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rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 07:09:51 +0000

Washington (CNN)Millions of federal student loan borrowers will soon see up to $20,000 of their debt wiped away thanks to a new plan announced by President Joe Biden last week.

Not every student loan borrower is eligible for the debt relief. First, only federally owned student loans qualify. Private student loans are excluded.

Second, high-income borrowers are generally excluded from receiving debt forgiveness.

Individual borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year and married couples or heads of households who make less than $250,000 annually will see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven.

Biden’s student loan relief plan will mainly help working and middle class borrowers, report finds

If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness. Pell grants are awarded to millions of low-income students each year, based on factors including their family’s size and income and the cost charged by their college. These borrowers are also more likely to struggle to repay their student debt and end up in default.

Here’s what else borrowers need to know about the new student loan forgiveness plan:

What year is the income threshold based on?

Eligibility is based on a borrower’s adjusted gross income for either tax year 2020 or 2021. Adjusted gross income can be lower than your total wages because it considers tax deductions and adjustments, like contributions made to a 401(k) retirement plan.

How will the government know what my income was?

The Department of Education says it already had income information for nearly 8 million borrowers, likely because of financial aid forms or previously submitted income-driven repayment plan applications. Those borrowers will automatically receive the debt relief if they meet the income requirement.

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Monday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:20:37 +0000

Washington (CNN)Millions of federal student loan borrowers will soon see up to $20,000 of their debt wiped away thanks to a new plan announced by President Joe Biden last week.

Not every student loan borrower is eligible for the debt relief. First, only federally owned student loans qualify. Private student loans are excluded.

Second, high-income borrowers are generally excluded from receiving debt forgiveness.

Biden’s student loan relief plan will mainly help working and middle class borrowers, report finds

Here’s what else borrowers need to know about the new student loan forgiveness plan:

What year is the income threshold based on?

How will the government know what my income was?

Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s The Point with Chris Cillizza.

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Other borrowers will need to apply for the student loan forgiveness if the Department of Education doesn’t have their income information on file.

When will I be able to apply for forgiveness?

The application is expected to be available by early October. You can sign up to be notified when it is available through the Department of Education’s subscription page.

After submitting the application, you can expect the student loan relief within four to six weeks.

Will I have to pay taxes on the amount of debt canceled?

Borrowers will not have to pay federal income tax on the student loan debt forgiven, thanks to a provision in the American Rescue Plan Act that Congress passed last year.

But it’s possible that some borrowers may have to pay state income tax on the amount of debt forgiven. There are a handful of states that may tax discharged debt if state legislative or administrative changes are not made beforehand, according to the Tax Foundation. The tax liability could be hundreds of dollars, depending on the state.

I’m a current student. Am I eligible for forgiveness?

Yes, some current students are eligible. Eligibility for borrowers who filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, as an independent will be based on the individual’s own household income.

Eligibility for borrowers who are enrolled as dependent students, generally those under the age of 24, will be based on parental income for either 2020 or 2021.

I have student debt from graduate school. Am I eligible for forgiveness?

Yes, if your income meets the eligibility threshold.

I’m a parent and took out a Parent PLUS loan. Am I eligible?

Yes, if your income meets the eligibility threshold. A parent borrower with federal Parent PLUS loans for multiple children is still only eligible for up to $20,000 of loan forgiveness.

Could Biden’s forgiveness plan be struck down in court?

It’s hard to say right now what the chances are that a court overturns Biden’s action.

The Biden administration says that Congress gave the secretary of education “expansive authority to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies,” like the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a memo from the Department of Justice.

It’s unclear who would have standing to bring a case, a procedural threshold requiring that an injury had been inflicted on a plaintiff justifying the lawsuit. It’s unlikely to be a borrower who didn’t qualify for forgiveness, but could potentially be a student loan servicer or collection agency, legal experts have told CNN.

How will my payments change going forward?

Borrowers who have debt remaining after either $10,000 or $20,000 is wiped away could see their monthly payment amounts recalculated if they are enrolled in a standard repayment plan. Under a standard repayment plan, borrowers pay a fixed amount that ensures loans are paid off within 10 years.

