X officially launched X Money in the United States on Monday, transforming the social media platform into a financial hub for Premium and Premium+ subscribers.

The service offers interest-bearing deposit accounts with up to 6% annual percentage yield (APY), instant peer-to-peer payments, and a customizable metal Visa debit card featuring 3% cashback and no foreign transaction fees, with Apple Pay and Google Pay integrations. Premium+ subscribers automatically qualify for the top APY rate, while Premium tier users reach 6% upon setting up qualifying direct deposits.

X Money is powered by Cross River Bank, an FDIC-member institution that holds user deposits. While standard coverage applies to the first $250,000, eligible users can access the X Cash Sweep Program, which distributes funds across multiple partner banks to provide aggregate FDIC insurance coverage of up to $10 million.

The rollout of X Money utilizes a "peer-activation" mechanism where receiving a payment can trigger account access, aiming to leverage X's existing social graph for rapid adoption. There is currently no support for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or stablecoin.

Access is currently limited to verified users in 41 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, excluding New York and Massachusetts where X Payments LLC's money transmitter license applications are pending. Worldwide rollout will follow later subject to regulatory approvals.

CEO Elon Musk has long stated his goal of turning X into an everything app, a Western equivalent of China’s WeChat—a single platform combining social media, messaging, video, and consumer finance. By offering yield and embedded payment rails, X aims to keep user capital and activity inside its ecosystem rather than relying on third-party banking apps.

Monday's launch represents a return to Musk's original online banking venture. In 1999, he co-founded X.com, an early online bank that subsequently merged with Confinity to become PayPal. Reacquiring the X.com domain and launching financial services under the "X" brand completes a decades-long ambition to build a central hub for digital money movement.

Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen of Lebanese descent, was killed by police on Sunday, following a nearly 24-hour manhunt for the deadly attack at Berlin's Christopher Street Day (Pride) celebration.

Authorities classified the incident as an Islamist terrorist attack, stating Ballout drove a white van into a crowd in Berlin’s Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. on Saturday (July 25) before allegedly stabbing several people with a machete.

The attack left one woman dead and 29 others injured, including three with life-threatening conditions, prompting the immediate cancellation of the festival’s closing rally.

Police spokesman Florian Nath earlier said the suspect was known to investigators because of his alleged ties to Islamic groups in Berlin.

"The suspect is known to police. He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin, and our search for this person is proceeding at full speed," Nath said. "We still have no information whatsoever regarding his specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or his role in the crime itself."

Ballout had a documented history of attempting to join the Islamic State (IS) group, according to the authorities. In May 2025, he traveled to Lebanon and attempted to enter Syria to join IS militants but was arrested by Lebanese authorities and later extradited to Germany.

Although he had previously received a suspended sentence for planning attacks and disseminating IS propaganda, he was released from detention in May 2026. During the final confrontation in Berlin’s Spandau district, Ballout allegedly charged at SEK tactical police units with a weapon, leading officers to fatally shoot him.

"Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack," German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said. 

Dobrindt and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the act as a heinous assault on German society and freedom.

The Christopher Street Day (Pride) event, which typically draws over one million participants, was shut down immediately after the violence, and police deployed more than 2,000 officers to secure the area. While Ballout was the primary suspect identified by prosecutors, another man was also arrested on the night of the attack and charged with multiple crimes in connection with the van incident.

Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, returned to Earth at 1027 UTC, July 26, 2026, after a 241-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), concluding the Expedition 74 crew rotation. The capsule undocked from the station’s Rassvet module at 0703 UTC and executed a parachute-assisted landing on the Kazakh steppe southeast of Dzhezkaz.

The crew's departure activities began on Saturday morning with a change-of-command ceremony aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Kud‑Sverchkov handed over the reins of the orbiting lab to NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, part of the transition from ISS Expedition 74 to Expedition 75 (which officially began when Soyuz MS‑28 undocked). The crew then gave their farewells and closed the hatches between the ISS and Soyuz MS-28 on Saturday night.

Following a fiery re-entry and a 10-minute descent under parachutes, the crew was recovered by Russian teams who provided medical checks and traditional matryoshka dolls bearing their likenesses. Williams was flown to Karaganda and then to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the cosmonauts returned to Star City near Moscow.

The crew completed 3,856 orbits covering 164 million kilometers, marking the first spaceflight for Williams and Mikaev, and the second for Kud-Sverchkov, who previously served on Expedition 64-65 (2020–2021) and now has logged 426 days and 9 minutes in space.

William, a former medical physicist and astrophysicist, conducted two spacewalks to replace a joint on the station’s robotic arm and prepare for new solar blanket installations, while also participating in research on cancer treatments and in-space manufacturing. Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev also performed maintenance spacewalks outside the Russian segment of the station.

The departure marked the beginning of Expedition 75, commanded by Meir. The new crew, consisting of Anil Menon, Pyotr Dubrov, and Anna Kikina, arrived at the ISS on July 14 via Soyuz MS-29. Soyuz MS-28 launched to the ISS on Nov. 27, which was Thanksgiving Day.