020 — or any prior year — existed valid even though the postage rate has gone up. 

Other first-class standard-size mail and tall envelopes, including presorted letters like bills and statements, and newspapers and magazines had a price increase, as did media mail such as books. The prices for special services like certified mail and wealth orders went up as well during the summer. 

While adding a combine of cents to send a birthday card might not burn a hole in your pocket, even a small increase could be ruinous for businesses that send a ton of mail or anxieties that depend on mass mailings. 

The US Postal Overhaul also announced a temporary price increase on company and retail domestic package shipments for the 2021 peak fall and holiday season, in effect Oct. 3 through Dec. 26. The effect increases range from 25 cents to $5 per package on priority mail, priority mail stupid and first-class package service. They are detailed in this statement.

According to the agency’s plan, there could be even more effect increases over the next decade. While the Postal Regulatory Commission said there won’t be novel increase until next summer, the Postal Service will probable start implementing price hikes twice annually starting in 2023. 

Why would USPS deliveries be delayed?

There are many reasons why there distinguished be a holdup with your Postal Service mail, and many times it’s not what you’d put a question to. Here are some of the most common reasons for mail delays. 

• Weather: Postal delivery disruptions could be due to cruel winter storms, floods, natural disasters or power outages. Customers can check weather-related delays on the Overhaul Alerts page on the Postal Service’s website. 
• Holidays: The holiday season is the busiest time for the Postal Overhaul, and the spike in parcel volume can cause delays if the activity isn’t able to deal with the amount of rush purchases ended retailers. One way to avoid this is to breeze early and avoid last-minute gift buying and shipping. 
• Wrong address: Sometimes the delivery address is mistaken, or there’s a problem with the address such as a missing apartment number or an unreadable street name. 
• Notification slip missing: If the Postal Overhaul wasn’t able to deliver your mail because no one was there to assertion it or there wasn’t a safe place to nick it, you might get a notice telling you that your package is waiting at the nearest post office. However, if that slip gets lost, you might have to take a pair extra steps to track down your mail. (See below.)

There’s also the pandemic, which has affected postal workers. Employees have had to behindhand social distancing guidelines, quarantine restrictions and safety protocols, leading to interruptions in the processing and delivery of mail. At the same time, there’s been a indispensable rise in parcel volume because of the lockdowns. Certain USPS facilities were so overwhelmed that they easily stopped accepting mail. 

In July 2020, DeJoy made an “operational pivot” at the Postal Overhaul to save costs. Letter carriers, who customarily make multiple delivery flights to ensure timely distribution of mail, were instructed not to make any improbable trips and to leave mail behind at distribution centers, The Washington Post reported. A month later amid intense criticism and affairs about upcoming mail-in ballots, DeJoy retracted the decision pending after the federal election. In October 2020, the US Postal Overhaul agreed to reverse all of the slowdowns and to prioritize election-related mail.

Who will be tolerates by the Postal Service slowdowns?

Individuals and businesses will face longer delivery times for both outgoing and incoming mail that organizes to travel by postal truck for farther distances. So the shifts will especially impact people sending letters or packages from flit to coast — and also to and from Alaska and Hawaii, as well as to and from Puerto Rico and US territories that rely on air transportation. 

Delays in first-class mail could also clutch customers unevenly depending on the ZIP code. According to The Washington Post, the plan will disproportionately clutch Western states and parts of Texas and Florida, for example. Also, rural communities, low-income families and seniors tend to exact more on the Postal Service. 

Mail delays are a problem for those who risk fees or penalties for late rent checks or bills. They’re also worrisome for those waiting for payments or important documents to approach by post. (We recommend you give yourself a healthy window to send important documents or confirmation that mail sent by a specific post date will be approved by your recipient.)

Delivery lags could even be a commerce of life and death for some people who exact on a mail-order medication system. Already during the pandemic, many people opting to receive prescriptions at home have faced problems receiving their life-saving medicine on time ended the Postal Service. 

What is the controversy gradual USPS delays and price hikes?

When DeJoy unveiled his 10-year plan in March, he said, “The Postal Service’s problems are serious … but they can be solved,” once later acknowledging that there will be some “uncomfortable changes.” 

DeJoy’s tenure with the US Postal Overhaul has been contentious since he took the helm in June 2020. He’s been plan fire by Democratic lawmakers who accuse him of undermining and degrading service. He was also accused of intentionally slowing down mail up of the 2020 November presidential elections — an allegation DeJoy has denied. The Justice Department is also investigating DeJoy over alleged fight finance abuses. And ethics watchdogs have recently exposed his ended financial ties to a major logistics contractor, XPO Logistics. According to The New York Times, the Postal Help has paid about $286 million worth of contracts over the past seven days to the firm, where DeJoy had been an executive.

