The clock is already ticking on the next debt ceiling fight
CBSN
Congress was able to avoid what experts say would be a catastrophic economic crisis by raising the debt limit in the short term last week, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the recent increase in the debt ceiling provides only a "short reprieve" before the U.S. is set to run out of money to pay its bills again.
The Treasury Department will need to use so-called extraordinary measures, such as suspending some securities sales and not investing in funds, to make sure the government can meet debt obligations through December 3, Yellen said in a letter to congressional leaders Monday. If the U.S. is unable to pay its bills, the country would go into default for the first time ever.
Last week, the House passed a bill to raise the debt limit by $480 billion, keeping the government solvent into early December. It came after Republicans in the Senate backed off their threat of a filibuster allowing Senate Democrats to pass the short-term bill the week before after a weeks-long standoff.
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.