Mortgage rates reached their highest point since the Great Recession, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate sitting at 5.27%. Experts expect future interest rates to continue climbing as the Federal Reserve acts to tamp down inflation. Near the end of April, mortgage purchase applications were down 17% from a year earlier and sales of existing homes in March fell 2.7%. For the past two years, low interest rates, stimulus aid from Congress and people’s flexibility to choose where to live have boosted demand for the handful of homes available and sent home prices soaring.

Google will conduct employee performance reviews once a year instead of twice a year following a survey that found nearly half of Google employees didn’t think their time was well spent with the previous system. The move will require less paperwork and change the way employees are rated. As tech companies worry about hiring and retention, tech workers are acting on their increased power – last year Meta also cut back to one annual review, underscoring a study that found 75% of employees think traditional performance reviews are inaccurate.

The Food and Drug Administration limited the use of the Johnson and Johnson coronavirus vaccine, citing concerns over a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder. The action follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines over Johnson and Johnson’s for booster shots. While Johnson and Johnson said the FDA’s decision reflected the already-known risk of the side effect, the company has also stopped providing sales outlooks for the shot to investors in a possible sign of its own waning interest in its vaccine.

Overall plastics recycling fell by nearly 6% at the start of the pandemic – a drop of 290 million pounds – a new report shows. While the pandemic was good for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it also drove the decline in the recycling of food containers and bottles. The report comes as California begins an investigation into the fossil fuel industries for allegedly overstating the role of recycling in curbing global plastic pollution and accelerating the crisis.

SpaceX brought four astronauts home with a midnight splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, capping the busiest month yet for Elon Musk’s service ferrying for NASA. Musk’s company has now launched 26 people into orbit in less than two years, eight of which were space tourists. The head of NASA recently emphasized how an increase in competition likely represents a boon for the growing swath of space companies looking to provide low-cost services.

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