Biden to extend pause on student loans amid ongoing court battles
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will extend a pause on federal student loan payments while the White House fights a legal battle to save his plan to cancel portions of the debt.
“It isn’t fair to ask tens of millions of borrowers eligible for relief to resume their student debt payments while the courts consider the lawsuit,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter.
The moratorium was to expire Jan. 1, a date Biden set before his debt cancellation plan stalled in the face of legal challenges from conservative opponents. Now it will extend until 60 days after the lawsuit is resolved. If the lawsuit has not been resolved by June 30, payments would resume 60 days after that.
Biden’s plan promises $10,000 in federal student debt forgiveness to those with incomes of less than $125,000, or households earning less than $250,000. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, are eligible for an additional $10,000 in relief.
Biden’s announced the decision a day after over 200 advocacy groups urged him to extend the pause, warning that starting payment in January would cause “financial catastrophe” for millions of borrowers.
Critics such as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have opposed any further extension, saying it could worsen inflation and raise the risk of economic recession.
In announcing its plan, the Biden administration invoked the HEROES Act of 2003, a post-Sept. 11, 2001, law meant to help members of the military.
The Justice Department says the law offers sweeping authority to cancel student debt during a national emergency. Biden has said the relief is needed to help Americans recover from the pandemic.
A Texas judge struck that down this month, saying Biden overstepped his power. The HEROES Act “does not provide the executive branch clear congressional authorization to create a $400 billion student loan forgiveness program,” wrote District Court Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department is asking an appeals court in New Orleans to suspend Pittman’s order while the administration appeals. It’s separately asking the Supreme Court to overrule a federal court in St. Louis that halted Biden’s plan in response to a lawsuit from six Republican-led states.
Ga. election investigation: Sen. Lindsey Graham testified Tuesday before a special grand jury that’s investigating whether President Donald Trump and others illegally meddled in the 2020 election in Georgia.
The appearance by Graham, R-S.C., came after a legal fight that went to the U.S. Supreme Court as he tried to avoid testifying. Graham had argued that his position as a senator shielded him from questioning.
The courts rejected his assertion but ruled that prosecutors and grand jurors couldn’t ask about protected legislative activity.
Graham’s office said in a statement that he spent just over two hours with the special grand jury and “answered all questions.”
Graham is one of a number of high-profile Trump allies whose testimony has been sought.
Turkey-Syria clash: Turkey’s president again hinted at a possible new ground offensive in Syria against Kurdish militants on Tuesday, as Syrian forces denounced new airstrikes.
Meanwhile, the Russian presidential envoy in Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said Turkey should “show a certain restraint” to prevent an escalation in Syria where tensions heightened over the weekend after Turkish airstrikes killed and wounded Syrian soldiers.
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces later said new Turkish airstrikes on Tuesday struck a base the group shares with the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against the Islamic State group. The base is outside the town of Qamishli, 30 miles from the Turkish border.
Two SDF fighters were killed and three were wounded, the group said.
Iranian uranium: Iran has begun producing enriched uranium at 60% purity at the country’s underground Fordo nuclear plant, official media reported Tuesday.
The increased enrichment, reported by the official news agency IRNA, was seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program.
From Vienna, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA — said the 60% enrichment at Fordo comes on top of similar production at the Natanz plant in central Iran.
The IAEA also said that Iran plans a “significant expansion” in its production of low-enriched uranium at Fordo and a second production building at Natanz.
Enrichment to 60% purity is one short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Nonproliferation experts have warned that Iran now has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.
Asylum ban: A coalition of conservative-leaning states is making a last-ditch effort to keep in place a Trumpera public health rule that allows many asylum seekers to be turned away at the southern U.S. border.
Late Monday, the 15 states filed a motion to intervene, meaning they want to become part of the legal proceedings surrounding the public health rule referred to as Title 42.
The rule, first invoked by Trump in 2020, uses emergency public health authority to allow the United States to keep migrants from seeking asylum at the border, based on the need to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
It’s set to end Dec. 21, potentially upending border enforcement as Republicans are about to take control of the House following midterm elections.
The states argued they will suffer “irreparable harm from the impending Termination of Title 42” and that they should be allowed to argue their position before the termination date.
Kim’s daughter: The daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who was recently seen in public for the first time is his second child, aged about 10, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Tuesday.
On Saturday, North Korea said Kim observed the launch of the country’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile the previous day with his wife Ri Sol Ju and their “beloved daughter.” State media released photos showing Kim walking hand-in-hand with a young girl clad in a white coat and red shoes past a massive missile on a launch truck, and watching a soaring weapon from a distance.
In a closed-door briefing at a parliament committee, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, told lawmakers that it assesses the daughter is Kim’s second child named Ju Ae and aged around 10, Yoo Sang-bum, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting, said.