Marina Kluchnikov reads to her youngest child, Sasha, 3, as husband Artyom Kluchnikov looks on and daughter Olenka, 11, reads a book of her own. With Russian troops amassed along Ukraine’s border, they worry if an invasion could be imminent.
Pete Kiehart for NPR
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Marina Kluchnikov reads to her youngest child, Sasha, 3, as husband Artyom Kluchnikov looks on and daughter Olenka, 11, reads a book of her own. With Russian troops amassed along Ukraine’s border, they worry if an invasion could be imminent.
Pete Kiehart for NPR
KYIV, Ukraine — Artyom and Marina Kluchnikov have made do raising four children in a cramped, Soviet-style apartment on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital. They can provide their family with hearty dinners of chicken, cabbage and prunes. But now they’re facing the prospect that their modest yet stable existence could suddenly be upended.
“We do not have like a suitcase with stuff already packed into it,” says Artyom, 46. “But I have a checklist so that I would just be ready, you know, if something happens. And I make sure that my car has at least three-quarters of a tank full at any given point in time.”
For more than seven years, there’s been a conflict between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army along Ukraine’s eastern border. But tensions have ratcheted up as Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed 100,000 troops on the border.
On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, in an ongoing diplomatic effort to try to calm the tensions. The U.S. and its European allies have warned that sanctions will be severe and swift if Russian troops invade.
The family has seen attitudes harden toward Russia
Sasha Kluchnikov falls asleep on his father Artyom’s shoulder at the family’s apartment. The parents are trying to keep family life as normal as possible amid the threat of invasion and the pandemic.
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Sasha Kluchnikov falls asleep on his father Artyom’s shoulder at the family’s apartment. The parents are trying to keep family life as normal as possible amid the threat of invasion and the pandemic.
Pete Kiehart for NPR
Since 2014, when the conflict began, Artyom and Marina have seen changes in their country. They say Ukrainians have begun to see Russia as an enemy.
“We see the lies that Russia tells about us,” says Artyom. “We see the death toll of people in the east — you know, how many soldiers died for us. I think it goes to the national memory, I guess. We know the reason for those deaths.”
The reason, he says, is Putin, who started the rebellion in the east and has kept it boiling over the last seven years. They hold him responsible for the more than 14,000 dead. Russia also annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. But Artyom says Putin is getting the opposite of what he wants.
“Putin has done a lot of good things for establishing a Ukrainian national mentality,” he says, laughing. “He’s the one who invested so much effort into trying to bring us in. But the only thing that he has done is push us away.”
The exterior of the Kluchnikovs’ apartment building. The family sometimes wonders how much longer they’ll be able to stay.
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The exterior of the Kluchnikovs’ apartment building. The family sometimes wonders how much longer they’ll be able to stay.
Pete Kiehart for NPR
A recent poll showed that most Ukrainians now favor their country joining NATO and the European Union.
Another effect of Russia’s aggressive behavior over the better part of the last decade, the Kluchnikovs say, is that many Ukrainians don’t want to speak Russian anymore. A recent poll found that more than half of Ukrainians were speaking Ukrainian instead of Russian at home — a change from 30 years ago, when 37% did.
Ukraine’s close historical ties with Russia make it hard for Marina to be happy about the reasons for this change.
“It’s a painful issue for me because my father, for instance, he grew up in Russia,” she says. “And my great-grandmother, she was a teacher of Russian. I grew up speaking Russian. And I was never against Russia. Never.”
But today she says she doesn’t even speak Russian with her own sister anymore.
The family is making preparations to leave in case of an invasion
Marina Kluchnikov prepares tea at the apartment.
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Marina Kluchnikov prepares tea at the apartment.
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Artyom says he’s had to tune the conflict out at times. “It’s stressful, and you can’t just constantly follow it and think about it all the time or you’d lose your mind,” he says. “You begin to ignore certain things — for better or for worse.”
