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WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) — A Government Accountability Office report on debt settlement firms said the industry was deceiving U.S. consumers about reducing their debts.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, the GAO said companies were promising pie-in-the-sky results, illegally encouraging borrowers to stop making debt payments, and advertising their firms as if they were connected to federal agencies, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Some companies tell consumers they have a success rate as high as 100 percent in helping people reduce their debt load. But federal and state surveys have pegged the figure at less than 10 percent, the newspaper said.

Committee members heard recordings of debt settlement company sales staff telling consumers their firms were “government approved,” or claiming they had some connection to the Troubled Asset Relief Program — a $700 billion bailout program that was designed for companies, not consumers.

“It is appalling beyond words.

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Tags: Debt Settlement, Debt Settlement Firms, Firms, Settlement Firms

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Commerce Department said new orders for durable goods dropped 1.3 percent in March compared to February after three months of increases.

In March, durable good orders, items intended to last at least three years, fell by $2.2 billion to $176.7 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Excluding the volatile category of transportation, however, new orders rose 2.8 percent, which will make the report encouraging to investors. Winnowing out defense spending, new orders fell 1.2 percent.

Transportation led the declines with a 12.9 percent drop to $40.2 billion.

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Tags: Durable Goods, March

DALLAS, April 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to provide support and training for a high-altitude defense weapon system, the company said.

Lockheed said it was awarded an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with an initial value of $25.7 million to support fielding of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense weapon system.

THAAD is part of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s ballistic missile defense system. It is the only missile defense system that can intercept targets inside and outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Lockheed, under the Army contract, will support THAAD user testing, part of the processing needed to deliver the missile system to the military.

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Tags: Lockheed, Lockheed 257

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) — Sales of new single-family homes jumped sharply in March, rising 26.9 percent compared with February, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday.

The annual rate of home sales reached 411,000, up from February’s revised figure of 324,000. The number of new homes sold in March rose 23.8 percent higher than March 2009.

With a federal home-buyer’s tax credit scheduled to end April 30, Commerce said the median sales price for new homes in March was $214,000, down from $220,500 in February. The average sales price in March, Commerce said, was $258,600, down from $292,600 a month ago.

At the end of February there were 228,000 homes on the market, an inventory that would last 6.7 months at the current pace of sales, a sharp drop from February’s 9.2 months of inventory, Commerce said.

Tags: March

WALTHAM, Mass., April 23 (UPI) — A low-risk, air-to-ground missile system met its primary test objectives in a joint effort with defense contractor Boeing, missile company Raytheon said.

Raytheon funded the test of a Joint Air-to-Ground Missile from a ground-based, rotary-wing launcher. The weapon performed planned flight maneuvers, moving toward a designated location.

The missile company said the test was a breakthrough, putting the JAGM on track to enter the manufacturing development phase.

The test for the JAGM was the first such exercise meant to assure both companies that they could deliver a reliable missile system to the U.S. government.

Bob Francois, vice president for advanced missiles and unmanned systems at Raytheon, said the JAGM used existing technology to give the U.S.

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Tags: Test