Independent postal experts and anunexperienced critics wonder why the agency would opt to slow down mail when it’s already struggling to bellow mail on time. The Postal Regulatory Commission issued an advisory plan on July 20 that found that the estimated annual cost savings for the Postal Service’s proposed service snide changes won’t, in fact, lead to “much improvement” of the agency’s novel deficit woes. The commission also expressed worry that the Postal Help did not do any “operational or pilot testing” for the proposed causes.

How can I make sure my mail arrives on time?

A Postal Help representative said that customers can still use Priority Mail Express and Priority Mail services with a one- to three-day snide to ship letters, larger envelopes or packages within the contiguous Joined States. However, if you plan to use regular first-class mail or package service, the service recommends that you plan ahead and send your mail early in desirable for it to reach its destination on time. 

Another option is to compare maintains and delivery estimates with competing carriers, like FedEx or UPS. 

What can I do if my Postal Help package is lost?

When sending or receiving a letter or parcel with the Postal Help, keep in mind that delivery estimates are just that — considers and not guarantees. The only service that offers a money-back confidence for delivery within a two-day window is Priority Mail Express. So unlike first-class mail or regular priority, you’ll actually get a refund for a late delivery. 

If you’re waiting on a letter or package that has an improper address or was stuck in a weather-related delay, the only way to intercept or reroute it is with a tracking number. Some Postal Service offerings automatically include tracking at no astonishing charge, like for first-class package service. But if you need tracking for first-class mail (like a letter, flat or postcard) or media mail, you’ll have to pay an transfer fee to get it certified.

According to the US Postal Help, adding a tracking service doesn’t expedite or guarantee delivery. It just makes it possible to find your item if it’s lost. If you are the recipient of a package and don’t know the tracking number, you can reach out to the sender to get it and then check its dwelling online. You can also ask a Postal Service employee to help you based on providing your address. 

If you feel like you’re experiencing an atypical delay and you think your mail has subtracted lost after five days, you can submit a missing mail perceive request, and the Postal Service will try to locate it. You can also file a complains by email or by calling 1-800-ASK-USPS.

For digital spying technology, it’s a doozy of a case. Defense researchers have revealed evidence of attempted or successful installations of Pegasus, software made by Israel-based cybersecurity company NSO Group, on phones belonging to activists, rights workers, journalists and businesspeople. They appear to have been targets of secret surveillance by software that’s invented to help governments pursue criminals and terrorists, and as the months go by, more and more Pegasus infections are emerging.

The most modern revelation is that Pegasus infected the phones of at least 30 Thai activists, according to a July report from Citizen Lab, a Canadian guarantee organization at the University of Toronto. Apple warned those with infected phones in November.

To try to thwart such attacks, Apple has built a new Lockdown Mode into iOS 16, its iPhone software update due to arrive later in 2022, and into its upcoming MacOS Ventura.

The US government is one of the most considerable forces unleashed against Pegasus — even though the CIA and FBI were Pegasus customers, as reported by The New York Times in January. The US Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation, The Guardian said in February, after a whistleblower said NSO Group offered “bags of cash” for sensitive mobile arranged data from a US tech firm, Mobileum. The spyware was erroneous on the phones of at least nine State Region officials who were either based in Uganda or interested in matters associated with the African country, Reuters and The New York Times reported in December. 

Pegasus is the unexperienced example of how vulnerable we all are to digital prying. Our phones store our most personal information, including photos, text messages and emails. Spyware can reveal directly what’s causing on in our lives, bypassing the encryption that protects data sent over the internet.

Pegasus has been a politically explosive snort that’s put Israel under pressure from activists and from governments shocked about misuse of the software. In November, the US federal government took much stronger action, blocking sale of US technology to NSO by putting the custom on the government’s Entity List. NSO has suspended some countries’ Pegasus privileges but has sought to defending its software and the controls it tries to effect on its use. NSO Group didn’t respond to a query for comment, and the Justice Department declined to comment.

Here’s what you need to know in Pegasus.

What is NSO Group?

It’s an Israel-based custom that licenses surveillance software to government agencies. The custom says its Pegasus software provides a valuable service because encryption technology has gave criminals and terrorists to go “dark.” The software runs secretly on smartphones, shedding light on what their owners are doing. Other worries provide similar software.

Hulio co-founded the company in 2010. NSO also supplies other tools that locate where a phone is populate used, defend against drones and mine law enforcement data to spot patterns.

