Zelenskiy says danger remains after nuclear plant resumes power supply – Reuters
Zelenskiy says danger remains after nuclear plant resumes power supply – Reuters

KYIV, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president on Friday said the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant remains “very risky” after two of its six reactors were reconnected to the grid following shelling that caused Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to be disconnected for the first time in its history.

Russian shelling continued to displace civilians in the east of the country, where three quarters of the population has fled the frontline region of Donetsk, according to the regional governor, and Ukraine continued to damage Russia’s supply routes to the southern front near Kherson.

Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said on Friday evening that both of the plant’s two functioning reactors had been reconnected to the grid and were again supplying electricity after they were fully disconnected on Thursday. read more

“Let me stress that the situation remains very risky and dangerous,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his regular evening address, praising Ukrainian experts working to “avert the worst-case scenario.”

“Any repeat of yesterday’s events, meaning any disconnection of the station from the grid, any action by Russia that could provoke the disconnection of reactors, would once again place the station one step away from a catastrophe,” Zelenskiy said.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, took control of the nuclear plant in March, though it is still operated by Ukrainian technicians working for Energoatom.

The two sides have traded the blame for shelling near the plant, which on Thursday sparked fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the plant from the power grid.

Satellite images showed a fire near the plant but Reuters could not verify its cause.

Zelenskiy also reiterated Ukraine’s demand that the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), be urgently allowed to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Moscow, which has forces based in the plant’s complex, said it was doing everything to ensure that an IAEA visit, expected in the coming days, could take place safely. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine was trying to disrupt such a visit by attacking the plant.

Residents in Zaporizhzhia city, 50 km northeast of the plant, expressed alarm at the situation.

“Of course I am scared. Everyone is scared, we don’t know what will happen next, what is waiting for us every next minute, second,” said social media manager Maria Varakina, 25.

School teacher Hanna Kuz, 46, said people were afraid that the Ukrainian authorities might not be able to warn residents in time in case of radiation fallout.

The Kremlin says its aim is to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine and remove perceived security threats to Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is a baseless pretext for a war of conquest.

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Overview of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fires, in Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, August 24, 2022. European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery/Handout via REUTERS

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a French television interview on Friday that Russia was prepared to hold talks with Zelenskiy subject to certain conditions, but warned Moscow would not stop its assault until its goals had been achieved. read more

“Renouncing (Ukraine’s) participation in the North Atlantic alliance is now vital, but it is already insufficient in order to establish peace,” Medvedev told LCI television in quotes reported by Russian news agencies.

Map locating Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with Russian occupied Ukrainian territory

FIGHTING

Ukrainian rocket fire put an important bridge in Kherson region out of action on Friday, Ukraine’s southern military command said.

Knocking out the Darivsky bridge, used by Russian forces to cross the Inhulets River just east of the city of Kherson, will complicate Moscow’s efforts to supply its troops in the Russian-occupied city that Ukraine wants to take back, it said.

“Our soldiers are doing everything possible to reduce the occupiers’ fighting and logistical potential,” Zelenskiy said in his address, referring to recent strikes on Russian supply depots and bridges.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow. read more

The Ukrainian military general staff said Russian aircraft attacked several sites, focusing on more than a dozen towns in the south including the city of Mykolaiv, a river port lying just off the Black Sea.

There were also air strikes against several towns in the Sumy region near the Russian border, the general staff said, and Russian forces had shelled and carried out air attacks against the Kharkiv region in the northeast.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region, said three quarters of its population had been evacuated.

“There is practically not a single major town or city that is not subject to (Russian) shelling,” he told Ukrainian TV.

Also on Friday, Washington confirmed reports that a U.S. citizen had recently died in Ukraine, but declined to provide further details. read more

Russian state news agency TASS said the deputy traffic police chief in the occupied Ukrainian city of Berdiansk was killed on Friday in a bombing. Its Russian-installed administration blamed the blast on “Ukrainian saboteurs”. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. read more

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports of either side.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-plant-escapes-meltdown-zelenskiy-says-moscow-kyiv-trade-blame-2022-08-25/

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Trump receiving legal advice from conservative activist Tom Fitton: report – The Hill
Trump receiving legal advice from conservative activist Tom Fitton: report – The Hill

Former President Trump has been receiving legal advice related to his retention of presidential records from the head of Judicial Watch, a conservative legal activist group, CNN reported Friday. 

Trump began taking calls from Tom Fitton, the president of the group, soon after the National Archives confirmed it obtained 15 boxes of records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property earlier this year.

The Archives reportedly asked the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate after it received the boxes, some of which contained classified information. 

Fitton told Trump that providing the boxes to the Archives was a mistake and the records belonged to Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. 

Fitton said Trump should not provide any additional records if the Archives came back for more. He reportedly cited a 2012 case that Judicial Watch was involved in that he said gave Trump the authority to do what he wanted with records from his time in the White House. 

One source told CNN that Trump requested Fitton brief his attorneys on the legal argument. 

Trump has repeatedly maintained that he has fully cooperating with investigators seeking to reclaim the records. But Fitton increasingly began convincing him that he should have control over the records he possessed, according to CNN. 

The Hill has reached out to representatives for Trump and Fitton for comment. 

The report comes as an affidavit that the FBI used to establish probable cause that a crime was being committed is set to be publicly revealed Friday. A federal judge ruled that the DOJ must release a redacted version of the affidavit by noon. 

The DOJ had argued that the affidavit’s full release could compromise its investigation.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3616611-trump-receiving-legal-advice-from-conservative-activist-tom-fitton-report/

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Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era felony voting law is constitutional, federal court rules – The Guardian US
Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era felony voting law is constitutional, federal court rules – The Guardian US

A Jim Crow-era provision of the Mississippi constitution designed to disfranchise Black voters is constitutional, a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday.

The case deals with a provision of the Mississippi constitution, Section 241, that lays out specific crimes that cause its citizens to permanently lose the right to vote. Mississippi officials initially adopted the provision at a constitutional convention in 1890, choosing crimes such as theft, arson, embezzlement and bigamy that they believed African Americans were more likely to commit. “We came here to exclude the Negro,” said the convention’s president. “Nothing short of this will answer.”

A majority of judges on the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit did not dispute that the original provision was racist and unconstitutional. But they said Mississippi had since “cleansed” the provision of its “discriminatory taint” by tweaking the provision twice in the 20th century. Voters removed burglary from the list of disfranchising crimes in 1950 and added murder and rape to the list in 1968.

“Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of showing that the current version of Section 241 was motivated by discriminatory intent. In addition, Mississippi has conclusively shown that any taint associated with Section 241 has been cured,” a majority of justices for the fifth circuit, one of the most conservative in the US, wrote in an opinion.

The challengers in the case have said they plan to appeal the ruling to the US supreme court.

The decision will allow Mississippi to continue to enforce an extremely harsh policy when it comes to voting rights for those with certain felony convictions. Ten per cent of the state’s voting age population – the highest rate in the country – cannot vote because of a felony conviction, according to an estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. That includes 16% of the Black voting age population. The vast majority of people disenfranchised in the state have completed their criminal sentence.

