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      Biden extends pause on federal student loan payments to end of August

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      Biden extends pause on federal student loan payments to end of AugustNearly 37 million borrowers have been affected by the pause, with a delay of $195bn of payments since start of pandemic Joe Biden announced the pause on federal student loan collections in the US will be extended until 31 August.The pause on federal student loans first started at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 under the Trump administration. This is the seventh time the pause has seen an extension since then.“We are still recovering from the pandemic and the unprecedented economic disruption it caused,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that data from the Federal Reserve suggested that if collections were to resume, “millions of student loan borrowers would face significant economic hardship, and delinquencies and defaults could threaten Americans’ financial stability”.Nearly 37 million borrowers have been affected by the pause, with a delay of $195bn of payments since the start of the pandemic, according to the Federal Reserve of New York.In addition to the extension, the White House announced that borrowers who have defaulted or are delinquent on their loans will get a “fresh start” on their payments once collection resumes. Consequences experienced by borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans include having tax refunds withheld, wage garnishment and diminished social security benefits.“During the pause, we will continue our preparations to give borrowers a fresh start and to ensure that all borrowers have access to repayment plans that meet their financial situations and needs,” the education secretary, Miguel Cardona, said in a statement.Advocates for those with student debt, who have been pushing the Biden administration to extend the pause for weeks, praised the continuation of the pause but noted that the five-month extension was too short for borrowers and for the Department of Education to get ready to restart collections.“The pause is a temporary measure that should be in service of a long-term fix, or borrowers may be back in the same crunch four months from now,” Abby Shafroth, interim director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said in a statement.The announcement of the extension also comes off the back of a rally held in Washington DC on Monday urging Biden to cancel student debt outright. Calls for Biden to cancel student loans have gained momentum over the course of the pandemic. At the end of March, dozens of Democratic lawmakers signed a letter asking Biden to extend the pause until at least the end of the year and “provide meaningful student debt cancellation”.Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who signed the letter, tweeted on Tuesday that extensions could be read as “savvy politics” but still leave borrowers with instability.“I don’t think those folks understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty,” she tweeted.I think some folks read these extensions as savvy politics, but I don’t think those folks understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty. It doesn’t have the affect people think it does.We should cancel them. https://t.co/ZvkGRwliLT— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 5, 2022
      The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who also signed the letter, said that the extension was “a very good thing” but added that Biden should move forward with broader debt cancellation.“The president should go further and forgive $50,000 in student loans permanently. It’s a huge burden on so many people,” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday.As a candidate for president, Biden supported the idea of cancelling at least $10,000 of student loans per person. Since entering office, Biden has been mum on any plans to cancel student debt.Last month, Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, suggested that the administration was considering policies that go beyond a pause extension saying: “The question whether or not there’s some executive action on student debt forgiveness when payments resume is a decision we’re going to take before payments resume.”TopicsUS educationBiden administrationHigher educationUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      ‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historians

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      ‘I didn’t win the election’: Trump admits defeat in session with historiansThe ex-president also said that Iran, China and South Korea were happy Biden won, adding that ‘the election was rigged and lost’

      Review: The Presidency of Donald Trump
      Donald Trump has admitted he did not win the 2020 election.Capitol attack panel scores two big wins as it inches closer to Trump’s inner circleRead more“I didn’t win the election,” he said.The admission came in a video interview with a panel of historians convened by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and editor of The Presidency of Donald Trump: A First Historical Assessment. The interview was published on Monday by the Atlantic.Describing his attempts to make South Korea pay more for US military assistance, Trump said Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, was among the “happiest” world leaders after the 2020 US election put Joe Biden in the White House.“By not winning the election,” Trump said, “he was the happiest man – I would say, in order, China was – no, Iran was the happiest.“[Moon] was going to pay $5bn, $5bn a year. But when I didn’t win the election, he had to be the happiest – I would rate, probably, South Korea third- or fourth-happiest.”Trump also said “the election was rigged and lost”.Trump’s refusal to accept defeat by Biden provoked attempts to overturn results in key states in court – the vast majority of such cases ending in defeat – and the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Trump was impeached a second time, for inciting an insurrection, and acquitted a second time after enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal.Trump thus remains free to run for the White House again in 2024, which he has repeatedly hinted he will do.Writing for the Atlantic, Zelizer said Trump “was the one who had decided to reach out to a group of professional historians so that we produced ‘an accurate book’”.The former president called the historians assembled by Zelizer “a tremendous group of people, and I think rather than being critical I’d like to have you hear me out, which is what we’re doing now, and I appreciate it”.Trump, Zelizer wrote, “seemed to want the approval of historians, without any understanding of how historians gather evidence or render judgments”.Zelizer also pointed out that shortly after the session with the historians, Trump announced he would give no more interviews for books about his time in office.“It seems to me that meeting with authors of the ridiculous number of books being written about my very successful administration, or me, is a total waste of time,” Trump said in a statement, in July 2021.“These writers are often bad people who write whatever comes to their mind or fits their agenda. It has nothing to do with facts or reality.”TopicsBooksHistory booksPolitics booksDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Suspect arrested in Sacramento shooting that left six dead