The couple’s eldest son, Nikita, 22, is studying at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture and doesn’t live at home anymore. He says young people aren’t thinking much about war and politics, and they certainly don’t want to sacrifice their lives for what’s happening.
“You know, we’re not concerned till it’s getting to you personally,” he says. “For instance, like right now, one of my main concerns actually is not going into the military. Because I think that I can be much more useful in other fields.”
Many other Ukrainians feel otherwise, though, and thousands of civilians are signing up to get military training and protect their cities in case of an invasion.
Nikita Kluchnikov, 22, poses for a portrait at his family’s apartment. “One of my main concerns actually is not going into the military,” he says. “Because I think that I can be much more useful in other fields.”
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Nikita Kluchnikov, 22, poses for a portrait at his family’s apartment. “One of my main concerns actually is not going into the military,” he says. “Because I think that I can be much more useful in other fields.”
Pete Kiehart for NPR
Marina, 46, teaches English at a preschool. She enjoys young children and it works well because she can also bring Sasha, her youngest, along with her. He has had health problems. She says she believes God gives children two parents for a reason. So she lets her husband follow the war and the daily tensions with Russia, and if there’s something she needs to know, she says, she’ll know it.
“You have to find ways to live a normal life,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like this circus person on a cable, already carrying like eight suitcases, and then I have two more to carry. It’s important for children that the mama’s happy, that the mama’s stable emotionally. It’s stressful but it’s okay. We believe that God is with us and he’s not going to let us have more than we can handle. There are people around us and somehow we do believe we’re going to manage it.”
The Kluchnikovs say if Russia invades, their plan is to get out of the city and take refuge at the family cottage in a village a few hours’ drive west of Kyiv. There’s no running water or electricity, but they’ll be able to grow their own food, they say. They’ve begun drying fruits and vegetables to take with them.
Sasha Kluchnikov sleeps in his parents’ bed at the family’s apartment.
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Sasha Kluchnikov sleeps in his parents’ bed at the family’s apartment.
In the heady days between Donald Trump’s defeat in November 2020 and the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, an executive order was prepared. It commanded the defense secretary to seize voting machines in battleground states, as part of Trump’s “big lie” that the vote was rigged.
The draft executive order, obtained and published by Politico, was never sent and its author is unknown. It was part of a cache of documents handed over to the House committee investigating the January 6 violence, after the supreme court ruled this week that Trump could not shield himself from oversight on grounds of executive privilege.
The disclosure of the draft order adds to evidence of the lengths to which Trump and his close advisers were prepared to go to keep him in the White House, against the will of the American people. Under the draft order, the defense secretary would have been required to carry out an assessment of the voting machines “no later than 60 days from commencement of operations”.
That would have pushed the chaos that Trump assiduously attempted to sow around Joe Biden’s legitimate victory well beyond the handover of power at the inauguration on 20 January.
The publication of the document will provoke intense speculation as to who wrote it. Politico pointed out that at the time the draft order was dated, 16 December 2020, the idea of seizing voting machines in key states was being vigorously promoted by Sidney Powell, a controversial lawyer who had Trump’s ear at the time.
The document outlines the seizure of voting machines by the Pentagon under federal emergency powers. That would in itself have been incendiary, as it would have amounted to a dramatic display of federal over state power of the sort normally fiercely resisted by Republicans.
The author of the draft order seeks to justify such a contentious move by regurgitating conspiracy theories. For example, pointing to voting machines, the document says there is “evidence of international and foreign interference in the November 3, 2020, election”.
It names Dominion Voting Systems, a leading provider of voting machines that has become the target of rightwing conspiracy theorists and big lie merchants. Dominion has sued several purveyors of false claims that its products were used to swing the election from Trump to Biden.
“Dominion Voting Systems and related companies are owned or heavily controlled and influenced by foreign agents, countries, and interests,” the draft order falsely claims.