It is technically possible for someone with a disfranchising crime on their record to get their voting rights back, but the state makes it nearly impossible. To do so, a person with a felony conviction must get both houses of the state legislature to approve an individualized bill on their behalf by at least a two-thirds majority. The bill must then be approved by the governor. Hardly anyone has succeeded.

It’s a policy that prevents people like Roy Harness, one of the lead plaintiffs in the case, from voting.

Harness, a Black army veteran in his late 60s, cashed a series of bad checks in the 1980s and was convicted of forgery. He spent two years in prison and in recent years has focused on his education. He got a bachelor’s degree at 63 and a master’s degree in 2019. “It makes me feel bad. I’ve served my country, nation … got a degree and [I] still can’t vote, no matter what you do to prove yourself,” he told the Guardian earlier this year.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge James Graves said the tweaks in the 20th century did not cure the discrimination of the original provision.

“The 1968 vote reflects the voters’ views only on the addition or subtraction of three crimes in the original § 241 list. Those votes did not touch, in any way, the eight original crimes from 1890 that remain in § 241 to this day,” he wrote.

Graves, who is Black, also said the majority had glossed over the blatant racial discrimination that continued to exist in Mississippi when the amendments were adopted, and discussed that history in unusually personal terms for a judicial opinion.

“Recounting Mississippi’s history forces me to relive my experiences growing up in the Jim Crow era. While I do not rely on those experiences in deciding this case, I would be less than candid if I did not admit that I recall them. Vividly,” he wrote.

He wrote about seeing a cross burned on his grandmother’s lawn in Mississippi in 1963, and seeing the best Black teachers transferred away from his school after courts ordered desegregation. He also wrote about the lasting presence of the Confederate emblem on the Mississippi flag, which sat beside him on the bench in the courts where he has served.

“No matter where I went, the 1894 flag was already there – a haunting reminder that a wrong never righted touches us all,” he wrote.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/26/mississippi-jim-crow-era-felony-voting-law-constitutional-federal-court-rules

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Severe thunderstorm warning issued for Grafton, Sullivan counties – WMUR Manchester
Severe thunderstorm warning issued for Grafton, Sullivan counties – WMUR Manchester
MANCHESTER, N.H. —

A severe thunderstorm that was issued for most of New Hampshire has been dropped by the National Weather Service after a series of severe storms moved through the state.

This is a breaking update. This story will be updated. The previous story is below.

—

Multiple severe thunderstorm warnings have already been issued in New Hampshire. There are currently none that are active.

The primary concerns with the strongest storms are for winds topping 60 mph, frequent lightning and quarter-sized hail. Wind or hail damage is possible.

>> Weather alerts

Drivers who need to be on the roads during any storms are urged to use caution.

The weak tornado threat is low, but some rotation is possible.

>> Interactive Radar

Any threat of early evening storms fades with partial clearing.

Fair skies return for the weekend.

Be weather aware! Download the WMUR app for Apple or Android devices and turn on push notifications. You can choose to receive weather alerts for your geolocation and/or up to three ZIP codes. In addition, you can receive word when precipitation is coming to your area.

Follow the Storm Watch 9 team on social media:

Source Article from https://www.wmur.com/article/strong-storms-likely-to-pass-through-new-hampshire-friday/40998620

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Biden says not to vote for anyone who opposes assault weapons ban, but three vulnerable Dems did just that – Fox News
Biden says not to vote for anyone who opposes assault weapons ban, but three vulnerable Dems did just that – Fox News
Video

Criminals will never turn in their guns: Terrell

Fox News contributor Leo Terrell and National Fallen Officer Foundation President Tre Pennie react to the July 4 shooting and Democrats’ approach to crime on ‘Hannity.’

President Biden said that Americans should not vote for any midterm candidate who does not support the assault weapons ban, after several Democrat representatives seeking re-election voted against the ban in July.

During a rally for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore on Thursday, Biden told the crowd of supporters that he is going to ban assault weapons, and then proceeded to tell the crowd not to vote for individuals who would not support the ban.

“This November, you have to ask every candidate, are you for banning assault weapons or not? And if you’re not, we’re not going to vote for you. Period,” Biden said during his speech.

ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN PASSED IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

President Biden said in his speech that Democrats will “ban assault weapons” if they keep the majority this fall.
(Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The assault weapons ban passed in the House of Representatives in July on a 217-213 vote, following the Democrats’ push for a ban on semi-automatic weapons after recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. The bill was sent to the Senate, where it has not received a vote.

BIDEN SAYS SECOND AMENDMENT IS ‘NOT ABSOLUTE’ IN CALL TO REINSTATE ASSAULT WEAPONS BANS

Five sitting House Democrats opposed the assault weapon ban, including three vulnerable Democrats who are facing tough re-election races this fall.

Democrat Henry Cuellar, who represents Texas’ 28th Congressional District, was among those who opposed the ban on assault weapons.
(Kevin Dietsch)

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; Rep. Vincente Gonzalez, D-Texas; and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, are the three Democrats seeking re-election who voted against the assault weapons ban.

Fox News Digital reached out to the vulnerable Democrats, asking them their thoughts on Biden telling Americans not to vote for them in November. None of them responded.

During Biden’s speech, he also fired shots at the Republican Party, calling them “semi-fascist” and claiming that “the MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, was also one of the Democrats seeking re-election who voted against the assault weapons ban.
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Republicans have taken a different stance on guns, calling for attention to be directed towards America’s mental health crisis rather than supporting the assault weapons ban.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott talked about the ban following the Uvalde school shooting in his state, highlighting how he feels there is a mental health crisis, rather than an assault weapon issue. 

“Ever since Texas has been a state, an 18-year-old has been able to buy a long gun. It’s only in the last decade or two when we had school shootings… So for a century and a half, 18-year-olds could buy rifles, and we didn’t have school shootings, but we do now. Maybe we’re focusing our attention on the wrong thing,” Abbott said.

Aubrie Spady is a Freelance Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-says-not-vote-anyone-who-opposes-assault-weapons-ban-three-vulnerable-dems

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Live updates: DOJ releases redacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit – CNN
Live updates: DOJ releases redacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit – CNN

The release of a redacted affidavit that the Justice Department used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home shed new light on the federal investigation into the handling of documents from his White House.

Here are key takeaways from the newly released document:

FBI said there was likely “evidence of obstruction” and classified defense documents

The FBI told US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart the search would likely find “evidence of obstruction” in addition to its explanation to the court that there was “probable cause to believe” that classified national security materials were improperly taken to “unauthorized” locations at Trump’s resort.

FBI found 184 classified documents from 15 boxes earlier this year

In May, when the FBI reviewed the 15 boxes the National Archives retrieved from the Florida resort in January, it found “184 unique documents bearing classification marking,” the affidavit said.

Among the materials were “67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” according to the filing.

New details about how the DOJ got involved in the document fracas in the first place

The FBI investigation began after a criminal referral from the National Archives, dated Feb. 9, in which the Archives said that the boxes contained “a lot of classified records.”

