You've got a new excuse to remodel: preparing for the limitations of old age. Need a grab bar with that hot tub?

Forty years ago mary emma and Dan E. McConaughey built their dream house in Atlanta--a glass-and-stone split-level set on a 5-acre wooded site with bog trails and a waterfall that once powered a gristmill. Then four years ago Mary Emma, now 73, broke her ankle and found herself on crutches, painfully counting the 11 steps from the main living area up to the nearest bathroom.

So with the help of their builder son, Warner, the couple began what semiretired lawyer Dan, 79, wryly calls the "termination renovation" of their home. They added a 15-by-17-foot multipurpose room (convertible into a bedroom), a bath with wheelchair-accessible shower, easier access to storage space and to Dan's prized wine cellar, and a hot tub on a deck overlooking the waterfall. Since both Mary Emma and Dan are now fit, they use the multipurpose room for her book club, his law-book writing and grandkids' art projects.

With such touches as stone from the same quarry used for their original house and reclaimed wormy chestnut to match the old paneling, the project cost $200,000. But it adds to the house's high-end appeal and, more important, should allow the McConaugheys to remain comfortable in their home as they age. "We want to stay here. It's just a part of us," says Mary Emma, a retired psychologist.

While the McConaugheys' wooded retreat is unusual, their desire to stay put isn't. A survey by AARP found 90% of folks 65 to 74 want to live out their years in their current homes. Yet many will find those

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Soaring energy costs pushed inflation up in May at the fastest pace in six months. Food costs kept rising, too, and all signs are pointing to more bad news on gasoline, oil and food in the months ahead.

Costs for clothing and prescription drugs did drop last month, but consumer prices rose by 0.6 percent in all, the biggest one-month increase since November, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Food prices, which had taken the biggest one-month leap in 18 years in April, rose by a more moderate 0.3 percent in May, but that still left food costs rising at a 6.3 percent rate so far year, well above last year's increase. People are paying 10.2 percent more for milk than a year ago.

Consumers are getting hammered by a relentless surge in energy costs, pushing gasoline above $4 per gallon. The rising food prices partly reflect higher costs for transporting products to grocery stores.

Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, edged up 0.2 percent in May, an increase that was in line with expectations and helped to ease worries in financial markets that the Federal Reserve was inching closer to starting to raise interest rates to combat inflation pressures.

Clothing costs fell by 0.3 percent and the cost of prescription drugs dropped by 0.7 percent, but airline tickets jumped 3.2 percent, the biggest gain in more than six years, again reflecting the surge in fuel

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Soaring foreclosures are continuing to raise questions about the mortgage industry's claims that lenders are making a dent in the housing crisis.

Foreclosure filings last month were up nearly 50 percent compared with a year earlier. Nationwide, 261,255 homes received at least one foreclosure-related filing in May, up 48 percent from 176,137 in the same month last year and up 7 percent from April, foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. said Friday.

The latest grim foreclosure news comes as criticism mounts that efforts by government and the mortgage industry to stem the tide of foreclosures aren't keeping up with the rising number of troubled homeowners. Critics say a Bush administration-backed mortgage industry coalition, dubbed Hope Now, is falling far short.

"It's clear that these voluntary efforts in and of themselves cannot really make a dent," said Allen Fishbein, director of credit and housing policy at the Consumer Federation of America. "Government intervention is going to be necessary."

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and an adviser to Republican John McCain's presidential campaign, wrote earlier this week that "the Bush administration's efforts to encourage loan modifications and delay foreclosures are being completely overwhelmed."

A Credit Suisse report from this spring predicted that 6.5 million loans will fall into foreclosure over the