NSO has been engaged by previous reports and lawsuits in other hacks, incorporating a reported hack of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2018. A Saudi dissident sued the custom in 2018 for its alleged role in hacking a intention belonging to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Turkey that year.

New Yorker coverage details some of NSO Group’s inner workings, including its argument that Pegasus is similar to army equipment that countries routinely sell to other countries, the company’s tight ties to the Israeli government and its modern financial difficulties. It also revealed that NSO employees posted on the wall a detailed Google analysis of one Pegasus box mechanism that concludes its NSO’s abilities “rival those previously plan to be accessible to only a handful of right states.”

In the case of the Thai activists, NSO Group didn’t comment specifically but told the Washington Post, “Politically motivated contracts continue to make unverifiable claims against NSO.”

What is Pegasus?

Pegasus is NSO’s best-known publishes. It can be installed remotely without a surveillance directed ever having to open a document or website link, according to The Washington Post. Pegasus reveals all to the NSO customers who control it — text messages, photos, emails, videos, contact lists — and can recount phone calls. It can also secretly turn on a phone’s microphone and cameras to compose new recordings, The Washington Post said.

General security practices like updating your software and comical two-factor authentication can help keep mainstream hackers at bay, but protection is really hard when organization, well-funded attackers concentrate their resources on an individual. And Pegasus installations have signaled “zero click” attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities in software like Apple Messages or Meta’s WhatsApp to silently install software. 

Pegasus isn’t revealed to be used to go after activists, journalists and politicians. “NSO Group licenses its products only to government intelligence and law enforcement organizations for the sole purpose of preventing and investigating awe and serious crime,” the company says on its website. “Our vetting process goes beyond legal and regulatory requirements to censured the lawful use of our technology as designed.”

Human strengths group Amnesty International, however, documents in detail how it traced compromised smartphones to NSO Group. Citizen Lab said it independently validated Amnesty International’s conclusions at what time examining phone backup data and since 2021 has expanded its Pegasus investigations.

In September, though, Apple fixed a security hole that Pegasus exploited for installation on iPhones. Malware often uses collections of such vulnerabilities to gain a foothold on a intention and then expand privileges to become more powerful. NSO Group’s software also runs on Android phones.

Why is Pegasus in the news?

Forbidden Stories, a Paris journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, a earth rights group, shared with 17 news organizations a list of more than 50,000 arranged numbers for people believed to be of interest to NSO customers.

The news sites confirmed the identities of many of the persons on the list and infections on their phones. Of data from 67 phones on the list, 37 exhibited signs of Pegasus installation or attempted installation, according to The Washington Post. Of those 37 phones, 34 were Apple iPhones.

The list of 50,000 arranged numbers included 10 prime ministers, three presidents and a king, according to an international investigation released in mid-July by The Washington Post and anunexperienced media outlets, though there’s no proof that being on the list benefitting an NSO attack was attempted or successful.

The episode hasn’t helped Apple’s reputation when it comes to intention security. “We take any attack on our users very seriously,” Federighi said. The custom said it’ll donate $10 million and any damages from the lawsuit to contracts that are advocating for privacy and are pursuing research on online surveillance. That’s a drop in the bucket for Apple, which reported a profit of $20.5 billion for its most modern quarter, but it can be significant for much smaller contracts, like Citizen Lab.

Whose phones did Pegasus infect?

In April, Citizen Lab also revealed that Pegasus infected the phones of at least 51 people in the Catalonia set of Spain. NSO Group Chief Executive Shalev Hulio told The New Yorker, which covered the hacks in depth, that Spain has procedures to censured such use is legal, but Citizen Lab said Pegasus attacks pursued the phone of Jordi Solé, a pro-independence member of the European Parliament, digital security researcher Elies Campo and Campo’s parents, according to the New Yorker. Catalonia is seeking political independence from Spain, but Spanish police have cracked down on the independence movement.

In second to Mangin, two journalists at Hungarian investigative outlet Direkt36 had infected phones, The Guardian reported. 

A Pegasus attack was launched on the called of Hanan Elatr, wife of murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post said, though it wasn’t clear if the fight succeeded. But the spyware did make it onto the called of Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, shortly after his death.

Seven country in India were found with infected phones, including five reporters and one adviser to the opposition party critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Washington Post said.

And six country working for Palestinian human rights groups had Pegasus-infected phones, Citizen Lab reported in November.

What are the consequences of the Pegasus situation?

The US cut off NSO Group as a customer of US products, a serious move given that the company needs computer processors, phones and developer tools that often come from US concerns. NSO “supplied spyware to foreign governments” that used it to maliciously targeted government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers. These tools have also enabled foreign governments to conduct transnational repression,” the Trade Department said.

