Senate Democrats Give New Details on Trump’s Bid to Overturn Election

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A review by U.S. Senate Democrats of Donald Trump’s attempt to use the Justice Department to overturn his 2020 election defeat provided new details on Thursday about an official’s bid to push out the acting attorney general to advance Trump’s false claims. The report by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats details how Jeffrey Bossert Clark, then a senior Justice Department official, met with Trump more than once in late 2020. The then-president was growing angry that acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen would not launch a public investigation into Trump’s false claim that his defeat to now-President Joe Biden was the resultmore

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US Lawmakers Reach Deal to Extend Country’s Borrowing Authority

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U.S. Senate leaders reached an agreement Thursday to extend the government’s borrowing authority through early December to avert what could have been the country’s first-ever default on its debts in less than two weeks. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the pact on the Senate floor after negotiations with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. He proposed to Democrats on Wednesday an extension of the country’s current long-term $28.4 trillion debt total by an unspecified amount to cover government spending into December, by which time the issue would again have to be addressed. Schumer said he hoped to win congressional approval formore

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US Senate Appears Near Temporary Truce in Debt-Ceiling Standoff

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The U.S. Senate appeared near to a temporary deal to avert a federal debt default in the next two weeks, after Democrats said Wednesday that they might accept a Republican proposal to defuse the partisan standoff that threatens the broader economy. Democrats called off an early-afternoon vote after the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, floated a plan that would buy more time to resolve the issue. McConnell proposed that his party would allow an extension of the federal debt ceiling into December. Without congressional action to raise the $28.4 trillion debt limit, the Treasury Department has forecast that it willmore

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Fulbright Applicants in Afghanistan Seek Help

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Afghan semifinalists for next year’s Fulbright scholars’ program are asking the U.S. government about the status of their candidacies, following the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as American troops withdrew from Afghanistan in August.  “After the fall of Kabul on August 15, we did not hear back from the U.S. State Department on the Fulbright program regarding the status of our applications,” said Maryam Jami, a law school graduate and applicant from Herat, referring to the Taliban takeover of the Afghan capital on that date.  The Fulbright Foreign Student Program “enables graduate students, young professionals and artists frommore

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Biden Meets with Corporate Executives as Debt Limit Deadline Looms

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U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting Wednesday with some of America’s top business leaders to make the case that Congress must increase the government’s borrowing authority before October 18, when the U.S. expects to run out of money to pay its bills. The White House said before the meeting that the executives “understand firsthand that a default would be economically devastating” for the United States — which has never defaulted on its financial obligations — and the world economy.  A default would risk millions of jobs and throw the U.S. into recession, “causing lasting harm to America’s economic strength by threatening the dollar’s status as the currency the world relies on and downgradingmore

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Troubled Student Loan Forgiveness Program Gets an Overhaul

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The Biden administration is moving to relax the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements — a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants. The Education Department said Wednesday it will temporarily drop some of the toughest requirements around Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that was launched in 2007 to steer more college graduates into public service but, since then, has helped just 5,500 borrowers get their loans erased. Congress created the program as a reward for college studentsmore

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Biden Says Bypassing Filibuster ‘Real Possibility’ to Raise Debt Limit

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U.S. President Joe Biden indicated Tuesday senators from his Democratic Party could bypass a supermajority voting rule in order to increase the nation’s debt limit without Republican votes.  “It’s a real possibility,” Biden told reporters outside the White House.  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the government will likely reach its borrowing limit by October 18 unless Congress acts.  Coming too close to the borrowing limit has its perils. A debt ceiling dispute in 2011 that Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was reached caused stock prices to fall and the first-ever credit downgrade for U.S. debt.  Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to advance the legislation instead ofmore

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Biden Advocates Spending Plans Amid Uncertainty

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President Joe Biden traveled to Michigan on Tuesday to promote his legislative priorities on infrastructure and social spending. The two bills face a stalemate in Congress as members of Biden’s own Democratic Party wrangle over the size and scope of the package.   Investing in infrastructure and expanding social welfare programs are two key issues Biden campaigned on.   With his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, he visited a worker training facility Tuesday in Howell, Michigan, to promote his plans.    “It isn’t enough just to invest in our physical infrastructure,” Biden said. “If we’re going to lead the worldmore

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Colleagues’ Stock Trading Scandals Slow Fed Chief Powell’s March to Renomination

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With time ticking down on his term as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Jerome Powell’s reappointment to the post looks less certain than it did just a few weeks ago, as left-leaning Democrats hammer away at a series of scandals involving senior Fed personnel.  On Monday, Powell’s chief antagonist in Congress, Senator Elizabeth Warren, released a letter to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission asking the agency to investigate “ethically questionable” securities transactions by the presidents of two of the Federal Reserve’s district banks, and the Fed Board’s vice chairman.  The letter came less than amore

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Biden Assails Republicans for Impasse over Increasing US Debt Limit

