Business News Roundup, Jan. 28

Facebook said the outage that made its social media sites inaccessible worldwide for about an hour Tuesday was self-inflicted. Users of PCs and Facebook’s mobile app reported they lost access in the United States, Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom. “This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems,” it said. The outage occurred at midday in Asia, and after Facebook was restored, some users reported that the site was loading slowly or not functioning fully. Supermarket chain Albertsons says regulators have approved its purchase of competitor Safeway Inc. The FTC said the sale would hurt consumers in 130 markets, and in December the companies said they would sell 168 stores in eight states to preserve competition. Home prices rose at a modest pace in November, held back by weaker sales and a limited number of houses for sale. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, released Tuesday, increased 4.3 percent in November from 12 months earlier. First-time buyers in particular were priced out of many neighborhoods and accounted for a historically low proportion of sales last year. Economists are hopeful that home sales and construction will rebound this year, partly because price gains are returning to levels consistent with a stable housing market. “The housing market is heading in the right direction,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist at real estate data provider Zillow. More inventory ...