The draft also singles out Antrim county, Michigan. Claims that voting machines in that county were compromised have been thoroughly rebutted, including by state election authorities.
A second document was also leaked to Politico from the new mountain of paperwork received by the January 6 committee. Titled Remarks on National Healing, it appears to be the text of a speech Trump never delivered.
The tone of the speech is striking because it stands in stark contrast to the approach Trump actually adopted in the wake of the Capitol violence. Still president for two weeks, he attempted to belittle the significance of the day.
Had this alternative speech been given, Trump would have sent out a very different message. It describes January 6 as a “heinous attack” that left him “outraged and sickened by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem”.
The text added: “The Demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.”
Abortion rights supporters argued that the consequences of overturning Roe would be severe and long lasting for women and children.
Diana Greene Foster, the author of the Turnaway Study, which followed about 1,000 women from across the United States over a five-year period — those who had abortions and those who were not able to get them — noted that the women who had to continue their pregnancies often had life-threatening complications and bad health for years. Five years out, women denied an abortion were four times as likely to live below the federal poverty line, and three times as likely to be unemployed. Ninety percent of those women chose to raise the child, she said, and are more likely to stay in contact with an abusive partner.
“People are making careful decisions when they decide to have an abortion,” said Dr. Foster, who is also a professor of obstetrics at the University of California, San Francisco. “They say that they can’t afford a child, and we see they become poorer. They say they need to take care of their existing kids, and their existing children fare worse.”
While the speakers at the rally were optimistic that the court would choose to overturn Roe by this summer, many marchers said they would continue attending future rallies to press for a complete ban across the country.
Doug Winne, 69, and Ruth Winne, 65, had driven two hours from Lancaster, Pa., to this year’s rally. They have attended the March for Life regularly for about 35 years, and Mr. Winne said he was encouraged by the number of younger people in attendance.
Gazing at the crowd around him, Mr. Winne said he was hopeful that younger people would continue to fight to end abortion. “We’re clearly on the older end,” Mr. Winne said. “That’s an encouragement that this isn’t just something that we, as people in their 60s, are concerned about.”
“We get something like this, I think, about every seven, eight years,” said Hawkins, who emphasized the magnitude of the event. “We had one in 2018 here, but the last really big one that was really devastating was 2014 here about 40, 50 miles just [inland] off the coast. It knocked out power for several weeks back then.”
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
Jan 21 (Reuters) – A judge in Texas ruled on Friday that President Joe Biden could not require federal employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus and blocked the U.S. government from disciplining employees who failed to comply.
Biden issued an order requiring about 3.5 million workers to get vaccinated by Nov. 22 barring a religious or medical accommodation — or else face discipline or firing.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown said the question was whether Biden could “require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment. That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.”
Brown, based in Galveston and appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the government could protect public health with less invasive measures, such as masking and social distancing.
The U.S. Department of Justice said it will appeal the ruling.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said 98% of federal workers are vaccinated or have sought medical or religious exemptions. “We are confident in our legal authority,” Psaki said in response to the judge’s ruling.
The judge said it was his understanding that the government was going to be begin disciplining non-compliant employees imminently.
Brian Fouche, a survey statistician with the Department of Commerce with 16 years government experience, was told in a Jan. 19 letter that he would be suspended for 14 days beginning Jan. 30 because he refused to disclose his vaccination status, according to court documents.
The letter from the U.S. Census Bureau informed Fouche that his “misconduct is very serious and will not be tolerated,” according to a copy of the letter in court records. The letter said failure to comply with the vaccine requirements could lead to his dismissal.
The judge’s ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions to go against government vaccine requirements.
In mid-January, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the president’s COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses, a policy conservative justices deemed an improper imposition on the lives and health of many Americans. The court allowed a separate federal vaccine requirement for healthcare facilities. read more
A third major vaccine requirement aimed at employees of federal contractors was blocked by a federal judge in December. read more
COVID-19 has killed more than 800,000 people in the United States in the two-year long pandemic and weighed heavily on the economy.