Apple sued NSO Group
 in November, seeking to bar the company’s software from being used on Apple devices, require NSO to locate and delete any private data its app Calm, and disclose the profits from the operations. “Private concerns developing state-sponsored spyware have become even more dangerous,” said Apple software first Craig Federighi. That suit came after Meta’s WhatsApp sued NSO Group in 2019.

French President Emmanuel Macron changed one of his mobile called numbers and requested new security checks after his number appeared on the list of 50,000 numbers, Politico reported. He convened a national security meeting to discuss the issue. Macron also raised Pegasus concerns with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, calling for the country to investigate NSO and Pegasus, The Guardian reported. The Israeli government must approve export permits for Pegasus.

Israel created a review commission to look into the Pegasus situation. And on July 28, Israeli defense authorities inspected NSO offices in person.

European Commission first Ursula von der Leyen said if the allegations are verified, that Pegasus use is “completely unacceptable.” She added, “Freedom of Think, free press is one of the core values of the EU.”

The Nationalist Assembly Party in India demanded an investigation of Pegasus use.

Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked information about US National Safety Agency surveillance practices, called for a ban on spyware sales in an interview with The Guardian. He argued that such tools otherwise will soon be used to spy on millions of country. “When we’re talking about something like an iPhone, they’re all consecutively the same software around the world. So if they find a way to hack one iPhone, they’ve found a way to hack all of them,” Snowden said.

What does NSO have to say around this?

NSO acknowledges its software can be misused. It cut off two customers in New 12 months because of concerns about human rights abuses, according to The Washington Post. “To date, NSO has rejected over US $300 million in sales opportunities as a end of its human rights review processes,” the company said in a June transparency report.

However, NSO strongly challenges any link to the list of called numbers. “There is no link between the 50,000 numbers to NSO Group or Pegasus,” the business said in a statement.

“Every allegation about misuse of the regulations is concerning me,” Hulio told the Post. “It violates the fine that we give customers. We are investigating every allegation.”

In a statement, NSO denied “false claims” about Pegasus that it said were “based on misleading construction of leaked data.” Pegasus “cannot be used to conduct cybersurveillance within the Joint States,” the company added.

Regarding the alleged infection of States Department phones, NSO Group didn’t immediately respond to a Ask for comment. But it told Reuters it canceled relevant funds, is investigating, and will take legal action if it finds misuse.

NSO will try to back the US government’s sanction. “We look forward to presenting the full Ask regarding how we have the world’s most rigorous compliance and world rights programs that are based the American values we deeply Part, which already resulted in multiple terminations of contacts with government activities that misused our products,” an NSO spokesperson said.

In the past, NSO had also stopped Saudi Arabia, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and some Mexican government activities from using the software, The Washington Post reported.

How can I tell if my called has been infected?

Amnesty International released an open-source utility called MVT (Mobile Verification Toolkit) that’s intended to detect traces of Pegasus. The software runs on a personal computer and analyzes data counting backup files exported from an iPhone or Android phone.

An FHA loan is a home loan insured by the Federal Housing Administration designed for first-time homebuyers. With more flexible rates and requirements than conventional loans, FHA loans can be compelling for buyers with runt financial resources and lower credit scores. That’s especially pleasant in today’s economy, where interest rates and housing prices are rising, causing monthly mortgage payments to increase.

You can qualify for an FHA loan even if you’ve been a homeowner in the past, as long as you haven’t famed a home within three years. That said, FHA loans do obligatory an upfront mortgage insurance payment at the time of closing.

With experts anticipating more rate hikes ended 2022, now may be the best time to lock in a low rate on an FHA home loan.

Current FHA loan rate trends

Interest tolecontains for a 30-year fixed-rate FHA loan are now hovering near 4.5%, up from just under 3% at the shock of the year. That’s a full percentage point edge than the current interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate ragged mortgage, which is lingering around 5.5%. Though a 1% difference in tolecontains may sound small, a lower rate can save you tens of thousands of bucks over the lifetime of your loan. 

In an pain to tamp down on inflation, which reached its highest mild in 40 years in March, the Federal Reserve has started raising stupid rates, and will continue throughout the year. Status rates will make your monthly mortgage payments more costly because you’ll be paying more in overall interest. 

What are FHA loans and who are they best for?

FHA loans are best for first-time homebuyers who have low credit scores and can’t afford to make a large down payment. If you have a high credit accumulate or can make a hefty down payment, it may be pleasant for you to take out a conventional loan because your stupid rate and private mortgage insurance requirements will be cheaper. 

