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The federal student loan payment pause that began in March 2020 is ending. Loans began accruing interest on Sept. 1, and borrowers will start making payments in October.

But the restart comes at a tricky time for Americans’ finances. Credit card debt is at a record high — $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — and student loan borrowers may struggle to prioritize different types of debt.

Credit card debt is especially damaging to your finances because of its high, compounding interest. As money gets tighter, consolidating your credit card debt under a zero- or low-interest product may be a smart move.

Increased debt for student loan borrowers

With no student loan bills for the past three-plus years, borrowers may have used the space in their budget to take on other types of debt.

More than half of all federal student loan borrowers took out a new bank-issued credit card during the pandemic, while 36% got an auto loan and 31% signed up for a retail credit card, according to a July TransUnion study.

Liz Pagel, senior vice president of consumer lending for TransUnion, says that while some debt acquisition was a natural result of young consumers aging into new credit obligations — like their first credit card — the issuing of new credit also jumped to levels not seen even before the COVID-19 pandemic. read more

Aerospace company Blue Origin, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, confirmed its longtime CEO is stepping down and a former Amazon executive is coming on board to take his place.

Bob Smith joined Blue Origin from Honeywell Aerospace in 2017 leading the burgeoning company through its space tourism and heavy lift rocket pursuits that include the massive New Glenn rocket factory on the Space Coast.

In an email to the Orlando Sentinel attributed to a Blue Origin spokesperson, the company said Tuesday it was bringing on board Dave Limp beginning in December and that Smith would remain through Jan. 2 ” to ensure a smooth transition.”

Blue Origin continues New Glenn puzzle progress for Cape Canaveral launches

“Dave is a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset,” the email stated. “He has extensive experience in the high-tech industry and growing highly complex organizations, including leading Amazon’s Kuiper, Kindle, Alexa, Zoox, Fire TV and many other businesses.”

Amazon had previously announced Limp was stepping down before the end of the year. read more

There are more than 7,000 rare disorders, and many cannot be diagnosed in a doctor’s office.

That’s why genetic sequencing is so important.

Now The Jackson Laboratory in Farmington is able to sequence the entire genome, an advance that will roughly double the number of rare diseases that can be positively diagnosed. It’s the only whole-genome sequencing test offered in Connecticut.

Until next-generation genome sequencing became available about 10 years ago, there was no way for many rare disorders to be accurately diagnosed, according to Melissa Kelly, clinical laboratory director at the Jackson lab.

Previously, Sanger sequencing, developed in 1977, was too slow to be useful.

“There’s been studies on this actually, how many missed diagnoses patients will have prior to getting their actual diagnosis from a genome, and it’s something like seven,” Kelly said.

“It’s crazy how many times these patients get told the wrong thing, or get told nothing,” she said. “No one can tell them an answer at all. And that’s the problem with current clinical care is the genome isn’t the first step and so these patients are going through test after test after test and being told different things and not really getting the right answer, and that takes a toll on the patients and on their family.” read more