PARIS — France has mobilized tens of thousands of police officers in an effort to head off widespread urban rioting following the deadly police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. that shocked the nation.

The office of French Interior&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-police-shooting-protests-paris-nanterre-nahel-220e30e596ed6ad28e152be3df03ec98">Minister Gerald Darmanin said 45,000 police officers</a>&nbsp;were again deployed Sunday night in the streets to counter anger over discrimination against people who trace their roots to former French colonies and live in low-income neighborhoods. Nahel is of Algerian descent and was shot in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

According to the statement from the U.S. Embassy in Paris, U.S. citizens should continue to avoid mass gatherings and areas of significant police activity as they can turn violent and result in clashes. 

Some cities continue to impose curfews. As always, it is a good practice to notify friends or family of your whereabouts. Note that public transportation is being affected.

President Emmanuel Macron held a special security meeting Sunday night and plans to meet Monday with the heads of both houses of parliament and Tuesday with the mayors of 220 towns and cities affected by the protests, said a participant in the meeting, who spoke anonymously in line with French government practices. Macron also wants to start a detailed, longer-term assessment of the reasons that led to the unrest, the official said.

Highlighting the seriousness of the rioting, Macron has delayed what would have been the first state visit to Germany by a French president in 23 years, which had been scheduled to start Sunday evening.

The interior ministry said police made 49 arrests nationwide Sunday, French media reported, down significantly from 719 arrests the day before. More than 3,000 people have been detained overall&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-police-shooting-protests-paris-nanterre-nahel-220e30e596ed6ad28e152be3df03ec98">following a mass security deployment</a>. Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured in the violence, although authorities haven’t said how many protesters have been hurt.

French authorities were appalled on Sunday after a burning car struck the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses. Several police stations and town halls have been targeted by fires or vandalism in recent days, but such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.

Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were injured in the 1:30 a.m. attack while they slept and he was in the town hall monitoring the violence. Jeanbrun, of the conservative opposition Republicans party, said the attack represented a new stage of “horror and ignominy” in the unrest.

The U.S. Embassy suggested actions to take:

U.S. citizens may monitor English-language French media at the following:

<a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Embassy Paris, France</a>

<a href="mailto:CitizenInfo@state.gov" target="_blank">CitizenInfo@state.gov</a>

<a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/marseille/" target="_blank">U.S. Consulate General Marseille, France</a> +33 (1) 43 12 22 22 <a href="mailto:CitizenInfoMarseille@state.gov" target="_blank">CitizenInfoMarseille@state.gov</a>

<a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/strasbourg/" target="_blank">U.S. Consulate General Strasbourg, France</a> +33 (1) 43 12 22 22 <a href="mailto:CitizeninfoMarseille@state.gov" target="_blank">USAStrasbourg@state.gov</a>

State Department – Consular Affairs 888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444 <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/France.html" target="_blank">France Country Specific Information&nbsp;</a> Enroll in the&nbsp;<a href="https://step.state.gov/step/" target="_blank">Smart Traveler Enrollment Program&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;(STEP) to receive security updates