Many large employers such as United Airlines and Tyson Foods Inc have touted their success in using mandates to get nearly all staff vaccinated. The Supreme Court ruling that blocked the mandate for larger businesses prompted some employers, including Starbucks, to abandon vaccine requirements for staff. read more
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday charged a Texas man with publicly calling for the assassination of Georgia’s election officials on the day before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The case is the first brought by the department’s Election Threats Task Force, an agency created last summer to address threats against elections and election workers. Federal prosecutors accused the man, Chad Christopher Stark, 54, of Leander, Texas, of calling for “Georgia Patriots” to “put a bullet” in a Georgia election official the indictment refers to as Official A.
Mr. Stark, according to the three-page indictment, made the admonition in a post on Craigslist, the online message board, while then-President Donald J. Trump and his allies were putting public pressure on Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who certified Mr. Trump’s defeat in Georgia to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors,” Mr. Stark wrote, according to the indictment. “It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges.”
A little more than three months. That’s how much time is left before about 41 million federal student loan borrowers have to start making loan payments again.
The federal government froze student loan payments at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and it has extended that freeze several times since, most recently right before Christmas.
The Department of Education has said payments will resume on May 1. What should borrowers be doing to prepare? Betsy Mayotte has some ideas. She’s the founder of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit organization that offers free counseling to borrowers. Here are her seven tips for borrowers ahead of the May 1 restart:
1. Get acquainted (or reacquainted) with your loans.
“Despite the fact that the pause has been extended, borrowers should be using this opportunity to get their ducks in order,” Mayotte says.
Get answers to the following questions: How much is/are your balance(s)? What kind of loans do you have? What company is your servicer? What are your interest rates?
The more you know about your loans, the better off you’ll be in figuring out how to handle them. And knowing which company services your loans is extra important because some servicers have changed during the pandemic.
2. Make sure your contact info is up to date.
Make sure your loan servicers have your correct contact information: email address, mailing address and phone number. When the payment pause does end, Mayotte says, they’re going to be sending you some really important information that you’re going to want to see.
3. Figure out what your monthly payment will be.
Your student loan account with your servicer should list a monthly payment. If you can’t access this information online, you can also call your servicer. Once you have a sense of your monthly payment, ask: Is it affordable? If not, there are a number of payment options available. (More on that below!)
4. If you can afford to, start paying before the pause ends.
The pause on student loan payments also set loan interest rates to 0%. That’s a gift! That means all payments made during the pause go straight to the principal — not the interest. For borrowers who might be in a comfortable financial position, Mayotte says this is a great time to pay down as much of that debt as you can.
5. If you don’t think you can afford your monthly bill, seek out additional payment options.
The federal student loan program has a few options for lowering your monthly payment. Some are based on your balance; others are based on your income.
“Thankfully there are a couple of really good tools out there to help borrowers figure out not only what their payment will be under each of those plans, but almost more importantly, how much they’ll pay in the long run under each of those plans,” Mayotte says.
The Loan Simulator, on the Department of Education’s website, and the Student Loan Calculator, developed by the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, are two tools that can help you figure out which payment program is right for you.
If you’re pursuing loan forgiveness programs, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, both of the calculators will also show whether these programs will actually pay off for you.
6. Be wary of scams.
As repayment approaches, Mayotte says she’s starting to see more student loan-related scams on social media, over email and via calls and voicemails.
If someone reaches out to you asking for your student loan account PIN or password, that’s a huge red flag. No legitimate student loan company is ever going to ask you for that. In fact, under the STOP Act, it’s illegal for servicers to use personal information to access borrowers’ aid records. Any entities that are allowed to access this data — a loan servicer, your university, the Department of Education — are going to have their own credentials and won’t need to ask for the borrower’s pin or password. But that doesn’t stop the scammers from asking.
If they promise you forgiveness right out of the gate without really knowing anything about your situation, that’s another big red flag.
