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Q. I just turned 65, and I haven’t applied for a Social Security benefit yet. My husband applied for his benefits when he retired at age 70. If I apply for a spousal benefit, will I be entitled to 50% of his benefit?

A. Unfortunately, you will not be eligible for a spousal benefit equaling 50% of your husband’s benefit unless you wait until you reach 67, your full retirement age. If you apply for a spousal benefit now, you will get less than 50% of his benefit. You will also be filing for a benefit based on your own work record, and you will be entitled to whichever benefit is higher, the spousal benefit or the benefit based on your work record. Touch base with a Social Security representative and determine what your potential benefits (either spousal or for your own work) would be now and what they would be if you waited until age 67 to file. Once you have that information, you can make a better decision.

Q. My wife is disabled and is receiving disability income from her employer for work outside Social Security, as well as disability income from Social Security. My daughter is 17 and plans to go to college. I am approaching my full retirement age. I am concerned about the income my wife and daughter would receive if I predecease my wife. My wife is a few years younger than me. read more

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget looks to end the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and Gateway space station central to NASA’s existing Artemis program — but only after a successful moon landing as the nation remains in a race with China.

A preliminary overview of the White House’s planned 2026 discretionary budget released Friday dubbed SLS and Orion as “grossly expensive and delayed,” citing that each launch SLS rocket alone costs the government $4 billion and is 140% over budget.

It’s among billions in cuts for the overall $18.8 billion proposed budget for NASA, which for the current fiscal year is nearly $25 billion. Ultimately, Congress will pass a budget and it often counters presidential proposals.

The Trump administration looks to drop funds toward Artemis’ future launches by $879 million with a goal of ending them after the Artemis III flight.

“The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the White House proposal stated. “The budget also proposes to terminate the Gateway, a small lunar space station in development with international partners, which would have been used to support future SLS and Orion missions.” read more

For the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, NASA officially has its hands on a spacecraft expected to fly humans to the moon.

Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the Orion space capsule, transferred possession of the Artemis II spacecraft Thursday to the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems team base at Kennedy Space Center.

Artemis II is slated to launch from KSC no later than April 2026, taking NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day mission around the moon — but not to the lunar surface. That launch date is one that’s been repeatedly delayed after completion of the uncrewed Artemis I mission in late 2022.

“We want to achieve a pace of one flight a year. We’re not there yet,” said Lockheed Martin’s Kirk Shireman, head of its Orion program. “We all know that the faster you fly, the faster you produce vehicles, the cheaper they are, the less cost there is to that and the more you keep the interest of the public.” read more

By Mia Taylor, Bankrate.com

Your house isn’t just one of the biggest purchases you’ll likely make. It’s an ongoing expense — or source of expenses — as well. You know about your mortgage payments, of course. But in addition to those, there are regular costs of maintenance and upkeep.

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Some of these are obvious, encountered in everyday life – housekeeping, lawn mowing, window washing. Others are financial, like property taxes, utilities bills and homeowners insurance. And then there are the wear-and-tear repairs and unexpected fixes, less obvious to the naked eye until there’s an inspection or break. The point is, all of them drive up the tab associated with homeownership. read more

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homeownership is receding further out of reach for most Americans as elevated mortgage rates and rising prices stretch the limits of what buyers can afford.

A homebuyer now needs to earn at least $114,000 a year to afford a $431,250 home — the national median listing price in April, according to data released Thursday by Realtor.com

The analysis assumes that a homebuyer will make a 20% down payment, finance the rest of the purchase with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, and that the buyer’s housing costs won’t exceed 30% of their gross monthly income — an often-used barometer of housing affordability.

Based off the latest U.S. median home listing price, homebuyers need to earn $47,000 more a year to afford a home than they would have just six years ago. Back then, the median U.S. home listing price was $314,950, and the average rate on a 30-year mortgage hovered around 4.1%. This week, the rate averaged 6.76%.

The annual income required to afford a median-priced U.S. home first crossed into the six figures in May 2022 and hasn’t dropped below that level since. Median household income was about $80,600 annually in 2023, according to the U.S. Census bureau. read more