PARIS — France has mobilized tens of thousands of police officers in an effort to head off widespread urban rioting following the deadly police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M. that shocked the nation.The office of French Interior&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-police-shooting-protests-paris-nanterre-nahel-220e30e596ed6ad28e152be3df03ec98">Minister Gerald Darmanin said 45,000 police officers</a>&nbsp;were again deployed Sunday night in the streets to counter anger over discrimination against people who trace their roots to former French colonies and live in low-income neighborhoods. Nahel is of Algerian descent and was shot in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.According to the statement from the U.S. Embassy in Paris, U.S. citizens should continue to avoid mass gatherings and areas of significant police activity as they can turn violent and result in clashes. Some cities continue to impose curfews. As always, it is a good practice to notify friends or family of your whereabouts. Note that public transportation is being affected.President Emmanuel Macron held a special security meeting Sunday night and plans to meet Monday with the heads of both houses of parliament and Tuesday with the mayors of 220 towns and cities affected by the protests, said a participant in the meeting, who spoke anonymously in line with French government practices. Macron also wants to start a detailed, longer-term assessment of the reasons that led to the unrest, the official said.Highlighting the seriousness of the rioting, Macron has delayed what would have been the first state visit to Germany by a French president in 23 years, which had been scheduled to start Sunday evening.The interior ministry said police made 49 arrests nationwide Sunday, French media reported, down significantly from 719 arrests the day before. More than 3,000 people have been detained overall&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-police-shooting-protests-paris-nanterre-nahel-220e30e596ed6ad28e152be3df03ec98">following a mass security deployment</a>. Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured in the violence, although authorities haven’t said how many protesters have been hurt.French authorities were appalled on Sunday after a burning car struck the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses. Several police stations and town halls have been targeted by fires or vandalism in recent days, but such a personal attack on a mayor’s home is unusual.Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were injured in the 1:30 a.m. attack while they slept and he was in the town hall monitoring the violence. Jeanbrun, of the conservative opposition Republicans party, said the attack represented a new stage of “horror and ignominy” in the unrest.The U.S. Embassy suggested actions to take:<ul>
 <li>Avoid demonstrations and protest activity</li><li>Avoid areas with significant police activity</li><li>If unavoidable, protect yourself/find shelter</li><li>Follow the advice of police and local authorities</li><li>Monitor local media for updates</li><li>Be aware of your surroundings</li>
 </ul>U.S. citizens may monitor English-language French media at the following:<ul>
 <li><a href="http://www.france24.com/en/" target="_blank">http://www.france24.com/en/&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="http://en.rfi.fr/france/" target="_blank">http://en.rfi.fr/france/&nbsp;</a></li><li><a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/%20" target="_blank">https://www.thelocal.fr/&nbsp;</a></li>
 </ul>Assistance:<a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Embassy Paris, France</a>+33 (1) 43 12 22 22<a href="mailto:CitizenInfo@state.gov" target="_blank">CitizenInfo@state.gov</a><a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/marseille/" target="_blank">U.S. Consulate General Marseille, France</a> +33 (1) 43 12 22 22 <a href="mailto:CitizenInfoMarseille@state.gov" target="_blank">CitizenInfoMarseille@state.gov</a><a href="https://fr.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/strasbourg/" target="_blank">U.S. Consulate General Strasbourg, France</a> +33 (1) 43 12 22 22 <a href="mailto:CitizeninfoMarseille@state.gov" target="_blank">USAStrasbourg@state.gov</a>State Department – Consular Affairs 888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444 <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/France.html" target="_blank">France Country Specific Information&nbsp;</a> Enroll in the&nbsp;<a href="https://step.state.gov/step/" target="_blank">Smart Traveler Enrollment Program&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;(STEP) to receive security updates

U.S. Embassy continues to alert Americans traveling in France

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/vilsack-announces-grants-to-help-small-mid-sized-food-producers/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide $115 million in federal grants to smaller meat and poultry processors as part of their effort to fight industry consolidation, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Thursday.

Vilsack held a roundtable with producers and businesses in Des Moines. He announced&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.rd.usda.gov/media/file/download/usda-rd-nr-mpilp-mpep06-29-2023.pdf">15 awards in 17 states</a>&nbsp;(Nebraska was not among them) aimed at growing independent processing plants’ capacities, starting up new plants and expanding rural workforces.

One of the awards is a $25 million grant for the Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company in Mills County. Vilsack said the grant money will be used for equipment at a new facility the company is building in the northwest area of the county.

The grant is part of a $1 billion initiative from President Joe Biden’s administration to make the meatpacking industry more competitive, as currently four corporations process 85% of the nation’s beef supply.

The Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company plans on slaughtering roughly a half-million cattle annually. While this figure is well below the multi-millions of cattle processed by groups like Tyson Foods, the administration has argued disrupting industry consolidation will help reduce inflation at the grocery store and bring more of those profits back to the producers in states like Iowa.

Chad Tentinger, the principal developer for Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company, said Thursday that part of the organization’s expansion includes plans to create a producer cooperative that will own 20% of the company, as a way to give producers a direct line to profit as well as get better cattle prices.

“This grant will absolutely benefit the small family farmer,” Tentinger said.

The Progressive Ag Cooperative based out of Northwood will receive a nearly $5 million grant for a dry fertilizer facility, and the Landus Co-Up, the organization hosting Vilsack’s visit, is also set to receive a nearly $5 million grant for a facility producing a&nbsp;nitrogen fertilizer.

“This is the new model of additional income sources, of more rural jobs, of a better environment within agriculture, where agriculture is the solution and not the problem,” Vilsack said.

These grants are a part of President Joe Biden’s pitch on “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/06/28/biden-economic-policies-chicago-speech/70359373007/">Bidenomics</a>” heading into the 2024 presidential campaign season. Biden this week touted initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan that he said helped the American economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those policies are focused on helping middle-class Americans and small businesses, Biden said Wednesday. Vilsack told reporters the new USDA investments are focused on helping those same groups in the food industry as a part of the Biden administration’s “Investing in America” agenda.

“While American farmers and ranchers have been responding to the demand to produce more, their communities have struggled to see their share of the benefits,” Vilsack said in a news release.

Vilsack said that in 2022, 89% of all farming income went to 7.5% of farms — a breakdown even the farms benefitting from the current system would likely find unfair, he said. He said small and mid-sized farms are the “muscular core” of the country’s agriculture system, and that these grants go toward strengthening those producers.

There was some discussion of more funding for these projects, but the debt ceiling negotiations stymied some of the USDA’s expected investments, he said. But providing more support to these smaller organizations is necessary to help bring costs of food and agriculture production down, he said, to help combat inflation and prevent situations like the rapid increase in fertilizer costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war from occurring in the future.

“Are we comfortable with a situation where income continues to be concentrated, with the understanding that folks who are large-scale production agriculture have enormous risk financially … or are we big enough and smart enough and innovative enough to basically create another alternative option so that folks can have a choice?” Vilsack said.

The former Iowa governor also said he expects to see Congress to move on a farm bill by the end of the year.

“The interesting thing about agriculture is its under-appreciated aspect of every state economy. You can go to any state in the country and what you’re gonna find is agriculture is the top part of the economy,” he told reporters. “… and as a result of that, I think there’s an understanding and appreciation of the need to get a farm bill done.”

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch&nbsp;a sister site of the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.