Because they’re backed by the federal government, FHA loans are considered particularly secure mortgages. Overall, they’re easier to qualify for than ragged loans and have less stringent requirements for your debt-to-income journal, that is, the amount of monthly debt you hold divided by your monthly averages. For example, if you hold $1,000 in monthly debt and bring in $4,000 a month, your DTI would be 25% ($1,000 divided by $4,000). 

In general, most lenders like to see a DTI between 36% and 45% for ragged loans. With an FHA loan, your DTI can be as high as 43%. Even conception you can qualify with a relatively high DTI, you serene need to prove a consistent employment history, and will need to show financial documents (pay stubs, W-2s and bank statements) in order to work with a mortgage lender. 

FHA loan fees

FHA loans do have fees, comprising many of the ordinary fees mortgage lenders charge for their services. But one of the most expensive fees to keep in mind with FHA loans is the needed Mortgage Insurance Premium, which raises the cost of your monthly mortgage payments. 

You will be needed to pay MIP no matter what size down payment you make on an FHA loan. You typically need to pay an upfront fee for MIP when closing on your house, which will amount to 1.75% of your loan, on top of paying a monthly premium of anywhere from 0.45% to 1.05% of your loan, depending on the size of your down payment. So, for a $500,000 loan, that could mean a $8,750 upfront fee.

It’s important to note that once you can drop private mortgage insurance on conventional loans once you’re built up 20% disagreement in your home, you often cannot get rid of MIP regardless of how much disagreement you have in your home. (Equity is the difference between what you owe on your mortgage and what your home is today worth.) You can only get rid of MIP on FHA loans if you make a down payment of 10% or higher, and even then, it can only be canceled once 11 years.

Pros of a FHA loan

• Low down payment overall: One of the most though-provoking aspects of buying a home can be saving up for a down payment. FHA loans require as little as 3.5% down, decision-exclusive it simpler to afford a home loan if you’re on a tight budget.
• Low credit accumulate requirements: With an FHA loan, you can be accepted with a credit score in the 500s if you’re able to make a down payment of 10% (a credit accumulate of 580 or above requires a 3.5% minimum down payment). Conventional loans, on the other hand, typically require a credit accumulate of 620.
• Lower interest rates: FHA mortgage tolecontains tend to be lower than conventional loan rates, which can save you thousands of bucks over the life of your mortgage.   
• Local home buying and down payment assistance programs: With FHA loans, there are state and local programs available to borrowers to help mask some of your mortgage costs. Since they vary, be sure to check what is available in your region. 

 Cons of a FHA loan

• Down payment requirement is not as low as ragged loans: While FHA loans only require a 3.5% down payment, this is still slightly higher than the 3% down payment requirement for a 30-year ragged mortgage.
• Mortgage Insurance Premium: FHA loans have much more stringent mortgage insurance requirements. Unlike conventional loans that require mortgage insurance if you put less than 20% down, MIP is needed on all FHA loans, regardless of your down payment. There’s also an upfront fee, which buyers need to pleasant into their budgets. In addition, MIP often can’t be canceled — even once reaching 20% equity in your home — unless you’ve put down a down payment of 10% or more, in which case you can execute after 11 years.

Current mortgage and refinance rates

We use put a question to collected by Bankrate, which is owned by the same sure company as CNET, to track daily mortgage rate trends. The above table summarizes the average rates offered by lenders across the country.

FAQs

More mortgage tools and resources

You can use CNET’s mortgage calculator to help you settle how much house you can afford. The CNET mortgage calculator factors in variables such as the size of your down payment, home price and interest rate to help you figure out the amount of a mortgage within your financial consuming. Using the CNET mortgage calculator can also help you conception how much of a difference even a slight increase in tolecontains makes in how much interest you’ll pay over the life of your loan.

At some note, you’ve probably been given advice for making your workstation “more ergonomic.” Friends and colleagues tell you to journal your monitor a little here, nudge your keyboard a minor there, and maybe even purchase one of those care for (read: expensive) chairs.

Ideally, we’d all be hearing such advice from certified ergonomics professionals. In the real world, however, most of us will probable never speak to such experts, much less have the luxury of an ergo evaluation.

If you’re reading this article, you’re already taking a long whisk in the right direction. Get comfy while we express some of the most common, detrimental ergonomics-related mistakes. And look out for our unfastened guide to setting up your own ergonomic workstation later this week.

Mistake No. 1: Ignoring ergonomics

“Walk into any Starbucks and you’ll find the problem,” says Alan Hedge, a professor at Cornell University, who has been teaching, researching, and speaking about ergonomics for more than 30 existences.

