Court Temporarily Blocks Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness

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A federal appeals court late Friday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans.  The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay while it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the loan cancellation program. The stay ordered the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal.  The order came just days after people began applying for loan forgiveness.  It’s unclear what the decision means for the 22 million borrowers who have applied for relief. The Biden administration had promisedmore

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Appeals Court: Graham Must Testify in Georgia Election Probe

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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia, a federal appeals court said Thursday. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paves the way for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to bring Graham in for questioning. She wants to ask the South Carolina Republican about phone calls he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said Graham asked him whether he had the power to reject certain absentee ballots. Raffensperger saidmore

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Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Survives 2 Legal Challenges

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A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a Republican-led challenge to President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, shortly after U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a request in another case to block it.  U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis, Missouri, said that while the six Republican-led states had raised “important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” they lacked the necessary legal standing to be able to pursue the case.  Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina had alleged Biden’s plan skirted congressional authority and threatened the states’more

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New Forward Party Seeks Center Stage in US Politics 

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When Americans vote on November 8 in the midterm elections, most will choose candidates from either the Democratic or Republican parties. Some ballots will include political hopefuls from so-called third parties, which traditionally have had scant success. One new party is hoping to shake up the system in the years ahead: the Forward Party, led by a former Democratic Party presidential hopeful, an ex-Republican governor of New Jersey and a previous member of Congress, also a Republican, from Florida. Every U.S. president since the mid-19th century has been either a Republican or a Democrat. The last exception was Millard Fillmore,more

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Republican Party Targeting Hispanic Voters in Texas

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In this year’s midterm elections in the United States, the Republican Party is pushing to expand recent gains among Hispanic voters. VOA’s Scott Stearns narrates this story from Christian von Preysing-Barry in Texas, where Republicans this year won a congressional seat long held by the Democratic Party. Videographer: Christian von Preysing-Barry …

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Emails Show Trump Knowingly Pressed False Voter Fraud Claims, Judge Says 

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A California federal judge on Wednesday said then-U.S. President Donald Trump had signed a sworn statement asserting that voter fraud numbers included in a 2020 election lawsuit were accurate, despite being told the numbers were not correct.  U.S. District Judge David Carter made the disclosure in ordering lawyer John Eastman to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.  Eastman was one of Trump’s attorneys when the former president and his allies challenged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.  Representatives for Trump and Eastman did not immediatelymore

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Why US Courts Are Allowing Voters in 4 States to Use Rejected Congressional Maps

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When midterm elections get under way next month, voters in several Republican-controlled states will be casting their ballots in congressional districts with borders that courts have rejected. In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio, the congressional maps were drawn by Republican legislators in the aftermath of the 2020 census. Judges later ruled that the maps were illegally drawn or likely to be proven illegal at trial. But the U.S. Supreme Court, and other federal courts following its precedent, have allowed the rejected maps to be used for this election, rejecting proposals to make them fairer. Their rationale? A little-known legal conceptmore

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Biden Vows Abortion Legislation as Top Priority Next Year

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President Joe Biden promised Tuesday that the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that writes abortion protections into law — if Democrats control enough seats in Congress to pass it — as he sought to energize his party’s voters three weeks ahead of the November midterms.  Twice over, Biden urged people to remember how they felt in late June when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, fresh evidence of White House efforts to ensure the issue stays front of mind for Democratic voters this year.  “Imore

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Analyst Acquitted at Trial Over Discredited Trump Dossier

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A jury on Tuesday acquitted on all counts a think-tank analyst accused of lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a discredited dossier about former President Donald Trump.  The case against Igor Danchenko was the third and possibly final case brought by Special Counsel John Durham as part of his probe into how the FBI conducted its own investigation into allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin.  The first two cases ended in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation.  Danchenko betrayed no emotion as the verdict wasmore

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US Urges 6-Month Sentence for Ex-Trump Adviser Bannon Over Contempt Conviction

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The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal judge to sentence former President Donald Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon to six months behind bars, saying he pursued a “bad faith strategy defiance and contempt” against the congressional committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.  Bannon, an influential far-right political figure, was convicted in July on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena.  Each count is punishable by between 30 days to one year in prison and a fine ranging between $100 to $100,000.  He is due to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Carlmore

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AP-NORC Poll: Most Say Voting Vital Despite Dour US Outlook

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From his home in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, Graeme Dean says there’s plenty that’s disheartening about the state of the country and politics these days. At the center of one of this year’s most competitive U.S. Senate races, he’s on the receiving end of a constant barrage of vitriolic advertising that makes it easy to focus on what’s going wrong.  But the 40-year-old English teacher has no intention of disengaging from the democratic process. In fact, he believes that the first national election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is “more significant” than in years past.  “This couldmore

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US Justice Department Seeks End of Review of Documents Seized From Trump Home 

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The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court Friday to end a special third-party review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, arguing that a district court should not have appointed a “special master” in the case.  In a petition to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Justice Department prosecutors argued that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exceeded her authority when she paused a criminal investigation to allow the special master to review more than 11,000 seized records.  “It follows that the district court erred in requiring the government to submit anymore

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Congressional January 6 Panel Wrapping Up Case Against Trump