The Archives official said there was “significant concern” over the fact that “highly classified records were … intermixed with other records” and weren’t properly identified.

Redactions keep obstruction evidence secret for now

The third potential crime — obstruction — that was cited by the warrant materials does not have a corresponding unredacted subhead in the affidavit. The FBI would have had to provide the court its explanation of why it believed that there was likely evidence of that crime at Mar-a-Lago, so the absence of any unredacted details about that evidence signals that that part of department is particularly sensitive about that aspect of its investigation being made public.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-mar-a-lago-doj-affidavit/index.html

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Zelenskiy urges world to force Russia from nuclear site after incident – Reuters
Zelenskiy urges world to force Russia from nuclear site after incident – Reuters

KYIV, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s president urged the world to act much faster to force Russian troops to vacate Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after the site was cut from electricity for hours in an incident he said risked an international radiation disaster.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian shelling on Thursday had sparked fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the Zaporozhzhia plant from the power grid. A Russian official said Ukraine was to blame.

Back-up diesel generators ensured power supply vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant, Zelenskiy said, praising the Ukrainian technicians who operate the plant under the gaze of the Russian military.

“The key thing is…international pressure is needed that will force the occupiers to immediately withdraw from the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” he said in a video address on Thursday evening.

“The IAEA and other international organizations must act much faster than they’re acting now. Because every minute the Russian troops stay at the nuclear power plant is a risk of a global radiation disaster,” he said, referring to the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

In Moscow, Russia’s foreign ministry said Russia was doing everything to ensure an IAEA visit to the plant could take place safely. Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Ukraine was trying to disrupt such a visit by attacking the plant.

Residents in Zaporozhzhia city, 50 km northeast of the plant and some 435 km (270 miles) to the southeast of Kyiv, expressed alarm at the situation.

“Of course I am scared. Everyone is scared, we don’t know what will happen next, what is waiting for us every next minute, second,” said social media manager, Maria Varakina, 25.

School teacher Hanna Kuz, 46, said people were afraid that the Ukrainian authorities might not be able to warn residents in time in case of radiation fallout.

Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said one of the plant’s two functioning reactors had been reconnected to the grid and was again supplying electricity after it fully disconnected on Thursday.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in the occupied town of Enerhodar near the plant, blamed Ukrainian armed forces for Thursday’s incident, saying they caused a fire in a forest near the plant.

“This was caused by the disconnection of power lines from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station as a result of provocations by Zelenskiy’s fighters,” Rogov wrote on Telegram. “The disconnection itself was triggered by a fire and short circuit on the power lines.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday its forces had destroyed a U.S.-made M777 howitzer which it said Ukraine had used to shell the Zaporizhzhia plant. Satellite images showed a fire near the plant but Reuters could not verify its cause.

Map locating Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with Russian occupied Ukrainian territory

HOTSPOT

Energoatom said Thursday’s incident had been the first complete disconnection of the plant, which has become a hotspot in the six-month-old war.

Regional authorities in Zaporizhzhia said more than 18,000 people across several settlements remained without electricity on Friday due to damage caused to power lines.

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Overview of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fires, in Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, August 24, 2022. European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery/Handout via REUTERS

A Reuters cameraman said there was electricity as normal on Friday in the city of Zaporizhzhia.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February, captured the plant in March and has controlled it since, though Ukrainian staff still run it. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the site, fuelling fears of a nuclear disaster. Zaporizhzhia city remains controlled by Ukrainian authorities.

The United Nations is seeking access to the plant and has called for the area to be demilitarised.

Germany on Friday condemned Russia’s continued occupation of the plant, calling the situation “very, very dangerous”.

Paul Bracken, a national security expert and professor at the Yale School of Management, said the concern was that artillery shells or missiles could puncture the reactor walls and spread radiation far and wide, much like the 1986 accident involving the Chornobyl reactor.

A failure at the Zaporizhzhia plant could “kill hundreds or thousands of people, and damage environmentally a far larger area reaching into Europe,” Bracken said.

“Russian Roulette is a good metaphor because the Russians are spinning the chamber of the revolver, threatening to blow out the brains of the reactor all over Europe,” he said.

FIGHTING

Russia’s ground campaign has stalled in recent months after its troops were repelled from the capital Kyiv but fighting continues along the frontlines to the south and east.

Russian forces control territory along Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts, while the conflict has settled into a war of attrition in the eastern Donbas region.

Explosions were heard early on Friday in the southern city of Mykolaiv, a battleground as Russian forces try to push westwards along the coast to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea. The immediate cause of the blasts was unclear, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.

Ukraine said it had repulsed Russian assaults on Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region and struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the southern Kherson region.

Ukrainian forces fired some 10 rockets from a U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launcher at the town of Stakhanov in the eastern Donbas region, pro-Moscow breakaway officials in Luhansk were quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying.

Russian state news agency TASS said the deputy traffic police chief in the occupied Ukrainian city of Berdiansk was killed on Friday in a bombing. Its Russian-installed administration blamed the blast on “Ukrainian saboteurs”. read more

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The Odesa regional administration said the officer was wounded in an explosion carried out by what it called unidentified partisan fighters in Berdiansk.

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports of either side.

The Kremlin says its aim is to “denazify” and demilitarise Ukraine and remove perceived security threats to Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is a baseless pretext for a war of conquest.

($1 = 1.9548 marka)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-plant-escapes-meltdown-zelenskiy-says-moscow-kyiv-trade-blame-2022-08-25/

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After Biden’s announcement on student loan forgiveness, borrowers have countless questions. Here’s what we know so far – CNBC
After Biden’s announcement on student loan forgiveness, borrowers have countless questions. Here’s what we know so far – CNBC

As tens of millions of Americans process the news of federal student loan forgiveness, countless questions are emerging about how it will all work.

When will borrowers see the relief? Who’s eligible? Do you have to apply? The U.S. Department of Education’s website has been slow to load this week with so many people searching for these answers.

Here’s what we know so far.

How much of my debt could be forgiven?

Did I receive a Pell Grant?

Who’s eligible?

The relief will be limited to borrowers who make less than $125,000 per year, or married couples or heads of households earning less than $250,000.

If your income was below these caps in either 2020 or 2021, you should be eligible.

Which loans qualify?

Big picture, the vast majority – roughly 37 million borrowers – will be eligible for the forgiveness based on their loan type (and then as long as they also fall under the income cap), because their debt is under what’s called the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. That includes Direct Stafford Loans, and all Direct subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans. Under the Direct program, Parent Plus and Grad Loans, are also eligible for the relief.

Then it gets more complicated.

As of now, the Education Department is saying that any loans it holds qualify. That means the roughly 5 million borrowers who have a commercially held Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) may be excluded. (About the same number of borrowers have FFEL loans that are with the government and they need not worry.)

Borrowers eager to know if their FFEL loans are commercially held can go to Studentaid.gov and sign in with their FSA ID. The information should be available at the “My Aid” tab.

Even if your FFEL loan is with a private company, all hope may not be lost.

An Education Department spokesperson said borrowers with those loans can call their servicer and consolidate them into the Direct Loan Program to become eligible for forgiveness.