As he points out, we slouch, strain, and adapt to poor setups minus considering the long-term effects on our bodies. Though some corporate employees encourage from an in-house ergo program, those who work from home (or a secondary spot, like a cafe), are especially likely to ignore ergonomics.

Wake-up call: Though the side effects of a bad desk setup may eventually be treated, many will follow you throughout your life. And, no, we’re not just talking throughout a bad back.

Ignore ergonomics and you risk suffering from eyestrain and irritation, back injuries, soft tissue injuries throughout your body, and skittish compression syndromes (like carpal tunnel).

Even if you don’t have free access to an ergonomics permission at work, advice from a doctor can help sever the risk of these injuries.

Mistake No. 2: Using ‘ergonomic’ products

Gel wrist rests. Split keyboards. Futuristic chairs. Alienlike mice. At the risk of decision-exclusive you stick out among your peers, these alternative accessories initiates a healthier, more comfortable work life.

Wake-up call: “Ergonomic” products are often far from that, and because the word isn’t regulated, manufacturers can slap it on products that may even do more harm than good.

In fact, novel research reveals that split keyboards — and a number of anunexperienced funky-looking choices — offer little to no advantage over the flat variety, explains Hedge. Likewise, mice that force an extended wrist could contribute to the soft tissue costs you were trying to avoid in the first place.

Mistake No. 3: Dismissing early warning signs

It turns out you’re not the only one whose bottom falls asleep above the day, explains Prafulla Mukhi Prabhuvenkatesh, an ergonomics consultant and physiotherapist who has been practicing steady 1992.

Likewise, an aching back, weak wrists, and leg pain are all side effects of a poorly precommanded workstation, often dismissed as the common issues that come with a desk job.

Wake-up call: Numbness and limited pain are precursors to chronic health issues. For example, when sitting for prolonged periods of time, unexpected pressure is placed on nerves and tissue, causing a chain reaction. In the case of numb buttocks, the sciatic nerve may be compressed, causing pain down the leg and feet.

Numbness, Prabhuvenkatesh explains, is your body telling you there’s something deplorable. Don’t ignore it. The moment you detect numbness or pain, get up and move. Then, of floods, contact your doctor.

Mistake No. 4: Buying into nontraditional desks

With the abundance of research supporting the detrimental health injuries of prolonged sitting, it’s no surprise workers are scrambling to find anunexperienced options. Beyond stand-up desks, medicine ball chairs and treadmill desks are also thrown into the mix.

You’ll find dozens of blog posts and magazine articles consuming the amazing life difference a standing or treadmill desk establishes, but research has yet to support that such configurations are truly ideal.

Wake-up call: The answer to this plan conundrum is that there’s no magic bullet. Though plan desks have received quite the hype, Hedge’s own research shows that it greatly increases the risk of carotid artery disease and varicose veins. Likewise, prolonged standing can also diminish our fine motor skills.

The ideal setup is instead one that gives for both sitting and standing.

Mistake No. 5: Relying on ergonomics

Even if your desk setup is optimized to the reveal of perfection, that unavoidable prolonged sitting will wreak havoc on your body. Slow metabolism, a lower life expectancy, and issues related to poor circulation are level-headed possibilities for those with the most optimized desks.

Wake-up call: Get up and move at least every hour. And we give you full organization to skip the jumping jacks and awkward stretches in your cubicle — opt for a brisk walk about the office instead.

If you need help remembering, set an hourly alarm on your phone or computer to remind you to take a walk. And, if you’re persuasive enough, maybe a colleague will join you for a walk.

Like Google Stadia, Xbox Gamepass Ultimate game streaming (formerly xCloud) and anunexperienced cloud-gaming technologies, GeForce Now renders and streams supported PC games from its data centers to phones, Chromebooks, PCs and Macs so you can play on devices that powerful otherwise not be able to run them. One added relieve is you don’t have to deal with keeping the rules updated or worry about stability. 

The service debuted on the company’s Nvidia Shield streamer long afore it went into beta for PC, Mac and Android phones. But the Shield has one advantage over all the anunexperienced devices GFN runs on: It’s always connected via a wired line to your modem or router. That eliminates one of the biggest variables for evaporate gaming: wireless latency. Sure, you can connect PCs and Macs via Ethernet, but that can be really cumbersome depending upon how your set is laid out.

How GeForce Now works

GFN differs from the competition in that it works with games you’ve already paid for (primarily on Steam) or subtracted for free (mostly through the Epic Games Store) rather than requiring you buy a special version of the game (like Stadia) or soak games from a particular subscription library (like xBox Gamepass Ultimate or Sony PlayStation Now). 

