November 11, 2022 – Today’s Biggest News Stories

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In August, President Joe Biden announced that the government would forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for Americans making less than $125,000 per year. On Thursday, US Trump-appointed District Judge Mark Pittman ruled that the Biden administration did not have “clear congressional authorization” to create the loan forgiveness program.

In a statement Thursday night, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the administration is appealing the ruling. More than 26 million people have already signed up for the forgiveness program, and 16 million applications have been approved. If an appeal is successful, loan servicers could move forward with discharging their debt.

Overall, the program is estimated to eliminate about $430 billion in student debt for more than 40 million people.

Beyond Congress, these midterm results spell out surprising change

  • Progressive prosecutors won in midterm elections in spite of tough-on-crime rhetoric from Republicans. The GOP poured more than $50 million over the last two months into ominous ads, complete with police tape, sirens, and scary (and often misleading) crime statistics in major governors and congressional races. Still, voters across the country elected progressive district attorneys — the elected prosecutors who have some of the most direct impact on how the criminal justice system affects people’s lives.

  • A 23-year-old Democrat ousted a two-term mayor in a conservative Louisiana town. Mayor-elect Tyrin Truong told BuzzFeed News he’s subverting the stereotype that young people are apathetic to politics or social change.

SNAPSHOTS

Elon Musk’s $8 Twitter plan falls for an old fallacy that if people use their real names online, they won’t say terrible things. Also, relying on a paywall to curb hate speech means that Twitter will be collecting more identifying data about the paid account holders.

The 18-year-old who prompted last week’s FBI warning of a threat to New Jersey synagogues allegedly wrote a violent screed detailing his hatred of Jews. According to his interview with the FBI, the suspect created the antisemitic document “while LARP-ing” (live-action role-playing) as a terrorist.

Influencer Nikita Dragun was held in the men’s unit of a jail, and a video of her begging to be relocated has left people disturbed and upset. Drawing attention to the wider issue of trans women’s safety in prisons, Twitter users highlighted that Nikita’s situation was representative of the dated discriminatory protocols mandated by some jails.

Louis Tomlinson just got super real about his former bandmate Harry Styles’s solo success. And while each member of One Direction has carved their own path since the hiatus, Louis revealed that they’re still in contact and support one another’s ventures.

Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalee1/biden-student-debt-midterms-meta-layoffs-visa-november-11

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