By Robin Opsahl<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/vilsack-announces-grants-to-help-small-mid-sized-food-producers/">Nebraska Examiner</a>The U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide $115 million in federal grants to smaller meat and poultry processors as part of their effort to fight industry consolidation, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Thursday.Vilsack held a roundtable with producers and businesses in Des Moines. He announced&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.rd.usda.gov/media/file/download/usda-rd-nr-mpilp-mpep06-29-2023.pdf">15 awards in 17 states</a>&nbsp;(Nebraska was not among them) aimed at growing independent processing plants’ capacities, starting up new plants and expanding rural workforces.One of the awards is a $25 million grant for the Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company in Mills County. Vilsack said the grant money will be used for equipment at a new facility the company is building in the northwest area of the county.<h2>Grants awarded to 17 states:</h2><ul>
 <li>$5 million to the Morgan County Economic Development Corporation in Colorado</li><li>$10 million to the Fremont County Economic Development Corporation in Colorado</li><li>$630,000 to the Berkshire Agricultural Ventures Inc. operating in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut</li><li>$15 million to the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs in Indiana</li><li>$3.8 million to the Maryland Agricultural and Resourced-Based Industry Development Corporation in Maryland</li><li>$834,000 to the Farmers Union Foundation operating in Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin and North and South Dakota</li><li>$15 million to Jobs Now Inc. in Montana</li><li>$15 million to the Oyate Community Development Corporation in North Dakota</li><li>$10 million to the Rural Development Finance Corporation in North Dakota</li><li>$2 million to the South Central Development Company in Ohio</li><li>$1.5 million to the Spotted Trotter in Georgia</li><li>$25 million to the Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company LLC in Iowa</li><li>$2 million to the Swift Run Station LLC in Michigan</li><li>$2.6 million to the Appalachian Producers Cooperative in Tennessee</li><li>&nbsp;$6.9 million to TBP LLC in Texas</li>
 </ul>The grant is part of a $1 billion initiative from President Joe Biden’s administration to make the meatpacking industry more competitive, as currently four corporations process 85% of the nation’s beef supply.The Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company plans on slaughtering roughly a half-million cattle annually. While this figure is well below the multi-millions of cattle processed by groups like Tyson Foods, the administration has argued disrupting industry consolidation will help reduce inflation at the grocery store and bring more of those profits back to the producers in states like Iowa.Chad Tentinger, the principal developer for Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef Company, said Thursday that part of the organization’s expansion includes plans to create a producer cooperative that will own 20% of the company, as a way to give producers a direct line to profit as well as get better cattle prices.“This grant will absolutely benefit the small family farmer,” Tentinger said.The Progressive Ag Cooperative based out of Northwood will receive a nearly $5 million grant for a dry fertilizer facility, and the Landus Co-Up, the organization hosting Vilsack’s visit, is also set to receive a nearly $5 million grant for a facility producing a&nbsp;nitrogen fertilizer.“This is the new model of additional income sources, of more rural jobs, of a better environment within agriculture, where agriculture is the solution and not the problem,” Vilsack said.These grants are a part of President Joe Biden’s pitch on “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/06/28/biden-economic-policies-chicago-speech/70359373007/">Bidenomics</a>” heading into the 2024 presidential campaign season. Biden this week touted initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan that he said helped the American economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.Those policies are focused on helping middle-class Americans and small businesses, Biden said Wednesday. Vilsack told reporters the new USDA investments are focused on helping those same groups in the food industry as a part of the Biden administration’s “Investing in America” agenda.“While American farmers and ranchers have been responding to the demand to produce more, their communities have struggled to see their share of the benefits,” Vilsack said in a news release.Vilsack said that in 2022, 89% of all farming income went to 7.5% of farms — a breakdown even the farms benefitting from the current system would likely find unfair, he said. He said small and mid-sized farms are the “muscular core” of the country’s agriculture system, and that these grants go toward strengthening those producers.There was some discussion of more funding for these projects, but the debt ceiling negotiations stymied some of the USDA’s expected investments, he said. But providing more support to these smaller organizations is necessary to help bring costs of food and agriculture production down, he said, to help combat inflation and prevent situations like the rapid increase in fertilizer costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war from occurring in the future.“Are we comfortable with a situation where income continues to be concentrated, with the understanding that folks who are large-scale production agriculture have enormous risk financially … or are we big enough and smart enough and innovative enough to basically create another alternative option so that folks can have a choice?” Vilsack said.The former Iowa governor also said he expects to see Congress to move on a farm bill by the end of the year.“The interesting thing about agriculture is its under-appreciated aspect of every state economy. You can go to any state in the country and what you’re gonna find is agriculture is the top part of the economy,” he told reporters. “… and as a result of that, I think there’s an understanding and appreciation of the need to get a farm bill done.”This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch&nbsp;a sister site of the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.

Vilsack announces grants to help small, mid-sized food producers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the amount of tweets that most users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/chatgpt-openai-ceo-sam-altman-congress-73ff96c6571f38ad5fd68b3072722790" target="_blank">scraping of potentially valuable data</a>&nbsp;from the social media platform.

