This year’s FAFSA form for college financial aid is officially open
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The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, officially opened Thursday for students seeking financial aid for college during the 2025-2026 school year.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, officially opened Thursday for students seeking financial aid for college during the 2025-2026 school year. The form traditionally opens on October 1, but the Department of Education delayed the release in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s rocky rollout after making significant updates to the application. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern that the problems would prevent some low-income students from attending college at all. Submitting the form is required for students to access federal Pell grants, student loans and other kinds of financial aid and is filled out by millions of people annually. The department has been testing the 2025-26 form by allowing a limited number of students and families to submit the application since October 1. Officials had expected to officially release the form on December 1 but pushed up the opening date after conducting four testing phases. “The results throughout the beta testing have been really encouraging,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on a call with reporters. As of Tuesday morning, 167,000 applications had been successfully submitted.
The first week of testimony in Brian Walshe’s murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, has come to an end. The jury heard from about two dozen witnesses called by the commonwealth in its case against Walshe as prosecutors work to prove he killed his wife, Ana Walshe, around New Year’s Day in 2023.
The US Army officially stood up a new command on Friday to oversee the Army’s activities in the Western Hemisphere in the latest signal of increasing focus on homeland defense.
A former high-level Drug Enforcement agent was indicted on charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.
A federal judge in Florida ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and other records in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein granting the Justice Department’s request.
The Indiana House approved new congressional maps designed to hand Republicans all nine of the state’s US House seats on Friday, setting the stage for a showdown next week in the state Senate.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said last-minute interference from US President Donald Trump in the country’s closely fought election had damaged his chances of winning and left him trailing as vote counting dragged on.
Vice President JD Vance said he and second lady Usha Vance are largely amused by the online chatter dissecting their marriage, including a recent spate of headlines over photos of her without a wedding ring.
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.
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The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?