Borrowers who are already enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan are not likely to see their monthly payment amounts change due to the forgiveness, because their payments are based on household income and family size.

Borrowers have not been required to make payments on their federal student loans since March 2020 because of the government’s pandemic-related pause. Biden has extended the pause through the end of this year, and payments will resume in January 2023.

What about Biden’s new income-driven repayment plan?

Along with Biden’s announcement about canceling some federal student loan debt, he also said he would create a new plan that would make repayment more manageable for borrowers.

There are currently several repayment plans available for federal student loan borrowers that lower monthly payments by capping them at a portion of their income.

The new income-driven repayment plan that Biden is expected to propose would cap payments at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income, down from 10% that is offered in most current plans, as well as reduce the amount of income that is considered discretionary. It would also forgive remaining balances after 10 years of repayment, instead of 20 years.

Tuesday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:20:35 +0000

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Gautam Adani was already Asia’s richest man.

Now he’s also the world’s third richest person, overtaking LVMH (LVMHF) chairman Bernard Arnault and becoming the first Asian person to take that spot, according to Bloomberg and its Billionaires Index.

Adani, who runs one of India’s top conglomerates, is now believed to be worth approximately $137 billion, the tracker shows.

That’s after a surge this week placed him just behind Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, whose own fortunes are estimated at $251 billion and $153 billion, respectively.

Like other billionaires around the world, Adani has seen his wealth skyrocket during the pandemic.

Indian billionaire makes hostile bid for high-profile NDTV news channel

The founder of the eponymous Adani Group controls companies ranging from ports and aerospace to solar energy and coal.

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Wednesday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:20:32 +0000

(CNN)Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which turned the issue of abortion access back to the states, nearly one-third of all US states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure. At least seven states, including Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri, have banned abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Health care providers and abortion activists have continued to file legal challenges to stop bans in several states from being enacted. In South Carolina, a judge has temporarily blocked a six-week ban from going into effect, though the state’s House recently passed a bill banning nearly all abortions. In North Dakota, a judge blocked the state’s trigger ban the day before it was set to go into effect.

As these legal challenges make their way through the courts, patients seeking access to the procedure must navigate a complicated patchwork of legislation, often necessitating travel journeys of hundreds of miles.

Here’s where abortion access currently stands in the United States.

Thursday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:20:31 +0000

‘The Lord of the Rings’ delivers spectacle but lacks the dramatic power to rule them all

Review by Brian Lowry, CNN

Updated 5:33 PM ET, Wed August 31, 2022

New ‘Lord of the Rings’ show reveals world from another age 01:27

(CNN)Having invested hundreds of millions in mounting a series version of “The Lord of the Rings,” Amazon has gotten its money’s worth in production values but not storytelling, with a handsome prequel that could leave all but the most devoted Hobbits feeling more bored than lord. “The Rings of Power” should be a source of considerable curiosity, but amid an onslaught of big-budget streaming fare, this seems undeserving to rule them all.

Indeed, some of “The Rings of Power’s” shortcomings echo those of HBO’s lavish “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon,” which burns brighter by comparison. Based on the initial episodes, the gap between the characters audiences got to know in Peter Jackson’s trilogy and their ancestral counterparts feels even more pronounced.

The series format — episodes will drop weekly after the two-part premiere — also tends to invite some bad habits versus even Jackson’s notoriously long movies, with plodding interludes and a second episode that unfolds on multiple fronts without feeling as if a whole lot is happening, relatively speaking.

Enthusiasts of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ornate world will no doubt be tempted to luxuriate in the centuries-spanning approach to this tale, which picks up with an extended prologue regarding a vast and costly battle with the forces of Sauron, and his subsequent disappearance. While some hope for lingering peace, the revenge-minded Elvish warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) remains vigilant, convinced that, as she puts it, “Evil does not sleep. It waits.”

Like “House of the Dragon,” “The Ring of Power” has sought to feature women and people of color more prominently, while capitalizing on the ageless qualities of the Elves, among other things, to provide connections despite the gaping time lapse between this series and the movies.

Morfydd Clark as Galadriel in Amazon’s prequel series ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.’

Overall, the Elves occupy an enhanced role, including the hardened soldier Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), who also becomes more prominent as battle lines begin to get drawn.