There’s currently no deadline by which they need to do this, but presumably there will be one. As a result, experts recommend borrowers in this situation act quickly.

Another type of loan may also be excluded from forgiveness because it’s not in the government’s hands. Kantrowitz said: certain loans from the Federal Perkins Loan Program. Some of these loans are with the Education Department, but most are held by colleges.

If you pay your monthly loan bill to one of the government’s loan servicers, you should be able to get the forgiveness, Kantrowitz said, but if your payments are sent to another private lender, you’re probably out of luck.

All private student loans are also excluded.

What if I owe less than is being forgiven?

The relief is capped at the amount of a borrower’s outstanding eligible debt, per the Education Department.

When is the loan cutoff date for cancellation?

Student loans taken out after June 30, 2022, won’t be included in the relief.

Do I have to do anything to get forgiveness?

The Education Department said it will launch an application in which borrowers can input their income data and request the loan forgiveness. The application will be available before the end of the year, the department said, and borrowers can sign up now on its website for updates about the process.

The department also said it already has the income data for nearly 8 million borrowers because they were enrolled in income-driven repayment plans that already required this data. These people may get automatic cancellation.

Will the loan forgiveness trigger taxes?

Student loan forgiveness won’t trigger a federal tax bill.

That’s because the American Rescue Plan of 2021 made student loan forgiveness tax-free through 2025 — and the law covers Biden’s forgiveness, too, according to a fact sheet from the White House.

You may, however, still be on the hook for state levies, Kantrowitz said.

Some states automatically conform to federal rules, but others may count the forgiven balance as income, meaning it’s still possible you’ll have a state bill. The amount “may be the equivalent of a few student loan payments,” Kantrowitz said.

If you’re unsure, contact a local tax professional for an estimate before filing your state tax return.

How do I make sure I really get forgiveness?

Experts recommend taking a photo or screenshot of your current student loan balance. That way you can make sure it drops by the correct amount once forgiveness happens.

What’s going on with the payment pause?

In addition to Biden’s announcement on student loan forgiveness, he said he’d extend the payment pause on federal student loans until Dec. 31. Payments will resume come January.

It’s the seventh extension of the pandemic-era relief policy started under the Trump administration and it will likely be the final one.

 – CNBC’s Sarah O’Brien and Kate Dore contributed reporting.

What will student loan forgiveness mean to you? If you’re willing to speak for a story, please email me at annie.nova@nbcuni.com

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/more-details-emerge-about-biden-federal-student-debt-forgiveness-plan.html

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Biden blasts MAGA philosophy as ‘semi-fascism’ – NBC News
Biden blasts MAGA philosophy as ‘semi-fascism’ – NBC News
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Poll: Karen Bass leads Rick Caruso in L.A. mayoral race – Los Angeles Times
Poll: Karen Bass leads Rick Caruso in L.A. mayoral race – Los Angeles Times

Rep. Karen Bass has built a double-digit lead in the Los Angeles mayor’s race with a little over two months to go until election day, firming up her base among the city’s Democratic voters and eroding Rick Caruso’s margin in the San Fernando Valley, a new poll shows.

Since beating Caruso in the June primary by 7 points, Bass has widened her advantage over the businessman to 43%-31%, with 24% undecided, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

Bass has consolidated support among liberal and Democratic voters, picking up the lion’s share of those who went for other candidates in the primary. She leads Caruso by nearly 2 to 1 among former supporters of Councilmember Kevin de León, who came in third in the primary, and wins overwhelmingly among backers of Gina Viola, the progressive activist who came in fourth.

Bass has also significantly narrowed the lead Caruso enjoyed in the Valley, the one region of the city the businessman won in the primary. The Valley accounted for 38% of ballots cast in the primary, and he won there by 7.5 percentage points. Now he’s up by just 2 points, according to the poll.

These numbers raise the question of whether the billionaire mall developer, who bombarded Los Angeles’ airwaves with millions of dollars of advertising during the primary, can claw back into contention and make the race more competitive as the runoff between the two moves into its final phase.

“This isn’t a done deal” because of Caruso’s vast resources, said Paul Mitchell, a political data expert who has been closely following the race.

“It’s a 12-point lead where you’re going to have a large amount of spending, and Caruso is going to have an opportunity to try to re-introduce himself to voters and also to try to be more effective than she is at turning out the voters that do support him.”

Nonetheless, Caruso starts out the fall campaign in a deep hole. Although determining who is a likely voter is difficult this far in advance of the election, among voters whose responses to the poll indicate that they are most likely to cast ballots, Bass’ lead grows to 21 points — 53%-32%, with 14% undecided.

Governor has strong lead for reelection, even though voters see the state on the wrong track.

Bass, a six-term member of Congress representing parts of the Westside and South Los Angeles, has several advantages going for her — some of which her campaign has generated, others which involve changes in the overall political environment.

Those advantages start with a far more favorable image among voters than Caruso has.

About half of registered voters surveyed, 49%, said they had a favorable opinion of Bass, while 22% said they had an unfavorable view, and 29% gave no opinion.

Caruso’s numbers are starkly worse. Thirty-five percent of respondents had a favorable impression of him, while 40% said they had an unfavorable view and 24% had no opinion.

“The favorable-unfavorable comparison between the two candidates is really striking,” said Mark DiCamillo, who directed the poll and has been surveying California voters for decades.

Bass has built her popularity and her sizable lead on support among registered Democrats, people who identify as strongly liberal and Black voters as well as liberal white voters. These groups make up the majority of voters in Los Angeles.

She leads Caruso by 40 points among registered Democrats, 30 among voters who describe themselves as somewhat liberal and nearly 70 points among those who say they’re strongly liberal.

Caruso has found some success with moderates, a sizable chunk of the electorate among whom he has a nine-point lead. Among people who identify as strongly conservative, who make up a small chunk of the city’s registered voters, he has a 50-point advantage.

The candidates’ images are similarly polarized along partisan and ideological lines, the poll found.

“Her image among Democrats is overwhelmingly positive, and his is overwhelmingly negative,” DiCamillo said. “It almost looks like a Democrat versus a Republican on the ballot even though that’s not technically the case.”

Topline results from the August Berkeley IGS poll

The poll found that Bass and Caruso were essentially tied among Latino and Asian voters, with about 34% of the vote. Black voters favored Bass by more than 40 points and she was up among whites by 17 points.

In L.A. precincts with populations that are at least 80% Latino, Caruso got 34% of the vote in the primary, and Bass 27%, according to a Times analysis. Turnout in these Latino-heavy precincts analyzed by The Times was just 17% — much lower than the overall turnout of 30%.

This is the second poll in as many weeks to show Bass up big. A poll released by an outside group supporting the congresswoman found her up by 11 percentage points among likely voters.

When asked what attributes they wanted in their next mayor, voters in the Berkeley IGS poll leaned toward traits that more closely mirror Bass’ background than Caruso’s.

The poll found that 71% of voters said it was important to have someone who is progressive, 75% want a mayor with previous experience in elected office, and 72% want someone who has a history of defending abortion rights.