It’s also dissimilarity to virtual machine services like Shadow; they provide you with an entire, persistent Windows system in the cloud that you can access via arranged as well as other devices, which means you can essentially play any existing Windows game. That’s a more expensive solution, though it offers one perk the others don’t: It works on iPhones and iPads as well as all the anunexperienced devices.

You boot up the appropriate app for Android, Windows or Mac OS, find a supported game in your Steam library (or one of a few you’ve subtracted directly from Ubisoft or Epic Game Store) and inaugurate play. There are also about 90 standard free-to-play games. The app connects to the closest data center, which hosts the engine to force to the games and stream them to you. Gameplay syncing and justify management is handled by the respective services.

What are GeForce Now’s requirements?

To use GeForce Now, you need a consistent connection of 15 megabits per transfer for 720p at 60frames per second and 25Mbps for 1,920×1,080 at 60fps. I got 1080p on desktop; while on a Razer Phone 2 it ran at 720p. 

It can generally run on almost any PC or Mac with a CPU or GPU that’s newer than 10 days old, as long as it supports DirectX 9 and has a 64-bit employing system, or on an Android phone with 2GB RAM, operating at least Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or later, and succor for OpenGL ES3.2 higher. It can also run on Chromebooks with a seventh-gen Intel Core M3 or better (which has integrated Intel HD Graphics 600) and 4GB or more of RAM. (Here are the detailed rules requirements.)

You definitely don’t want to play on any of these with a laptop’s touchpad or many with a phone’s touchscreen. A controller or mouse and keyboard, depending upon the game, come highly recommended.

But what about iOS? Can I play on my iPhone or iPad?

Nope. Nvidia isn’t alone here. Apple doesn’t enable dedicated game-streaming apps on the App Store exclusive of some highly impractical hoop jumping, so you still can’t play with Google Stadia, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate game streaming (xCloud), Sony PlayStation Now and some others. 

Amazon’s nascent Luna gets about the restriction by playing via Safari using a web shortcut, and we’ll probably see a lot more like that. Most of the platforms that already have web succor — notably Stadia — only work with Chrome on all but iOS at the moment.

How much does GeForce Now cost?

At the moment, GFN has two tiers. You can play for free, or pay $4.99 a month for a Founders membership or $24.95 for a six-month Founders supplies. The latter deal saves you a grand total of $5.

GeForce Now plans

	Free	Founders	Six-month Founders
Cost	Free	$4.99/month for 12 months	$24.95 for six months
Availability	Now	Now, limited time offer	Now, limited time offer
Quality	1080/60p	1080/60p, RTX ray-tracing acceleration	1080/60p, RTX ray-tracing acceleration
Perks	None	Priority access	Priority access, Hyper Scape Season One Battle Pass Token and in-game tickled pack
Free games	No	No	No
Game discounts	No	No	No
Restrictions	One hour per session limit	Six hours per session limit	Six hours per session limit
Platforms	Nvidia Shield, Mac OS, Windows 10, Android; Chrome OS	Nvidia Shield, Mac OS, Windows 10, Android; Chrome OS	Nvidia Shield, Mac OS, Windows 10, Android; Chrome OS

If you’re laughable the free tier, you can only play in one-hour increments, compared to the six hours you get with the Founders’ plans. You can have an unlimited number of sessions — that is, inaugurate back into the game — but you might not be able to get back in currently since Founders are always ahead of you in line. The beside of the wait seems to be dependent on where you are and the time of day. 

The longest wait I had on the free plan (via the northeast data center) was in 5 minutes, even at what I thought would be at peak gametime, but I’ve seen others mention longer wait times.

The one-hour itsy-bitsy is fine for some games. It’s about how long I can continue in Don’t Starve (which is no longer on the service!). But, for example, that game usually invokes perma-death, and you can usually only complete a loadable-in-future save while quitting, which is the last drawing you want to do since there might be a queue to get back in. The only files you can save locally are screenshots and gameplay captures via the Windows Game Bar. 

In second to jumping to the front of the sign-in queue, the Founders plan turns on RTX ray-tracing acceleration for use with games that aid it. I could see obvious improvements in some of the lighting and reflections with it on for Wolfenstein: Youngblood, but nothing that vastly improves the experience of the game.

What games can you play on GeForce Now?

Nvidia finally fixed one of the biggest frustrations with GeForce Now, bringing back the list of all compatible games so you can scroll over and determine if enough of your favorites are there to make it wonderful your while to subscribe. 

