Just kickin’ it: A University of Georgia graduate student has a shot at winning thousands of dollars in prizes if he can make a 40-yard field goal at halftime of the Allstate BCS National Championship Monday in New Orleans. The Athens Banner-Herald reports that Jonathon Pahlas—who was chosen by the insurance giant at random from 500,000 entries in its “60 Seconds of Mayhem” sweepstakes—isn’t a kicker and never played football or soccer. He ran track in high school, though, and is a graduate student in the University of Georgia’s Department of Marine Sciences. If Pahlas makes the 40-yard field goal, he wins a $30,000 home makeover, an RV, a motorcycle and a boat.
Going down slow: The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.91% this week, Freddie Mac reports today. That matches the record low reached two weeks ago. The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 3.23% from 3.24%. That’s up from 3.21% two weeks ago, also a record low. Mortgage rates are lower because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 2% this week. To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.
On the record: U.S. album sales rose more than 3% last year, showing the first gain since 2004—a sign that rising digital sales are finally stemming the decade-long decline of compact discs. The uptick to 458 million album sales was helped by the hugely popular sophomore album 21 from British singer Adele, which alone sold 5.8 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Huge interest in Adele also led to the sales of 856,000 copies of 19, her debut album from 2008. Digital album sales rose nearly 20% to 103 million, while CDs fell nearly 6% to 225 million. The rest of the total is made up largely of digital single tracks, where 10 tracks are counted as one album. Digital singles sales rose nearly 9% to 1.27 billion.