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Friday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:20:29 +0000

“I’ve never had a school year start where we’ve had so many vacancies, and it’s really sad,” Kortsen said. “We have it posted, we’ve gone to job fairs, and there’s simply no teachers out there to be had right now.”

After two years of weathering pandemic health concerns, learning loss, and tense public scrutiny, teacher burnout is surging nationwide.

Is there a teacher shortage? It’s complicated

Jennifer Zanardi just quit her high school teaching job in Palm Beach, Florida, to become a corporate recruiter. She says the relatively low salary was a big factor, but the political pressure and the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill were the tipping points. She found herself working more hours and walking on eggshells.

“The public was actually saying that teachers were trying to indoctrinate students,” Zanardi said. “It affected my mental health and my stress in a huge way.”

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs is also plummeting, down 33% between 2010 and 2020 — a trend that has only intensified during the pandemic, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Schools are competing for a shrinking pool of teachers, and wealthier suburban districts are winning out over those with fewer resources, especially rural schools and those that support more low-income families and students of color.

“(Teachers) are not going to the schools that are the most disadvantaged,” said Chad Aldeman, policy director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “The same schools that were struggling in 2019 are struggling even worse in 2022.”

In Prince George’s County, Maryland, where there’s a high concentration of poverty, at least 8 percent of the public school district’s teacher slots are vacant, more than twice as many as last year, according to the teachers union.

NV school district to resume classes with 1,400+ job vacancies 07:00

Dr. Donna Christy, the president of the Prince George’s County Educators Association, is seeing a scramble to fill the gap.

“It definitely feels like there’s been an exodus,” Christy said. “They’re leaving the profession, but they are leaving for other districts as well. Where there’s higher pay, where there’s better working conditions, where they feel more supported, or they’ve heard there’s more support.”

Geva Hickman-Johnson, a high school English teacher in Prince George’s County, just found out she’ll need to prep lessons for the new substitutes in her department. She also expects her class sizes to grow.

“It means that my students may not be getting the best teacher this year,” Hickman-Johnson said. “I may not be able to be at my best because I’m being pulled in so many different directions that I’m not going to really be able to focus on the students that I’m standing in front of every day. It’s hard.”

On top of learning loss during the pandemic, many teachers across the country have also noticed worsening student behavior. At a time when many students need more attention, Christy fears they’ll receive less.

“They were falling through the cracks before,” she said. “It’s going to be like opening the floodgates. It’s going to be really hard to keep up with our struggling students.”

Like many districts, Prince George’s County Public Schools are now scrambling to fill those empty classrooms, shifting staff around, increasing pay for subs, and combining classes when necessary.

These ‘amazingly ridiculous’ things were final straw for ex-Florida teacher 02:55

States are getting creative to fill vacancies, though some of the plans are controversial. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking veterans wi

Saturday is great

rod — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:13:55 +0000

(CNN)The University of North Dakota is working to repatriate human remains and sacred artifacts taken from Indigenous communities, UND President Andrew Armacost said Wednesday at a news conference.

More than 250 boxes of items were discovered in March, but university officials have not publicized the find until now at the request of tribal leaders.

“The number of ancestors we have here on campus can be measured in the dozens,” Armacost said, saying the boxes included remains and artifacts, such as headdresses, war bonnets and a ceremonial pipe.

“We can now feel a sense of relief and hope because our ancestors will be returned to their rightful place, and that’s home. We’ll make sure of that,” said Laine Lyons, a member of the Chippewa Tribe who works in the university’s college of arts and sciences.

Stolen skulls of Black Philadelphians were displayed in an Ivy League classroom for years. They may soon receive a proper burial

Armacost said their priority is to identify and return the items to the appropriate tribes while the investigation continues into why the remains and artifacts were kept on campus.

“Our initial impression is that some of the ancestors and funeral items were taken from sacred burial mounds,” Armacost said. “These excavations took place over the course of decades.”

Tribal artifacts have been taken frequently for academic research, but that is no excuse for the theft, Nathan Davis of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission said.

“Science can no longer be an excuse for preventing our ancestors from returning home,” Davis said.

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rod — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 23:10:48 +0000

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