The one attribute that might favor Caruso is that 77% want a candidate who is tough on crime.

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Voters were far less interested in whether the candidate had a business background, was a political outsider or was a woman.

“If you look at those top four that were all 70% or above, only one of those would probably not be associated with Bass as opposed to Caruso,” said USC political science professor Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro — with crime being the exception.

In February, when The Times asked similar questions, respondents rated previous elected experience and progressive politics as the two most important attributes of a future mayor. In this poll, people who said previous experience was very important supported Bass by about a 40-point margin. Bass had similar advantages among people who said it was very important to have a progressive mayor and those who wanted a mayor with a long history of defending abortion rights.

Among voters who said it was very important to have a candidate who is tough on crime, Caruso leads 47% to 29%.

He has made crime a major focus of his enormous advertising blitz in the spring — along with homelessness. But Bass so far appears to have been able to defang the issue.

In July, Caruso vociferously attacked Bass for endorsing city attorney candidate Faisal Gill, who has run partly on a promise to institute a 100-day moratorium on the prosecution of most new misdemeanor charges. The congresswoman then revoked her endorsement of Gill.

Earlier in the campaign, she also endorsed more hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department.

While those stands angered some activists on the left, they do not appear to have cost Bass many votes among progressives, even as they have blunted Caruso’s attacks.

Caruso’s ads “were effective in kind of defining him during the primary season and getting him to where he got, but I think that was more of a ceiling than I expected,” Hancock Alfaro said.

Bass has also benefited from “what’s changed on the national front,” Hancock said — the renewed focus on women’s reproductive rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe vs. Wade.

Eight in 10 California voters say abortion is an important issue when voting this year, while 71% say they plan to vote Yes on Proposition 1, a constitutional amendment to enshrine reproductive rights in the state Constitution.

Bass’ campaign has pointed repeatedly to her long support for abortion rights and Caruso’s position on the issue. A journalist in a 2007 Los Angeles Magazine profile paraphrased Caruso’s views on the subject, writing: “He says he opposes abortion in most cases but would support some stem cell research.”

Caruso’s campaign has declined to comment on those remarks, but throughout the primary the candidate said he would be a stout defender of reproductive rights if he were elected. He also has castigated the Supreme Court’s June decision.

Bill Carrick, who previously advised mayoral candidate Jessica Lall and is now working with Robert Luna in his campaign for Los Angeles County sheriff, said Caruso’s previous Republican affiliation is “the elephant in the room.”

Caruso needs to do a better job of explaining why he’s a Democrat, Carrick said, and sharpen his explanation for why he switched parties.

Caruso switched between Republican and no party preference multiple times before becoming a Democrat in January.

Still, Carrick, a longtime expert in California politics, said Caruso will be an exuberant campaigner this fall who will spend big to get his message across.

“He’s clearly planning an aggressive field operation and has obviously stepped up his retail campaigning,” Carrick said.

Robert Luna holds a small lead over Sheriff Alex Villanueva as the race for sheriff takes on a strongly partisan cast.

Bass may also benefit from the recent failure on the part of opponents of Dist. Atty. George Gascón to get a recall on the ballot.

If the signature drive had succeeded, it might have been on the November ballot, although that was not a certainty. If it had been, it probably would have increased turnout among conservative voters who disapprove of Gascón and favor Caruso.

Supporters of the recall favored Caruso 57% to 24%, the poll found. Caruso, a former LAPD commissioner, earlier this year said he supported the recall, while Bass opposed it.

Had the recall gotten on the ballot, it would have been a serious threat to Gascón. The poll found that registered voters countywide would have favored the recall 41% to 20%, with the rest undecided. Citywide the margin was slightly tighter, with 37% favoring the recall, 23% opposed and the rest undecided.

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll was conducted Aug. 9 to 15, among 4,538 registered voters in Los Angeles County. It included 1,746 voters in the city of Los Angeles, of whom 1,212 were deemed likely voters. The estimated margin of error for the registered voter sample is +/- 2.5 percentage points for the countywide sample and +/- 3 percentage points for the city.

Times staff writer Iris Lee contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-26/california-election-2022-bass-leads-caruso-poll

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Woman arrested after racist rant, assault in restaurant lot – The Associated Press – en Español
Woman arrested after racist rant, assault in restaurant lot – The Associated Press – en Español

PLANO, Texas (AP) — A woman has been arrested and faces a possible hate crime charge after she was captured on video in a racist rant and assault on women of South Asian descent in a suburban Dallas parking lot.

Plano police said in a statement Thursday that Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and terroristic threat charges. She was jailed with bond set at $10,000.

Rani Banerjee told Dallas TV station WFAA that she and three friends had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant when Upton approached them in the parking lot.

“Suddenly, we heard this woman yelling at us and started coming toward us. We were shocked by the racial slurs that she used and combative attitude,” Banerjee said.

The police statement said the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. Jail officials had no attorney listed for Upton.

The confrontation happened shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday outside a Plano restaurant. A widely circulated video showed Upton unleashing a profanity-laced rant on them, challenging their presence in the United States, threatening to shoot them and physically assaulting Banerjee, who was recording the confrontation on her phone.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/crime-asia-texas-arrests-dallas-f2b779546d04a08afdda153f1a10de25

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Zuckerberg tells Rogan FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship – BBC
Zuckerberg tells Rogan FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship – BBC

In that context, the New York Post story, based on exclusive data no other news agency had access to, was met with scepticism – and censored by social media outlets.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532

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White House shines light on Republicans who are criticizing student debt cancellation after getting their PPP loans forgiven – NBC News
White House shines light on Republicans who are criticizing student debt cancellation after getting their PPP loans forgiven – NBC News
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Biden student loan plan could cost $24B per year, White House press secretary estimates – CNN
Biden student loan plan could cost $24B per year, White House press secretary estimates – CNN

By Nikki Carvajal, CNN

Updated 12:07 AM ET, Fri August 26, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/25/politics/student-debt-questions-white-house/index.html

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DOJ ordered to release redacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit – Axios
DOJ ordered to release redacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit – Axios

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered for a redacted version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit to be released by noon Friday.

The big picture: The affidavit outlined the evidence for the FBI’s search at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents he took with him when he left office.

Details: Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered for the affidavit to be unveiled with redactions by noon ET on Friday.

  • He wrote that “the government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”
  • Reinhart will reportedly review the department’s redactions and decide whether or not to release the affidavit, per Reuters.
  • He said that the redactions could be so heavy that they could “render the document devoid of content.”

Flashback: Reinhart filed a written order Monday that suggested he would call for portions of the affidavit to be unsealed, Axios’ Erin Doherty reported.

  • “Given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence,” the U.S. government did not make a strong enough case to seal the affidavit, Reinhart wrote.
  • “I therefore reject the government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal,” he wrote.

Go deeper:

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/2022/08/25/mar-a-lago-search-fbi-release-judge

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Mark Zuckerberg said he gave up running as exercise to take his mind off work because ‘the problem with running is you can think a lot’ – Yahoo Finance
Mark Zuckerberg said he gave up running as exercise to take his mind off work because ‘the problem with running is you can think a lot’ – Yahoo Finance

  • Mark Zuckerberg said he needs to exercise each morning because checking his phone feels like he’s “punched in the gut.”