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U.S. President Joe Biden assailed opposition Republican lawmakers Monday for obstructing Democrats from increasing the country’s borrowing authority to avert a potentially catastrophic default on October 18, when the U.S. government expects to run out of cash to pay its bills.  Biden said he could not guarantee the United States would not default for the first time, contending it is up to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to allow Senate Democrats on their own to increase the debt limit past its current $28.4 trillion level without the threat of a Republican filibuster to block quick action.  The U.S. leader saidmore

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Student Lawyer Fights to Diminish Might of Misdemeanors

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Like many others, Azra Ozdemir’s parents sent her off on the first day of school with the usual sage advice about doing well so she could get into a good college.   That was her first day of kindergarten.    “I knew three words in English: Yes. No,” and the letter P to indicate the need to use the facilities. But by the end of that first year, “the teacher was already telling my parents that I was talking too much in class.” Now a law student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Ozdemir speaks for others who mightmore

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US Democrats Remain Split on Key Legislation

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Key U.S. Democratic lawmakers remained at odds Sunday on how to approve both infrastructure improvements in the country and the biggest social safety net expansion in five decades, but the leading progressive signaled there was room for compromise.  Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has for months pushed for a $3.5 trillion plan calling for climate control measures, universal pre-kindergarten classes, expanded health care for older Americans and more. Sanders is an Independent who caucuses with Democrats.  He told ABC’s “This Week” show, “I accept that there’s going to have to be give and take.”  He declined to put a pricemore

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Blinken Heads to France to Revitalize Transatlantic Alliance

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Paris, his first trip to France following an enhanced trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS (Australia, U.K., and the U.S.) that heightened tensions between the transatlantic allies. Experts said they expect Blinken, who has strong personal ties to France, to use the upcoming trip to try to improve U.S.-France relations. The top U.S. diplomat will chair the Ministerial Council Meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that is scheduled to take place Oct. 5-6, and commemorate the organization’s 60th anniversary. Blinken will have a bilateral meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Lemore

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Abortion, Guns, Religion Top Big US Supreme Court Term

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The future of abortion rights is in the hands of a conservative Supreme Court that is beginning a new term Monday that also includes major cases on gun rights and religion.  The court’s credibility with the public also could be on the line, especially if a divided court were to overrule the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973 that established a woman’s right to an abortion nationwide.  The justices are returning to the courtroom after an 18-month absence caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the possible retirement of liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, also looms.  It’s the first fullmore

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Agenda in Peril, Biden Heads to US Capitol to Meet With Democrats

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President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet Friday with his fellow Democrats in Congress, progressives and moderates in his party remained divided over two massive spending bills that account for much of his domestic agenda.  Democrats have struggled to coalesce around those two bills. Progressives have vowed to block a $1 trillion infrastructure bill without an agreement to advance a larger social spending and climate change bill. Moderates say that bill’s current $3.5 trillion price tag is too high.  After a two-hour party meeting, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives did not appear to have a clear plan. Representativemore

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America’s Investment in Infrastructure Doesn’t Always Pay Off

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About two centuries ago, American local, state and federal governments poured millions of dollars into building canals to move the nation’s people and goods. By 1840, there were 3,000 miles of canals in the United States. But, within 20 years, the rise of the railroads would make canals practically obsolete. In the 1840s, several U.S. states ended up defaulting on the loans they took to build canals and railroads. The defaults are an example of what can happen when governments spend on infrastructure — because trying to guess the future can be like shooting at a moving target.  “You try tomore

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Democrats Delay Vote on Infrastructure Plan, Bowing to Progressives

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Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives delayed a planned vote on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that had been set for Thursday, bowing to party progressives who had demanded action on a larger social policy bill first. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden have been scrambling to patch up differences between progressive lawmakers, who want a $3.5 trillion social spending package to go along with the infrastructure plan, and moderates wanting a smaller bill. The move gave Biden and Democratic leaders more time to try to assemble the votes to gain support for a keymore

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Young Investors Eager to Learn Stock Market

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Investors younger than 34 surveyed by a financial services company said student debt, health care costs and financial jargon are barriers between them and investing. Of the 898 surveyed, 61% of the young investors said education costs, or paying down student loans, are the biggest barriers to retirement, tied with health care costs (61%), according to ETrade Financial Services, which conducted the poll. And financial jargon continued to confound, respondents said. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of the Gen Z and millennial investors note that financial jargon hinders their ability to invest on their own. That was an increase of 8% frommore

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Harvard Gets $45 Million for Asian American Studies Program

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Harvard University, often ranked first among the best colleges and universities in the United States, has received more than $45 million to expand its Asian American studies program. The donations come from 14 Asian American alumni leaders who graduated from the university between 1990 and 2003. The money will support new professorships, graduate fellowships and academic research in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Asian American studies program. It will also attract respected scholars who will foment collaboration and innovation, according to FAS. The university reported that the initiative was cultivated by Claudine Gay, dean of the FAS, “to strengthenmore

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