Student loan borrowers watch Supreme Court case with "pain and anxiety"
CBSN
Ambalika Williams is watching the first day of the Supreme Court hearing on Biden's student-loan relief program with a feeling of hope, but also with a measure of anxiety. Williams has almost $10,000 in student loans, and the case will determine whether her entire debt could be erased in one swoop.
The arguments the justices are hearing Tuesday represent the culmination of a political and constitutional clash that has left 40 million student loan borrowers in limbo, including Williams, who is the national director of Organizing at Rise, a student advocacy group. If the high court strikes down the program, she worries she will need to delay plans to buy a home.
"I would have to make pretty hard financial decisions, because I would still have this debt," Williams, 33, of Washington, D.C., noted, adding that she had already whittled down her debt from its original $40,000 balance.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.