  • He said he used to jog, but “the problem with running is you can think a lot.”

  • The Meta CEO told Joe Rogan that he now does mixed martial arts each morning before starting work.

Mark Zuckerberg said that waking up in the morning and looking at his phone feels like getting “punched in the stomach,” which ultimately forced him to switch his exercise routine.

On “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast Thursday, Zuckerberg described his morning routine to host Joe Rogan, saying he does an hour or more of exercise each morning to deal with the stress of his role as CEO of Meta.

“I wake in the morning, look at my phone, you get like a million messages of stuff that come in, and it’s usually not good. People reserve the good stuff to tell me in person,” Zuckerberg said.

“So it’s almost like you wake up and you’re punched in the stomach, so it’s like okay… now I need to go reset myself and be able to be productive and not be stressed out about this,” he added.

Zuckerberg says he likes exercises “that require full focus” to take his mind off of work.

“I used to run a lot, but the problem with running is you can think a lot,” he said.

Zuckerberg has previously extolled his love of surfing and foiling, another water sport, but he told Rogan that lately he’s gotten into MMA, or mixed martial arts.

“What’s a thing that’s both super engaging physically, but also intellectually, where you can’t afford to focus on something else? MMA is the perfect thing because if you stop paying attention for one second, you’re going to end up on the bottom,” he said.

“I’ve found, especially as the company has scaled, it’s more important,” he told Rogan, referring to his morning exercise routine.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Source Article from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-said-gave-running-222950342.html

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Ukraine narrowly escapes nuclear catastrophe as plant loses power, Zelenskiy says – Reuters
Ukraine narrowly escapes nuclear catastrophe as plant loses power, Zelenskiy says – Reuters

KYIV, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the world narrowly avoided a radiation disaster as electricity to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was cut for hours due to Russian shelling in the area, allegations that Moscow denied.

Zelenskiy said Russian shelling on Thursday sparked fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the reactor complex, Europe’s largest such facility, from the power grid.

Back-up diesel generators ensured power supply that is vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant, he said, praising the Ukrainian technicians who operate the plant under the gaze of the Russian military.

“If our station staff had not reacted after the blackout, then we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of a radiation accident,” he said in an evening address.

“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster.”

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in the occupied town of Enerhodar near the plant, blamed Ukraine’s armed forces for a fire in a forest near the plant. He said towns in the area lost power for several hours on Thursday.

“This was caused by the disconnection of power lines from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station as a result of provocations by Zelenskiy’s fighters,” Rogov wrote on Telegram. “The disconnection itself was triggered by a fire and short circuit on the power lines.”

Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom said it had been the first complete disconnection in the plant, which has become a hotspot in the six-month-old war.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February, captured the plant in March and has controlled it since, although Ukrainian technicians still operate it.

The United Nations is seeking access to the plant and has called for the area to be demilitarised. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials are “very, very close” to being able to visit Zaporizhzhia, agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said on Thursday.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the site, fuelling fears of a nuclear disaster.

Nuclear experts have warned of the risk of damage to the plant’s spent nuclear fuel pools or its reactors. Cuts in power needed to cool the pools could cause a disastrous meltdown.

Paul Bracken, a national security expert and professor at the Yale School of Management, said the concern was that artillery shells or missiles could puncture the reactor walls and spread radiation around potentially a large area, much like the 1986 accident involving the Chornobyl reactor.

A failure at the Zaporizhzhia plant could “kill hundreds or thousands of people, and damage environmentally a far larger area reaching into Europe,” Bracken said.

“Russian Roulette is a good metaphor because the Russians are spinning the chamber of the revolver, threatening to blow out the brains of the reactor all over Europe,” Bracken said.

FIGHTING

Russia’s ground campaign has stalled in recent months after its troops were repelled from the capital Kyiv in the early weeks of the invasion, but fighting continues along the frontlines to the south and east.

Russian forces control a swathe of territory along Ukraine’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts, while the conflict has settled into a war of attrition in the eastern Donbas region.

Russia said its forces struck a railway station in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday killing 200 Ukrainian military personnel, confirming an attack which Kyiv said killed 25 civilians as the nation marked its Independence Day.

The Russian Defence Ministry said an Iskander missile hit a military train at Chaplyne station that was to deliver arms to Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region.

Ukrainian officials said civilians were killed when a house and the station were hit and five train carriages went up in flames.

Moscow denies targeting civilians and Reuters was unable independently to verify the reports.

The Ukrainian military on Friday said its air force launched strikes on areas of troop and weapon concentration in two different sites.

The report came a day after Russia’s defence ministry said Russian forces had destroyed eight Ukrainian warplanes in strikes at air bases in the Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions. That would be one of the heaviest losses for Ukraine’s air force in recent weeks.

Ukraine’s operational command “South” said its artillery struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the Kherson region, while airstrikes were launched against enemy air defences.

In the Donbas region, Russia’s TASS news agency reported Ukrainian forces using a U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launcher targeted the town of Stakhanov, with about 10 rockets hitting the town before dawn on Friday, according to officials from the pro-Moscow breakaway statelet of Luhansk.

In its morning roundup of battlefield developments from around the country on Friday, the Ukraine military also said its forces had repulsed Russian assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region.

Kyiv has repeatedly called for more, high-grade Western military hardware it says it needs to repel Russian attacks.

Zelenskiy spoke on Thursday by phone with U.S. President Joe Biden, who reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia, the White House said.

Potentially giving additional credence to Western estimates of heavy Russian losses during the war, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday increasing the size of Russia’s armed forces to 2.04 million from 1.9 million. read more

The Kremlin says its aim is to “denazify” and demilitarise Ukraine and remove perceived security threats to Russia. Ukraine and the West say this is a baseless pretext for a war of conquest.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-nuclear-plant-escapes-meltdown-zelenskiy-says-moscow-kyiv-trade-blame-2022-08-25/

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Georgia judge skeptical of claims of political bias in 2020 election probe – The Washington Post
Georgia judge skeptical of claims of political bias in 2020 election probe – The Washington Post

Earlier Thursday, McBurney issued a decision rejecting a request from 11 of Georgia’s 16 Republican would-be electors who sought to disqualify the prosecution team because of political bias. Prosecutors say these electors may have been part of a plan to try to cast electoral college votes for Trump in Georgia and other states despite Joe Biden’s victory. Lawyers for the electors deny any wrongdoing, citing a pending court case over the Georgia election at the time they were certified. The roster of electors includes Georgia Republican Party Chair David J. Shafer, candidate for lieutenant governor Burt Jones, county-level GOP officials, a former state lawmaker and local Republican activists.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/25/brian-kemp-trump-investigation/

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North Dakota judge blocks abortion trigger ban day before it goes into effect – CNN
North Dakota judge blocks abortion trigger ban day before it goes into effect – CNN

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

Updated 8:21 PM ET, Thu August 25, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/25/politics/abortion-north-dakota/index.html

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Putin signs decree to increase size of Russian military; 25 confirmed dead after Russian rocket strike on Ukraine’s Independence Day – CNBC
Putin signs decree to increase size of Russian military; 25 confirmed dead after Russian rocket strike on Ukraine’s Independence Day – CNBC

LIVE UPDATES

This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates. 