7. Don’t count on blanket loan forgiveness.
President Biden has signaled he’s unlikely to use his executive power to cancel student debt, though his administration has canceled some debt through preexisting forgiveness programs. Mayotte says if you’re not enrolled in an existing loan-forgiveness program, don’t count on a policy of forgiveness.
“Here’s the problem: Student loans are not the problem,” she explains. “The problem is the cost of higher education. Forgiving student loans is like figuring out how to minimize the bleeding, rather than figuring out how to prevent the wounds in the first place.”
Beforehand, analysts mooted this might include more transparency on military exercises in the region, or reviving restrictions on missiles in Europe. These rules were previously set out in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War-era pact that the US scrapped in 2019, after accusing Russia of violating the deal.
“President Biden said yesterday that his first year in office has been ‘a year of challenges,’ but he’d rather focus on the positives, like your Covid test.” — SETH MEYERS
“It seems like just yesterday our democracy was being held hostage by a cabal of obstructionists who didn’t want every vote counted. Oh, wait, that was yesterday.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
“A year ago, Biden pledged to address Covid, the economy, climate change and racial injustice. And good news — after 12 months of tireless effort, we’re all getting three free masks.” — JIMMY FALLON
“President Biden yesterday held a 1 hour 51 minute press conference. It was the first thing Americans actually wished Joe Manchin had stopped.” — SETH MEYERS
“A lot of people are disappointed with President Biden. His approval rating just reached a new low after his press conference yesterday. The press conference was a success in that he went nearly two hours without having to pee.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
“He promised no malarkey, but lawyers made him change it to ‘produced in a facility that also processes malarkey.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT
The ‘MediaBuzz’ host reacts to President Biden’s week of administrative failures.
A nearly two-hour press conference may be a sign of presidential endurance, but leaves plenty to critique in the way of mistakes and missteps.
Joe Biden would have been well advised to end the thing at least a half-hour earlier, as by the end he was clearly tired and sometimes losing his train of thought. My sense is that he was determined to show the White House press corps he could stand up there and take their shots until all the questions had been exhausted. Along with the president.
President Biden meets with members of the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force to discuss the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. (Associated Press)
To be fair, some of Biden’s earlier answers were focused and forceful. He clearly displayed a command of a range of complicated issues. He wasn’t terribly convincing when he denied overpromising and underdelivering, yet made the best case he could muster given his string of setbacks.
But a couple of gaffes can dominate the post-game coverage in an era where far more people see the clips online – and the perpetual punditry – than watch an afternoon presser.
Biden was choosing his words so carefully in describing Vladimir Putin’s threat to the former Soviet state, so I was stunned when he started to freelance – and suggested the U.S. might not respond to limited military force.
“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera,” Biden said.
And moments later: “My guess is he will move in. He has to do something.”
Here was the president of the United States predicting a Russian invasion, and worse, saying all the NATO countries might not be on board on how to respond. It was “cleanup on aisle two” time.
A half-hour after the presser, Jen Psaki rushed out a statement to clarify that any military incursion would be met by “a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our allies.”
And Thursday, Biden used an infrastructure task force meeting to walk back his own remarks: “If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”
It was a stunning blunder by a president who prides himself on knowing many world leaders and has long experience on the international stage.
President Biden speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Jan. 19, 2022. (Getty Images)
The other mistake was more nuanced. Biden was talking about the Democratic voting rights bills, which the Senate was in the process of defeating, as everyone expected, during the press conference.
A reporter asked that if the bills failed, “do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?”
And Biden equivocated: “Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election.”
Even sympathetic pundits thought that crossed a line. After more than a year of Donald Trump insisting the 2020 election was rigged, Biden was questioning the legitimacy of the 2022 elections. And his detractors said he was laying the groundwork for explaining away a Democratic wipeout in the midterms.
