NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1
Klobuchar plan: Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has a new plan to help seniors that includes more support for people with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. It’s an issue that’s personal for the Minnesota senator, whose 91yearold father is in a memory care facility. The plan includes new funding for Alzheimer’s research and aims to develop a cure and treatment by 2025. Klobuchar would create a refundable tax credit to offset the costs of longterm care, whether it’s care at home or in a nursing facility. Klobuchar’s campaign said Friday she would put between $100 billion and $150 billion toward the tax credit. The money would come from eliminating tax exemptions on some capital gains.
2
Drug bust: U.S. Coast Guard members boarded a semisubmarine racing through the waves, one of 14 operations seizing cocaine and marijuana since May in international waters off Mexico and Central and South America. The agency released dramatic video of the encounter with smugglers this week. It shows a Coast Guard vessel pulling alongside the submarine as someone yells orders in Spanish for it to stop. The submarine continues to move as Coast Guard members then get close enough to board it as one repeatedly pounds on the hatch before it opens and people on board appear with their hands raised as they surrender. Fiftyfive smuggling suspects were taken into custody. Vice President Mike Pence was on hand as 39,000 pounds of cocaine and 933 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of $569 million were taken off the cutter Munro at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado (San Diego County).
3
Loan forgiveness: One of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions sued the U.S. Education Department this week over a federal program that promises to forgive student loans for public workers but has been beset by problems. The American Federation of Teachers filed a federal lawsuit in Washington alleging that the department has mismanaged the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, violating the Constitution by denying applicants their due process rights. The program was created in 2007 and promises to forgive student loans for graduates who made 120 monthly payments while working as teachers, nurses, police or other public workers. But just 1% of more than 86,000 applications had been approved for loan forgiveness as of March 31, according to Education Department data, while thousands were told they had not made enough loan payments or were missing paperwork.
4
Jetliner diverted: Dozens of people were violently slammed off the ceiling of a jetliner that encountered unexpected and intense turbulence over the Pacific Ocean. An Air Canada flight to Australia made an emergency landing in Honolulu after 37 people were injured, nine seriously, during the sudden loss of altitude that sent people flying into the luggage compartments and aisles of the airplane. Chronicle News Services