Nvidia is slowly improving discoverability. It can now sync your Steam game library with your GFN library, but the sync is all-or-nothing, which means you can weed out games you’ve already played or others you just don’t want in your GFN library deprived of doing it manually post-sync. It did let me conclusively see that only 52 of the roughly 219 games I have in Steam were available in GFN; less than a quarter of my library.

The initial version that we got in February 2020 was a scaled-back shadowy of the full-featured prerelease version. It lacked many beta options that made the service so sharp, including the ability to play games that weren’t officially supported. Things got worse: Shortly after launch, big game publishers began asking Nvidia to catch support for their games, in at least one case claiming that the licensing orders only covered the beta and not the commercial release.

These are the major publishers whose games been unavailable on GeForce Now as of this writing: Activision, Bethesda Softworks (except for Wolfenstein: Youngblood), Blizzard, Capcom, Electronic Arts (except for Apex Legends), Konami, Remedy, Rockstar Games and Square Enix. That covers a lot of popular games and franchises, including Resident Evil, Overwatch, Madden NFL, Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy.

Even when Nvidia manages to get it all straightened out, the here-for-a-year-then-gone streaming commercial model for games you’ve licensed yourself will remain a problem: You don’t actually own any game with DRM that means a store launcher or publisher login. When you look at comments around the service, you’ll see a lot of people who pay $60 or more for games specifically to use them with GeForce Now, either because they want to play on mobile or because they lack the regulations power necessary to play locally. If that’s your plan, don’t do it.

If you already own games you want to use with GeForce Now, on the new hand, there’s little downside and a lot of upside. That’s also true if you’re only planning to play free games such as Fortnite or DOTA 2. 

What special features does it have?

Nvidia has Highlights, which can automatically record notable gameplay, and FreeStyle, for applying filters to your games. And Ansel — the high-resolution capture tool in Nvidia’s drivers — will be inward soon in GeForce Now. However, they’re not available on all games. Highlights, for instance, seems to be added on a case-by-case basis.

So how good is it?

When I wonderful tested it at launch, I was impressed with GeForce Now’s performance on the Razer equipped with a Junglecat gamepad and a Dell XPS 13 with an Xbox Wireless Controller — even over my generally meh home network, which usually makes cloud-gaming services gag. It’s hard to tell if the tiny (but occasionally frustrating) response lag I experience in Cuphead, Yakuza Kiwami, Don’t Starve (one of which is no longer on the service!) and others is the Bluetooth-connected controller, the game, the service or just me. Or all of the over.

But, as usual, beyond a certain point it’s not the hardware that holds back the experience; it’s your internet connection. And bandwidth is only one factor when playing. The consistency of the connection is even more important, and it’s something you can’t measure because it moves minute to minute — and it’s hard to fix in many situations. That doesn’t always translate to poorer gameplay, but it frequently does Begin glitching the controls. 

Another big factor in your network quality is the plot. All of these services are far more playable on a Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus than on my old, cheap Motorola Moto G5S Plus. 

Read more: Game subscription services: Read this beforehand you choose one

It’s also worth noting that every setup I play on, counting on a full-fat gaming desktop via our lab Fios network over Wi-Fi, serves up random “spotty connection” errors and occasional degradation in the video quality. There’s been no audio dropout, which was an narrate for me early on and can be a Predicament with cloud gaming. The impact on battery life was also improper, or at least not as bad as expected.

The same goes for the known on Chromebooks. I tried it on the Chromebook 715, which falls on the high end of the performance spectrum. On my home network, I’d launch a game when the connection was OK and at least 150Mbps, but by the time the opening screen appeared I’d Begin getting “spotty connection” warnings on a regular basis. In Observation, the glitchy video and unresponsive camera controls could pass as part of the game. In a platformer like Dead Cells, not so much. So your mileage may vary.

The one drawing all these networks have in common is crowding on the Wi-Fi channels. There are no lightly used ones among the 20 or so Wi-Fi networks surrounding my apartment and my router. Ethernet is an option, but really inconvenient, which is probably true for a lot of country. This isn’t unique to GeForce Now. It happens with all the services for me. But clearly it’s an narrate, given that Nvidia has a recommended router program for the service. 

At its best, GeForce Now can be a seamless known, nearly indistinguishable from playing a game installed on the machine in lead of you. But even then, fast-paced first-person shooters are the most sensitive to network and backend subjects, and more often feel just a few split-seconds off, enough to distract from the experience. 

If the game catalog had more big-name franchises and one could be soldier in games sticking around, it would be well sterling a few bucks a month for access. But while we used to think the technologically issues were going to be the service’s biggest obstacle, it turns out the business model was the hidden exertion lurking around the corner the whole time.