The death toll rose following a Russian rocket attack on a train station in central Ukraine on its independence day.

Ukrainian and U.S. officials had warned of stepped up Russian attacks on this day, keeping the country on high alert with a ban on large gatherings in Kyiv for most of the week.

Concern continues to rise over the status of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, as Ukrainian officials say Russia may be preparing to stage a “false flag” attack.

Meanwhile, five more ships carrying agricultural products are set to leave Ukraine’s ports for export.

‘The world is experiencing the worst food security crisis any of us have ever seen,’ U.S. ambassador to UN says

The world “is experiencing the worst food security crisis any of us have ever seen,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

The ongoing food crisis was triggered by Covid-19, strained supply lines, higher energy costs and rising temperatures, she said.

“In many conflicts around the world, food is intentionally blocked or destroyed and dictators use starvation as a weapon of war,” Thomas-Greenfield said in a speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

“We see this no more acutely than with Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, Russia and Ukraine accounted for almost a quarter of global grain exports. But now Ukraine’s once rolling wheat fields have become battlefields,” she said, slamming Moscow’s weaponization of food.

“It matters because it affects us economically. Food security is directly linked to economic growth. And it matters because food insecurity leads us to political and social instability. And that endangers us all,” she said.

— Amanda Macias

Biden speaks with Zelenskyy about more aid to defend against Russia

President Joe Biden called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to congratulate him on Ukraine’s Independence Day.

Biden also “expressed his admiration for the people of Ukraine, who have inspired the world as they defended their country’s sovereignty over the past six months,” according to a White House readout of the call.

The president reaffirmed U.S. commitment to support Ukraine and provided an update on additional military aid.

“The two leaders also called for Russia to return full control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to Ukraine and for International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA access to the plant,” the readout added.

— Amanda Macias

Finland, Norway and Sweden say they’ve seen increased and irresponsible Russian military activity near their borders

The defense ministers of Finland, Norway and Sweden said they have seen increased Russian military presence near their borders and agreed to boost cooperation in order to deter Moscow.

“At several occasions, we have seen irresponsible and unprofessional Russian behavior,” Finland’s Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen, Norway’s Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram and Sweden’s Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist wrote in a statement.

The ministers added that they will enhance their joint military security by conducting training operations and increasing communication.

“The security situation has deteriorated following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has proved that it does not respect international law and has upended the European security order,” the trio wrote in a joint statement.

— Amanda Macias

Zelenskyy speaks to Biden and thanks him for latest military aid package

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden a day after Ukraine celebrated its 31st Independence Day.

“We discussed Ukraine’s further steps on our path to the victory over the aggressor and importance of holding Russia accountable for war crimes” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.

Zelenskyy also said that he thanked Biden for the additional U.S. security assistance that was announced on Wednesday.

Wednesday’s package of nearly $3 billion is authorized through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which uses funds appropriated by Congress. The USAI finances America’s defense industry to scale up arms production.

— Amanda Macias

WHO has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of medical supplies to Ukraine since start of war

The World Health Organization said it has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of medical supplies to Ukraine since Russia’s war began six months ago.

The supplies include power generators, ambulances, oxygen for medical facilities, supplies for trauma and emergency surgeries and medicine to help treat non-communicable diseases.

The WHO also said it has trained more than 9,000 health care workers in trauma surgery, mass casualties, chemical exposure, epidemiology and laboratory diagnostics.

The organization added that it has provided more than 12,000 psychosocial health consultations to those in need of mental health sessions triggered by war.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s healthcare system.

— Amanda Macias

Russian defense minister discusses Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with French counterpart

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke with his French counterpart about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Kremlin said that French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu initiated the call.

“Shoigu delivered his assessments of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that can disrupt the safe operation of the plant,” according to a Kremlin readout of the call.

Russian forces took control of the nuclear facility, Europe’s largest, in the days following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In recent days, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling near the Zaporizhzhia plant. Western nations have called on Russia to remove its troops from the facility, citing concerns of a potential nuclear accident.

He told Lecornu that Moscow believed it was important for IAEA inspectors to visit the nuclear facility. 

A French readout of the call was not immediately available.

— Amanda Macias

Putin signs decree to increase size of Russia’s military

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to increase the size of the Russian military from 1.9 million to 2.04 million, an announcement on its government web portal said, as the war in Ukraine passes its six-month mark.

The order will be effective January 1 and will see a rise in combat personnel of 137,000 to 1.15 million.

Russia has steadily cast a wider net as to who it’s willing to recruit as conscripts, including prisoners, retired military personnel, older men and those with only a middle-school level education. Putin reportedly expected the invasion, which the Kremlin calls its “special military operation,” to last only a few days before taking the capital Kyiv.

Russia’s military has instead lost several generals and is estimated by U.S. intelligence to have lost around 15,000 servicemen, though Moscow has not released any recent military casualty figures itself.

— Natasha Turak

IAEA chief says nuclear inspectors are ‘very, very close’ to being able to visit Zaporizhzhia plant

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said his team is “very, very close” to being able to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian military occupation since March.

“We are very, very close to that,” Rafael Grossi told French news channel France 24 in an interview, when asked if negotiations to access the facility had achieved anything.

Any operation to inspect the plant would be very complex, Grossi said, but he hoped the visit would be able to happen “within days.”

“We need to go there, we need to stabilize the situation, we need to ensure a presence of the IAEA soon,” Grossi added.

International leaders and organizations have for months sounded the alarm over the risk of a nuclear catastrophe at the plant, which faces regular shelling and is Europe’s largest of its kind.

— Natasha Turak

Two last working reactors at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant shut down due to fire

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant’s two remaining reactors that are still working shut down after nearby fires damaged power lines overhead, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy firm Energoatom said.

The power lines connected the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine — Europe’s largest — to the national grid. Before the Russian invasion and Russian occupation of the facility, it supplied 20% of Ukraine’s power. The fires that damaged the power lines started at a local coal plant in the vicinity, the company said via its official Telegram account.

The plant’s security system is still working as usual and work is being done to re-link one of the reactors to the power grid, the statement added.

— Natasha Turak

National security advisor Jake Sullivan meets with EU official in Washington to discuss Ukraine

National security advisor Jake Sullivan met with Frederic Bernard, the head of the Cabinet to the president of the European Council, in Washington.

“They reaffirmed their commitment to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends its democracy and imposing costs on Russia for its aggression,” according to a White House readout of the meeting.

“They also discussed ongoing U.S. and European Union cooperation on Europe’s energy security as well as the promotion of peace and stability in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus,” the readout added.

— Amanda Macias

State Department slams Russia’s ‘so-called tribunals’ in Mariupol

The State Department slammed Moscow’s “so-called tribunals” in the Russian-controlled city of Mariupol.