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      Suspect arrested in Sacramento shooting that left six deadPolice say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and have executed three search warrants Police in the California state capital have made an arrest in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting that left six people dead and at least a dozen others injured. In the hours after the bloodshed, police say they have received more than 100 videos or photos from the scene and executed search warrants on three homes.They identified a 26-year-old man as one of the individuals arrested in connection to the shooting, in a press release. He has been charged with assault and illegal firearm possession offenses.01:19On Monday, authorities identified the six people killed in the shooting, after at least two shooters opened fire in a crowd as bar patrons filled the streets at closing time on the outskirts of the city’s entertainment district.The Sacramento county coroner identified three women who were killed as Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21.The three male victims were identified as Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and DeVazia Turner, 29.The sound of rapid-fire gunshots at about 2am sent people running in terror. Twelve people were wounded in the neighborhood anchored by the Golden One Arena, which hosts concerts and the Sacramento Kings.“My child is out there on that ground, you know? This don’t make any sense and there’s other people’s children that’s out there on the ground. And they won’t tell us nothing, and it’s heartbreaking,” Pamela Harris, Sergio’s mother, told Sacramento’s local Fox affiliate on Sunday, shortly before police confirmed that her son had been killed. “It’s heartbreaking to see what’s going on out here and they’re not telling us anything.”Since Harris was identified, dozens of people have posted to his Facebook page to express their shock and disbelief at the sudden loss. He was killed alongside his cousin DeVazia Turner, whose father told the same news outlet that the two were out that night to enjoy themselves. “He was out just having fun with his friends,” Turner said. “There’s just nothing to say. I’m just here. I’m grief, that’s all – grief.”A friend of Melinda Davis said she was a “very sassy lady” who lived on the streets of Sacramento near the shooting site. ‘Slow violence that drives death’: a California port city’s struggle with pollution and shootingsRead moreShawn Peter, a guide with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership told the Sacramento Bee he’d known Davis for 15 years. She had been homeless and lived in the area on and off for a decade. “Melinda was a very eccentric individual, a very sassy lady,” he told the newspaper. “This was her world, 24/7.”Officials had helped her find housing before the pandemic began but she had returned to the downtown business district in recent months, Peter said. A small bouquet of purple roses with a note saying “Melinda Rest In Peace” was left on the street.The gunfire erupted just after a fight broke out on a street lined with an upscale hotel, nightclubs and bars and police said they were investigating whether the altercation was connected to the shooting. Video from witnesses posted on social media showed rapid gunfire for at least 45 seconds as people screamed and ran for cover, the Associated Press reported.Small memorials with candles, balloons and flowers were placed Monday morning near the crime scene. One balloon had a message on it saying in part: “You will forever be in our hearts and thoughts. Nothing will ever be the same.”Police say they had recovered more than 100 shell casings at the scene and had located several cars and buildings with bullet holes in them.This mass shooting comes less than six weeks after a man shot himself after killing his three daughters – ages nine, 10 and 13 – and a man who was supervising a visit between the girls and their father at a Sacramento-area church. He was banned from owning a gun because of a domestic violence restraining order but was able to skirt the prohibition by getting a ghost gun, a firearm that is ordered in parts and can be assembled in a few hours with the help of a YouTube tutorial. They lack serial numbers and can be bought without a background check, making them nearly impossible to trace through traditional means.Several mass shootings have taken place in northern California in recent years and have fueled calls for stricter gun legislation at the federal level.Joe Biden has long been a champion of what many refer to as “commonsense” legislation such as universal background checks and has made ghost gun abatement part of his administration’s public safety approach.“Today, America once again mourns for another community devastated by gun violence,” Biden said on Sunday. “But we must do more than mourn; we must act.”California has more than 100 gun laws on the books that determine who can sell ammunition, where guns can be purchased, and the number of rounds any single firearm can hold. And cities including San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland have banned ghost guns and lodged lawsuits against manufacturers of parts. Still, California lawmakers are continuing to create legislation, including a measure modeled after Texas’s abortion ban, that they hope will keep unregistered or illegally purchased guns out of people’s hands, cars and homes.But the longtime partisan stalemate and lack of a permanent head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are making it more difficult for Biden to put his campaign promises into practice and leave gun regulation mainly to states.On Monday, Senator Dianne Feinstein joined the chorus of officials calling on Congress to pass new gun legislation. “Of course, this isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest in an epidemic of gun violence that continues to plague our country,” Feinstein said in a statement.“Enough is enough. We can no longer ignore gun violence in our communities. Congress knows what steps must be taken to stop these mass shootings, we just have to act.”TopicsCaliforniaGun crimeUS gun controlJoe BidenUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘I know how much it hurts’: Biden to release US oil in bid to lower gas prices – as it happened

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      Key events

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      ‘Incontrovertible evidence that this [war] has been a strategic disaster for Russia’ – White House

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      Biden: Putin may be in ‘self-isolation’

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      Biden confirms draw on oil reserves to lower gas prices

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      Pelosi wants inquiry on Russia’s ‘crimes against children’

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      Oil prices plunge as Biden mulls 180m barrel release

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      Biden confirms draw on oil reserves to lower gas prices

      Joe Biden says his plan to release 1m barrels daily from the US strategic oil reserves will: “Ease the pain families are feeling right now, end this era of dependence and uncertainty and lay a new and new foundation for true and lasting American energy independence.”
      The president is speaking live at the White House to announce the move, which he said would last up to six months and which will represent the largest ever draw ever on the country’s emergency supplies.
      “I know how much it hurts,” he said of rising gas prices that have followed the decision by the Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
      “Putin’s price hike is hitting Americans at the pump.” More