President Biden answers questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 19, 2022 in Washington. (Getty Images)
Now from Biden’s point of view, he was decrying Republican efforts to tighten voting restrictions in a number of states, which he views as a partisan threat to democracy. Therefore, he would deem it fair to say we can’t be assured of no improper election meddling unless my legislation passes. (Except that these bills include such liberal wish-list items as making Election Day a holiday and mandating early voting.)
But he was tone-deaf in not realizing that he was issuing what sounded like a Trumpian warning to voters on the other side, except from a Democratic president.
It may be unfair to judge a press conference by a couple of bad moments, but it’s always been that way – especially when the issue was not a mangled fact but a potential foreign-policy fiasco.
Still, it was good for Biden to be seen as engaging with all kinds of reporters. I hope he does more of these – though his staff would undoubtedly prefer they be a tad shorter.
At the beginning of 2020, as the nation celebrated the start of a new year, many Americans were still unaware of the “mysterious pneumonia” that had sickened dozens of workers at a live animal market in Wuhan, China.
The illness, later identified as the “novel coronavirus”, began spreading rapidly across the globe. Several studies have suggested that the virus had already been spreading in the United States, potentially as early as December 2019.
However, it was not until mid-January of 2020, when the virus would officially be recognized as present on U.S. soil.
Two years ago, on Jan. 21, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first domestic case of coronavirus. The positive patient was a 35-year-old man from Washington state, who had recently returned from Wuhan, China.
Now, two years later, the U.S. has confirmed more than 69 million COVID-19 cases, and 859,000 deaths, the highest in the total for any country, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And the nation, despite the wide availability of highly effective vaccines and novel treatments, is experiencing its most significant surge on record due to the highly transmissible omicron variant and tens of millions of eligible Americans remaining unvaccinated.
“These last two years have brought transformational advancements spanning vaccines, treatments and testing. Though these tools are having a clear impact on reducing poor outcomes, we are still seeing one of the worst surges to date,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
‘Low’ risk morphs into pandemic
Just days before the first case was confirmed two years ago, the CDC had implemented public health entry screening at several major airports including San Francisco International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
At the time, the CDC reported that while the virus was originally thought to be spreading from animal-to-person, there were “growing indications” that “limited person-to-person spread” was taking place.
“This is certainly not a moment for panic or high anxiety. It is a moment for vigilance,” Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said during a news conference that same day. “The risk is low to residents in Washington.”
Less than a week after the first domestic case was confirmed, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which is a division of the CDC, stressed that the “virus is not spreading in the community… For that reason, we continue to believe that the immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this time.”
In late February, Messonnier said she ultimately expected to see community spread in the U.S. At the time, health officials noted that the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a “significant disruption” in their lives.
In the months to come, Life Care Center of Kirkland, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Seattle suburbs, would become the first epicenter of the virus’ deadly journey across the country. The epicenter quickly then became New York City, which experienced hundreds of deaths a day at the peak of April 2020.
It would be another seven weeks until the World Health Organization would declare the global coronavirus a pandemic, subsequently forcing borders to close, and Americans to retreat to their homes for what some thought would be just a few weeks of “social distancing” and “stay-at-home” orders.
In the first months of pandemic, through April 2020, more than 1 million Americans were sickened and 65,000 died, when the virus was still largely mysterious, treatments and supplies were scarce and hospitals were overwhelmed in large urban areas like New York. Subsequent waves of the virus each had their own characteristics from the deadly winter surge of 2020 to 2021 and the delta variant surge, which upended the optimism that the pandemic would finally come to an end after mass vaccination.
In fact, in the last year alone, more than 450,000 Americans have been lost to the virus.
17 million cases in a month
Two years into the pandemic, federal data shows that hundreds of thousands of Americans are still testing positive for the virus every day, and more than 1,600 others are dying from COVID-19.
In the last month alone, there have been more than 17.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 44,700 reported virus-related deaths. In addition, more than a year into the U.S. domestic vaccine rollout, 62 million eligible Americans who are over the age of 5, about 20% of that group, remain completely unvaccinated.
