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804,000 long-term borrowers are having their student loans forgiven before payments resume this fall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Karin Engstrom thought she’d be paying off her federal student loans for the rest of her life. The 82-year-old was shocked when she logged on to check her balance ahead of payments resuming in October and found that more than $175,000 in debt had been erased.She’s one of 804,000 borrowers who will have a total of $39 billion forgiven under a one-time adjustment granted by the Biden administration. It’s for people in income-driven repayment plans who have been paying back loans for 20 or 25 years but who never received credit for late or partial payments. It also credits borrowers for periods before the pandemic when they were allowed to pause or reduce payments due to financial hardships.To correct mistakes by loan servicers, the Department of Education is retroactively adjusting accounts, resulting in forgiveness. The department says 95% of those who qualify have now been informed of the cancellation.Engstrom didn’t immediately believe it when she ...

Loewe showcases high-waisted silhouettes in surrealistic Paris fashion display

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Flashes of intrigue greeted guests at Loewe’s meticulously designed space for Paris Fashion Week. Bright, other-worldly lighting brightened a dove-gray runway where gold modernist sculptures by American artist Lynda Benglis were scattered as if dropped by a fashion divinity, hinting at the merging of fashion and art. The set mostly was a blank canvas upon which Jonathan Anderson put his latest designs, a collection that played with proportion and quirks. Here are some Friday highlights from the Spring-Summer 2024 collections in Paris: LOEWE LIFTS LIMITS ON WAISTLINESThe centerpiece of Anderson’s collection was a bold and surreal high-waisted silhouette, with pants in hues of camel, grey, brown, and black occasionally touched by vivid splashes of red, bougainvillea, and tangerine. The choice of a style especially prominent in menswear wasn’t just a nostalgic nod. By pushing the waistlines to extreme heights, Anderson threw away conventional proportions with his typ...

Stock market today: Wall Street climbs after inflation report to soften what’s been a sore September

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is climbing following some encouraging signals on inflation, but it’s still likely to close September with its worst month of the year so far. The S&P 500 was 0.7% higher shortly after the open of trading on Friday. It’s on track for its first three-day winning streak of the month. The Dow was up 159 points, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher. Nike jumped after reporting better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Stocks broadly got a boost after Treasury yields eased further off their highest levels in more than a decade. Oil prices rose. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.(AP) — Wall Street pointed higher early Friday as markets try to claw back some of the losses in what will most likely be the second straight month of declines and the worst month of 2023.Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 rose about 0.5% before the opening bell.Entering the last day of September trading, the...

Norway joins EU nations in banning Russian-registered cars from entering its territory

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway announced Friday that it will start barring Russian-registered passenger cars from entering the Scandinavian country starting next week, mirroring sanctions imposed by the European Union against Moscow over its war on Ukraine.Norway, which is a member of NATO but not of the EU, has a 198-kilometer-long (123-mile-long) border in the Arctic with Russia. The Scandinavian country ”stands together with allies and like-minded people in the reactions against the brutal war of aggression by Russia,” Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said in a statement.The ban means that Russian-registered passenger cars with nine or fewer seats can no longer be brought into Norway. Buses and minivans with ten or more seats will still be able to cross the border at Storskog, the sole crossing point between Norway and Russia.The government in Oslo said there will be exceptions for diplomatic vehicles, for cars owned by Norwegian citizens and their family members with perman...

The Supreme Court will decide if state laws limiting social media platforms violate the Constitution

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution.The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent the social media companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints.The court’s announcement, three days before the start of its new term, comes as the justices continue to grapple with how laws written at the dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the online world. The justices had already agreed to decide whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021.Separately, the high court also could consider a low...

Trump looks to set up a California primary win with a speech to Republican activists

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Donald Trump will make a personal pitch Friday to California Republicans in a bid to solidify his support in a GOP presidential contest he has dominated for months, while Ron DeSantis and other rivals get another chance to break the front-runner’s momentum with time fast vanishing to reorder the race.Trump’s afternoon speech at a state Republican Party convention in Anaheim comes two days after he bypassed the second GOP debate held at Ronald Reagan’s presidential library northwest of Los Angeles, signaling again that he sees no need to appear side-by-side with lesser-known contenders.At stake in the state’s March 5 primary will be 169 delegates, making it the biggest prize in the Republican contest. Any candidate who collects more than 50% of the votes in the primary would win all the delegates up for grabs.The kickoff Iowa caucuses that mark the start of the nominating season are less than four months away, and the trajectory of the race could shift....

Spain’s Socialist leader gets a shot at becoming prime minister despite his election defeat

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s acting center-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez lost July’s national election but now has a shot at returning to power after the leader of the country’s conservatives failed for a second time Friday to get parliament’s support for a new government.In a vote in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid, the Spanish parliament’s lower chamber, Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo collected 172 lawmakers’ votes in his favor to 177 against him, with one vote declared null and void. That was roughly the same tally that he received two days earlier, in the first round of voting, and the defeat exhausted his chances of taking power, bar an exceptional turn of events. The Popular Party holds 137 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the most of any party, following the election. But even with backing from the far-right Vox party’s 33 lawmakers and two from small conservative rivals, it was not enough for Feijóo to win a simple parliament majority.The outcome extended the po...

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein dies at age 90: AP sources

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 1992 in the “Year of the Woman” and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. She was 90.Three people familiar with the situation confirmed her death to The Associated Press on Friday.Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, was a passionate advocate for liberal priorities important to her state — including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control — but was also known as a pragmatic lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and became its first female president in 1978, the same year Mayor George Moscone was gunned down alongside Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former supervisor. Feinstein found Milk’s body.After Moscone’s death, Feinstein became San Francisco’s first female mayor. In th...

16-year-old male arrested on suspicion of felling a landmark tree in England released on bail

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The 16-year-old male arrested for felling a 300-year-old sycamore tree near the Roman landmark of Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England has been released on bail, police said Friday.The boy was arrested Thursday on suspicion of criminal damage, after the tree was felled overnight.Why anyone would want to cut down one of England’s most iconic trees has left people across the U.K. baffled and angry.Robert Macfarlane, a renowned nature writer, said he was “sick to the core” to hear the news about the tree, which was “known and loved by millions.”“I just see this as part of a piece with a much broader hostile environment towards the living world in this country,” he told BBC radio. “It was a tree that ashes were scattered under, marriages were made under, and it was a shelter for tired walkers.”Macfarlane said he was buoyed by the widespread disgust that followed news of the tree’s felling and suggested that a new forest be planted in its honor.The tree was on...

Russia hosts the Taliban for talks on regional threats and says it will keep funding Afghanistan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:28:48 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Moscow will keep helping Afghanistan on its own and through the U.N. food agency, Russian officials said Friday as they hosted Taliban representatives for talks on regional threats. The talks in the Russian city of Kazan came as Moscow is trying to maintain its influence in Central Asia even as it wages war on Ukraine. The discussions focused on regional threats and creating inclusive government, Russian state news agency Tass reported. President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov attended the gathering and said Russia is inclined to keep helping Afghanistan independently and through the World Food Program. A letter from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was read at the talks, accusing Western countries of “complete failure” in Afghanistan, saying they should “bear the primary burden of rebuilding the country.”The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of t...