“The Kremlin is attempting to deflect responsibility for President Putin’s war of aggression and distract from the overwhelming evidence of the atrocities Russian forces have committed in Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote in a statement.

Price called the trials a “mockery of justice” and called on Moscow to comply with international law.

“All members of Ukraine’s armed forces, including domestic and foreign volunteers incorporated into the armed forces, are entitled to prisoner of war status if they are captured and must be afforded the treatment and protections commensurate with that status, according to the Geneva Conventions,” Price added.

— Amanda Macias

Nearly 770,000 metric tons of agricultural products have left Ukrainian ports

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that so far a total of 769,986 metric tons of grains and other foodstuffs have departed through the humanitarian sea corridor under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

The Joint Coordination Center, or JCC, said that more than 30 ships carrying grains and other crops have left Ukrainian ports.

The JCC also said that it authorized the movement of three outbound merchant vessels to depart from Ukrainian ports.

— Amanda Macias

25 people confirmed dead after Russian attack on train station in central Ukraine

Twenty-five people are now confirmed dead after a Russian rocket attack on a train station in central Ukraine, according to Ukrainian newspaper the Kyiv Independent.

The strikes took place on Aug. 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day, ahead of which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia may launch a “particularly cruel” attack on the country.

Rockets hit a train and residential areas of the town of Chaplyne in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, regional officials said, initially killing 15 and wounding at least 50. Four trains were set aflame and two children were killed in the attack, according to the presidential office’s deputy head, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted photos of the aftermath of the strikes on his Twitter account, showing burnt-out train cars and structures reduced to rubble.

“Terrorist Russia keeps killing Ukrainian civilians. At least 15 killed in a Russian missile strike on a train station in Chaplyne, Dnipropetrovsk region,” he wrote Wednesday evening.

— Natasha Turak

Russia may exploit any Ukrainian military activity around nuclear power plant for ‘propaganda purposes’: UK

Concerns continue to mount over the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March.

Ukrainian and Western officials have warned of “false flag” actions by Russia, through which Russian forces may stage an attack and blame it on Ukrainian forces as a justification to escalate action.

“Russia is probably prepared to exploit any Ukrainian military activity near ZNPP for propaganda purposes,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense wrote on its daily intelligence update on Twitter.

“While Russia maintains the military occupation of ZNPP, the principal risks to reactor operations are likely to remain disruption to the reactors’ cooling systems, damage to its back-up power supply, or errors by workers operating under pressure,” the post added.

— Natasha Turak

UK announces $64 million package of drones and loitering munitions for Ukraine

The U.K. announced a £54 million ($64 million) new weapons package for Ukraine’s Armed Forces that will include 2,000 drones and loitering munitions, a government statement said.

The package includes 850 hand-launched Black Hornet micro-drones, “which are specifically designed for use in towns and villages, and are deployed to detect approaching enemy forces,” the statement said.

Military personnel can learn to fly these drones, which are smaller than a cell phone, in less than 20 minutes, according to the U.K. government.

The U.K. is also set to send Ukraine mine-hunting vehicles to enable it to detect Russian mines in its waters. In the next few weeks, Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training in the U.K. will be taught how to use them in British waters. The U.K. is also expanding its training program for Ukrainian troops.

— Natasha Turak

Five ships carrying a total of 85,110 metric tons of agricultural products set to depart Ukraine’s ports

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that five ships carrying grains and other crops were approved to depart Ukrainian ports Thursday.

The vessel Ascanios is carrying 58,510 metric tons of corn and is destined for Germany. The vessel Mohamad is carrying 11,000 metric tons of wheat and is destined for Israel. The ship named Bellis will also travel to Israel and is carrying 6,000 metric tons of soybeans. The vessel Oris Sofi is transporting 5,900 metric tons of sunflower oil to Turkey. Another ship, Zelek Star is also destined for Turkey and is transporting 3,700 metric tons of peas.

In total, the five vessels are carrying 85,110 metric tons of grain and food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

— Amanda Macias

Europe will not be blackmailed into ‘offering Ukraine on a silver platter to Putin’, says former U.S. ambassador

Europe will not be blackmailed into “offering Ukraine on a silver platter to Putin,” said Former United States Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst when asked if Russia’s weaponization of energy flows through Nord Stream will break Europe’s resolve to continue lending support to Ukraine.

“I believe Europe as a whole will remain supportive of Ukraine and will not be blackmailed by this,” said Herbst, who is now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “And I believe they’ll make it through the winter albeit with some hardship.”

Herbst added that “the end will come sooner” for Russia’s war in Ukraine if the Biden administration sent more advanced weapons to Ukraine and in greater quantities.

“United States and the West need to provide Ukraine weapons as long as Moscow’s conducting a war of aggression in Ukraine, and this may require many years.”

— Lee Ying Shan

Russia is planning to hold “sham referendums” to show Ukrainians want to join Russia, White House warns

National security council spokesman John Kirby said that U.S. intelligence indicates that Russia may try to hold “sham referendums” as early as this week.

Kirby told reporters that the referendums are a way of Russia trying to show that the Ukrainian people want to become part of Russia. Kirby said that the U.S. believes that the referendums may begin in Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Kirby added that the Biden administration will not view the outcome of the referendum as legitimate.

“Since they obviously are having trouble achieving geographic gains inside Ukraine, they are trying to gain that through false political means,” Kirby told reporters.

“We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda, to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia,” he added.

— Amanda Macias

15 reported killed in Independence Day attack in Ukraine

Ukraine’s president says Russian forces have launched a rocket attack on a railroad station in central Ukraine on the country’s Independence Day, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 50.

The lethal strike came after warnings from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in recent days that the Russians might “try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel” this week.

Wednesday is a national holiday in Ukraine commemorating the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It also marks the six-month point in the war against Russia.

— Associated Press

Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:

Ukraine says 15 people killed in Independence Day attack; Biden reveals new $3 billion aid package

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

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Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Divides Democrats – The New York Times
Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Divides Democrats – The New York Times

But other candidates in difficult races did not feel compelled to issue such criticism. Mr. Warnock claimed credit for “pushing the Biden administration since my swearing in” to make the move, which he said was only a “first step.”

“This announcement will help many Georgians, some of whom have been struggling with debt for decades, get their financial footing, and it will help keep our economy strong and growing,” he said in a statement.

Mr. Kelly in Arizona saw the president’s order not Mr. Warnock’s “first step” but as a sign of moderation. And he came to the opposite conclusion of Mr. Ryan, saying the Biden order was “more targeted than past proposals to cancel all student debt” and was “directed at those who need it most, including relief for those who attended a community college.”

Republicans saw no such divisions. They all castigated the president’s announcement. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican running for re-election in Florida against Representative Val B. Demings, promoted, as an alternative, legislation he has introduced to eliminate interest on federal student loans.

“Forgiving student loan debt isn’t free,” he said in a statement. “It means the 85 percent of Americans with no undergraduate debt from college will be carrying the burden for those that do. That is not a relief, it is an unfair burden to place on working families.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/us/politics/student-loan-forgiveness-democrats-gop.html

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