“After 24 months and unprecedented medical innovation, the last month has brought millions of cases and tens of thousands of deaths. While many might declare victory on the pandemic, we are clearly very far from where want we want to be right now, especially with billions of people yet to be vaccinated,” Brownstein said, referring to the continued global crisis.
The U.S. is still averaging more than 750,000 new cases a day, about three times the surge from last winter in 2021. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that the latest omicron case surge may be beginning to recede in the parts of the country that were first struck by the variant.
Although preliminary global studies indicate that the omicron variant may cause less severe illness than prior variants, health officials say that the sheer numbers of infections caused by the new variant could still overwhelm the health care system.
Glimmers of hope
In New York, daily cases have dropped by 33% in the last week, and in New Jersey, new cases are down by 43.7%. In Massachusetts, wastewater samples indicate the state’s omicron surge is falling rapidly.
In the Southeast, daily cases in Florida are falling too – down by 30% in the last week, though the state is still averaging more than 45,000 new cases a day.
However, health officials caution that overall, the latest COVID-19 surge across much of the country has yet to peak, and hospitals could still be faced with difficult weeks ahead.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the omicron surge has not yet peaked nationally.
“This is a very difficult time during this surge. We are seeing high case numbers and hospitalization rates… we’re also seeing strain in many of our hospitals around the country,” Murthy said. “The next few weeks will be tough.”
More than 160,000 virus-positive Americans are currently hospitalized across the country, a pandemic high. It was just over two weeks ago that we hit 100,000 COVID-19 positive Americans hospitalized.
Half the country – 25 states and Puerto Rico – has seen their COVID-19 related hospital admission rates jump by at least 10% in the last week, and nationwide, an average of more than 21,000 virus-positive Americans are seeking care every day.
And nationally, 99% of U.S. counties are still reporting high transmission. Out of the 3,220 U.S. counties, just 16 counties are not reporting high transmission.
Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said at the Davos Agenda, a virtual event held by the World Economic Forum, that it is an “open question” as to whether the omicron variant will lead the globe into a new phase of the pandemic.
“It’s not going to be that you’re going to eliminate this disease completely. We’re not going to do that. But hopefully it will be at such a low level that it doesn’t disrupt our normal, social, economic and other interactions with each other,” Fauci said. “To me, that’s what the new normal is. I hope the new normal also includes a real strong corporate memory of what pandemics can do.”
Nessel, in recent interviews, has said the evidence points toward a coordinated effort to convene GOP electors in multiple states Trump lost and have them declare themselves authentic electors for that state. She noted that the forms the electors used in different locations were nearly identical, from their wording to their fonts.
“It’s clear to me that this was not independent, rogue actors that were unknowingly doing the same thing as they had done in many other states,” she said.
The Hawaii factor
Republicans at the time emphasized that their decision to hold unsanctioned elector votes had a precedent. In 1960, three Democratic electors from Hawaii met to cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though the election results showed that Richard Nixon had narrowly prevailed in the state. With a recount underway, those pro-Kennedy electors met to cast their votes anyway and submitted those results to Congress and the National Archives, the clearinghouse for elector certificates.
Hawaii’s recount ultimately reversed the outcome, showing Kennedy had won by fewer than 200 votes, and the state’s governor then certified the Democratic slate as well. On Jan. 6, 1961, the Democratic electors were the ones counted by Congress, with Nixon, then vice president, presiding.
Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward later pointed to that episode when describing her decision to deliver GOP electors to Congress in 2020.
In a statement this week, the Wisconsin GOP also pointed to Hawaii’s electors in 1960 — and emphasized that it had received legal advice to assemble GOP electors, in case Trump found a way to prevail.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers from some of the states where Republicans submitted false elector slates have also seized on the issue. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him to investigate the “attempted fraud” and vowed to introduce legislation that would create penalties for Electoral College-related deception.
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