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NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands Cash App and Square customers were unable to access their accounts or send money Thursday and early Friday due to system outages impacting both payment services.

Outage reports for both platforms picked up around the same time Thursday afternoon, according to data from outage tracker Downdetector. In the hours following, numerous customers took to social media to share error messages and frustrations about not being able to access their money.

“Since around noon PT (3pm ET) on Thursday, sellers have been unable to access accounts or process payments due to a systems outage within Square,” Square wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly before 7am ET Friday. “We know you trust us with your business, and these situations add challenges to running your operations. For that, we are truly sorry.”

In a later update to its online status portal, Square said that its services were “steadily regaining their functionality” Friday morning.

Cash App similarly reported some service recovery Friday. As of around 7:30 a.m. ET, Cash App said that customers could once again add cash, make purchases with their Cash Card and buy Bitcoin. But not all services had fully returned yet. read more

By Ruben Caginalp, Bankrate.com

Does your dream home have a $700,000 price tag? That’s well above the National Association of Realtors’ median price for a home, which in July 2023 was $406,700. Whether you can afford such a pricey purchase will depend on a variety of factors, including your salary and the interest rate of your mortgage.

Use Bankrate’s mortgage calculator to figure out how much you need to make to afford a $700,000 home:

• Assuming a 30-year fixed mortgage and a 20 percent down payment of $140,000, at an interest rate of 6.5 percent, your monthly principal and interest payment would be $3,539. That’s more than $42,000 per year on principal and interest alone.
• Round that monthly figure up to around $4,200 to account for property taxes, homeowners insurance and potential HOA fees, all of which vary widely. That makes your total annual housing bill $50,400.
• Now apply the common rule of thumb that you shouldn’t spend more than about a third of your income on housing. The $50,400 figure, multiplied by three, comes to $151,200 — that is the minimum salary you’d need in order to afford this home purchase.

To reiterate, these numbers will vary drastically depending on variable factors like your homeowners insurance premium and local property taxes. Your monthly payment will be lower if you snag a lower mortgage rate, higher if it’s higher; and your payment will be higher if you make a down payment of less than 20 percent as well. Here’s a deeper dive into how much income you’d need to afford a $700,000 home.

Income to afford a $700K house

The 28/36 rule is a good starting point when determining what salary you need for a $700,000 home purchase. This real estate rule of thumb recommends that no more than 28 percent of your total monthly income should go toward your monthly housing costs, and that no more than 36 percent go toward overall debt payments (including housing). read more

While SpaceX has its next flight-ready Starship and Super Heavy on the launch pad, it can’t take off until it gets the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA announced Friday it had closed the investigation into the massive rocket’s “mishap” from an April 20 launch attempt that destroyed much of the launch pad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas facility Starbase, and ended up with SpaceX sending a self-destruct command to the rocket off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico before it reached orbit.

But the FAA said that doesn’t mean it’s ready to let the new Starship get off the ground yet.

“The final report cites multiple root causes of the April 20, 2023, mishap and 63 corrective actions SpaceX must take to prevent mishap reoccurrence,” according to a press statement emailed by the FAA. “Corrective actions include redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical systems and components including the Autonomous Flight Safety System, and the application of additional change control practices.” read more