With only two weeks before a pandemic-related pause on federal student loan payments expires, progressive lawmakers and organizations on Wednesday reiterated demands for U.S. President Joe Biden to finally take sweeping debt cancellation action. While Biden only campaigned on forgiving $10,000 per borrower and has reportedly considered setting an income …

Jennifer Shutt, Daily Montanan Attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief in federal court on Tuesday, challenging Texas’ assertion that states shouldn’t have to comply with a federal law that protects doctors who end a pregnancy to save the patient’s life. The brief argues …

A 28-count indictment was unsealed Tuesday in the Eastern District of California, charging former California Democratic U.S. House of Representative TJ Cox with multiple fraud schemes and campaign contribution fraud. Cox, 59, of Fresno, is charged with 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, one count of …

LGBTQ+ rights advocates on Tuesday celebrated Tuesday after a federal court became the first in the U.S. to rule that transgender people who suffer from gender dysphoria must be protected from discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Rewire News Group called the ruling in Williams v. Kincaid “a win …

The Department of Education announced Tuesday it would discharge $3.9 billion in federal student loans that borrowers received to attend ITT Technical Institute (ITT). The Education Department’s latest round of automatic student debt forgiveness applies to federal loans used to attend ITT between Jan. 1, 2005 and its closure in September …

Jennifer Shutt, Virginia Mercury President Joe Biden signed his party’s signature climate, health care and tax package into law Tuesday, capping off more than a year of tumultuous negotiations that saw his original proposal to Congress slimmed down considerably. Flanked by a handful of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday issued a final rule to improve access to hearing aids which may, in turn, lower costs for millions of Americans. This action establishes a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, enabling consumers with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment to purchase hearing aids directly …

Orion Rummler The story originally appeared in The 19th. Can monkeypox spread on the subway? Can it kill like COVID-19? Is it transmitted through sex? Misconceptions, myths and a lack of public knowledge on the monkeypox virus are widespread. Despite 57 percent of adults recently polled by Morning Consult feeling …

Stephen Fowler, GPB News A federal judge ruled Monday that South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham must answer questions in front of a special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. The 22-page order from Judge Leigh Martin May rejected Graham’s claims that testimony regarding alleged …

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams In six key battleground states that played a decisive role in the 2020 presidential race, Republican candidates who have openly embraced former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” have won nearly two-thirds of the GOP nominating contests for positions with power over state and federal elections, a …

Ken Coleman, Michigan Advance Charles Diggs Jr. became the first African American to serve on Capitol Hill in Michigan. He was first elected in 1954. Since then, at least one African American has represented in Congress a portion of Detroit — the largest majority-Black city in the nation — with …

Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Adam Schiff on Saturday asked federal intelligence officials to immediately review the top secret documents that FBI agents retrieved during last week’s search of former President Donald Trump’s resort in Florida and to provide a classified briefing on their findings as …

A man set his car on fire, drove into a barricade near the US Capitol and started shooting in the air before shooting himself early Sunday morning, according to US Capitol Police. The incident took place at about 11 a.m. Israel Time at a barricade at East Capitol and Second …

Henry L. Chambers Jr., University of Richmond In a case to be heard in the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court could decide that state legislatures have control over congressional elections, including the ability to draw voting districts for partisan political advantage, unconstrained by state law or state constitutions. At issue …

Marty Schladen, Ohio Capital Journal The sweeping Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats last week takes on an issue that Americans have been screaming about for years: the high cost of prescription drugs. But while it will bring immediate relief to millions of seniors, several experts have said it may …