BRIEFCASE.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Hawker Pacific fined in discharge

SUN VALLEY - Hawker Pacific Aerospace was ordered Thursday to pay more than $200,000 in fines after the City Attorney's Office accused the company of illegally discharging hazardous waste into Los Angeles' sewer system.

The Sun Valley company pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 24 months of summary probation. Allegations against the company surfaced after hazardous waste levels of cadmium, nickel and cyanide where found in the city's sewer system.

Mortgage rates are on the decline

WASHINGTON - Mortgage rates edged down this week, good news for people looking to buy a slice of the American dream - their own home.

The mortgage company Freddie Mac, in its weekly survey, reported that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dipped to 6.22 percent for the week ending Thursday. That was down from last week's average rate of 6.26 percent and was the lowest since late October.

Rates on 30-year mortgages had climbed to a two-year high of 6.37 for the week ending Nov. 17, but since have moderated.

Rates on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular choice for refinancing a home mortgage, averaged 5.76 percent, also the lowest since late October. Rates last week on 15-year mortgages averaged 5.79 percent.

One-year adjustable-rate mortgages dropped to 5.15 percent this week, compared with 5.22 percent in the previous week. Rates on five-year hybrid adjustable rate mortgages averaged 5.79 percent, down from 5.82 percent last week.

Skilling loses bid to dismiss counts

HOUSTON - A judge rejected former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling's request to dismiss insider trading charges pending against him in a court opinion made public Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, in a 26-page opinion, denied Skilling's request to dismiss 10 counts of insider trading.

On Wednesday, Lake accepted a guilty plea to securities fraud from former top Enron accountant Richard Causey, who was go to on trial alongside Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay next month.

Skilling faces 35 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors for allegedly knowing about or participating in schemes to manipulate Enron's finances so investors would believe a wobbly company was healthy. Lay faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud for allegedly perpetuating the ruse after Skilling abruptly resigned in August 2001, less than three months before Enron went bankrupt in December that year.

Both have pleaded not guilty, and are slated to go to trial Jan. 30.

Pensions at Delta now latest worry

ATLANTA - The deep pay cuts pilots at bankrupt Delta Air Lines have accepted might be the least of their worries: their retirement benefits are in jeopardy as well.

Union leaders say that in the lead-up to approving another round of salary cuts Wednesday, Delta's 6,000 pilots expressed serious concerns that the nation's third-largest carrier would next seek to terminate their pension plan.

The Air Line Pilots Association says the latest pay-cut agreement, while painful, will at least buy its leaders some time to negotiate conditions that would be implemented if the pension plan is nixed.