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The congressional panel investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of last year is wrapping up its public hearings Thursday, pledging to present new evidence to show the scope of former president Donald Trump’s connection to the violence that day as he tried to upend his 2020 election defeat and stay in power for another four years. The House of Representatives Select Committee’s hearing is expected to be its first without live testimony from new witnesses. But the panel’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said the nine-member committee plans to reveal “significant information that we’ve notmore

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Pressure Grows for Congressional Action on US-Saudi Relationship  

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The Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers are pushing this week for longtime ally Saudi Arabia to face consequences for agreeing to reduce oil production. OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia, the 12 other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and 10 other oil-exporting nations, announced last week that it would cut its oil production target by 2 million barrels a day, despite U.S. objections. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the decision was unanimous and based on economic considerations. Some members of Congress are calling for an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. U.S. President Joemore

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Here’s What to Expect From Final January 6 Panel Hearing

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The congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol is set to hold what will likely be its final public hearing on Thursday, with members pledging new revelations about former President Donald Trump’s role in the events that led up to the attack. The televised hearing, House of Representatives committee members say, will be sweeping and thematic, offering a broad overview of the panel’s findings to date while airing recently unearthed evidence tying Trump and his associates to the far-right groups that plotted the riot. “We’re going to be going through really some of what we’vemore

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US Justice Department to Monitor Midterms, Avoid Appearance of Partisanship

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Carrying on a long-established tradition, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) plans to deploy teams of federal observers around the country on Election Day next month while requiring the FBI to receive high-level approval for politically sensitive investigations that might call into question the integrity of the election. At stake in the Nov. 8 congressional races is not only control of Congress but also the legitimacy of U.S. elections — fallout from former President Donald Trump’s attempt to undo the outcome of the 2020 presidential vote. Many Americans are questioning the credibility of elections. At the same time, new laws passedmore

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Bullet-Proof Glass, Guards: US Election Offices Tighten Security for Nov. 8 Midterms

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When voters in Jefferson County, Colorado, cast their ballots in the Nov. 8 midterm election, they will see security guards stationed outside the busiest polling centers. At an election office in Flagstaff, Arizona, voters will encounter bulletproof glass and need to press a buzzer to enter. In Tallahassee, Florida, election workers will count ballots in a building that has been newly toughened with walls made of the super-strong fiber Kevlar. Spurred by a deluge of threats and intimidating behavior by conspiracy theorists and others upset over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat, some election officials across the United Statesmore

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Proud Boys Member Pleads Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy in Capitol Riot 

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A North Carolina man pleaded guilty Thursday of plotting with other members of the far-right Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, making him the first member of the extremist group to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge.  Jeremy Joseph Bertino, 43, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation of the role that Proud Boys leaders played in the mob’s attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a federal prosecutor said.  Bertino’s cooperation could increase the pressure on other Proud Boys charged in the siege, including former national chairmanmore

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Supreme Court Takes Up Key Voting Rights Case From Alabama

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The Supreme Court is taking up an Alabama redistricting case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the United States.  The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in the latest high-court showdown over the federal Voting Rights Act, lawsuits seeking to force Alabama to create a second Black majority congressional district. About 27% of Alabamians are Black, but they form a majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts.  The court’s conservatives, in a 5-4 vote in February, blocked a lower court ruling that would have required a second Black majority district in time for themore

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Democrats Unveil Spending Bill to Fund Government, Aid Ukraine

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Democratic lawmakers have unveiled a stopgap spending measure to finance the federal government through December 16, provide additional support to Ukraine and help communities respond to recent natural disasters.  Both chambers of Congress must approve legislation by Friday, which is the end of the fiscal year, to prevent a partial government shutdown. It represents the last bit of unfinished business for lawmakers before the midterm elections in November. Both sides are eager to wrap up and spend time on the campaign trail, lowering the risk of a federal stoppage.  The first test vote of the measure’s popularity will take placemore

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Senators Urge Biden to Increase Pressure on North Korea

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Two Republican senators have expressed concern to the Biden administration at the growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang over Russia’s war in Ukraine. “We are troubled by news reports that Russia and North Korea are strengthening their relationship, which will aid [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Hagerty said in their letter dated Thursday.  “North Korea and Russia have recently agreed to dispatch North Korean laborers to areas in Ukraine seized by Russia,” their letter continued. “We also learned that Russia is attempting to purchase millions of artillery shells and rockets from Northmore

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Republicans Quiet as Arizona Democrats Condemn Abortion Ruling

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Arizona Democrats vowed Saturday to fight for women’s rights after a court reinstated a law first enacted during the Civil War that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances, looking to capitalize on an issue they hope will have a major impact on the midterm elections. Republican candidates were silent a day after the ruling, which said the state can prosecute doctors and others who assist with an abortion unless it’s necessary to save the mother’s life. Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, and Blake Masters, the Senate candidate, did not comment. Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes, the Democratic nomineesmore

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US Lawmakers Assail Iran on Death of Woman in Morality Police Custody 

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Key U.S. lawmakers are rebuking Iran for its human rights record in the aftermath of the death of a young woman while held in captivity by the country’s morality police for failing to properly cover her hair with a hijab. The lawmakers rebuffed claims by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in his speech Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly that Tehran supports human rights. Raisi did not mention the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, and the protests that have erupted over her death, but rather assailed what he characterized as oppression, injustice and human rights violations in Western countries, including themore

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