The site is now requiring people to log on to view tweets and profiles — a change in its longtime practice to allow everyone to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world’s digital town square since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-business-1f1a67299681beaf1fc9cbae4747287b" target="_blank">buying it for $44 billion</a>&nbsp;last year.

The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets. Thousands of users complained Saturday of not being able to access the site.

<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674865731136020505?s=20" target="_blank">In a Friday tweet</a>, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”

Musk has pushed back on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-microsoft-ai-training-data-dispute-musk-nadella-292fd9de9cc2623003fd1ce44897c912" target="_blank">what he calls misuse of Twitter data</a>&nbsp;to train popular artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. They&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-risks-petition-elon-musk-steve-wozniak-534f0298d6304687ed080a5119a69962" target="_blank">scour reams of information</a>&nbsp;online to generate human-like text, photos, video and other content.

Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672?s=20" target="_blank">elaborated on the limits</a>&nbsp;Saturday, saying unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000.

After facing backlash, he tweeted that the thresholds would be raised to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675214274627530754?s=20" target="_blank">800 posts for unverified accounts</a>&nbsp;and 8,000 for verified accounts before later settling on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675260424109928449?s=20" target="_blank">1,000 and 10,000 tweets</a>, respectively.

The crackdown began to have ripple effects, causing more than 7,500 people at one point Saturday to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.

Although that’s a relatively small number of Twitter’s more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world.

The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-blue-check-elon-musk-5b3d64e23ae21572ada42a0110e27c5e" target="_blank">$8-per-month subscription service</a>&nbsp;that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue. It has fallen sharply since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ftc-twitter-investigation-musk-layoffs-republicans-c19e698a3531726447895841e3351536" target="_blank">laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce</a>&nbsp;to cut costs and stave off bankruptcy.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-marijuana-cannabis-elon-musk-pot-d67627f31dcc52fd5586785ecfa2269f" target="_blank">Advertisers have since curbed their spending</a>&nbsp;on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-lgbtq-social-media-twitter-glaad-aab0b650c858c177f34155ae3f5390c6" target="_blank">sometimes-hateful and prickly content</a>&nbsp;that offends a wider part of the service’s audience.

Musk recently&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-musk-new-ceo-a5df68e9a1e5f982368390c73aeabb50" target="_blank">hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino</a>&nbsp;as Twitter’s CEO to try to win back advertisers.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the amount of tweets that most users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/chatgpt-openai-ceo-sam-altman-congress-73ff96c6571f38ad5fd68b3072722790" target="_blank">scraping of potentially valuable data</a>&nbsp;from the social media platform.The site is now requiring people to log on to view tweets and profiles — a change in its longtime practice to allow everyone to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world’s digital town square since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-business-1f1a67299681beaf1fc9cbae4747287b" target="_blank">buying it for $44 billion</a>&nbsp;last year.The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets. Thousands of users complained Saturday of not being able to access the site.<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674865731136020505?s=20" target="_blank">In a Friday tweet</a>, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”Musk has pushed back on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-microsoft-ai-training-data-dispute-musk-nadella-292fd9de9cc2623003fd1ce44897c912" target="_blank">what he calls misuse of Twitter data</a>&nbsp;to train popular artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. They&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-risks-petition-elon-musk-steve-wozniak-534f0298d6304687ed080a5119a69962" target="_blank">scour reams of information</a>&nbsp;online to generate human-like text, photos, video and other content.Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672?s=20" target="_blank">elaborated on the limits</a>&nbsp;Saturday, saying unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000.After facing backlash, he tweeted that the thresholds would be raised to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675214274627530754?s=20" target="_blank">800 posts for unverified accounts</a>&nbsp;and 8,000 for verified accounts before later settling on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675260424109928449?s=20" target="_blank">1,000 and 10,000 tweets</a>, respectively.The crackdown began to have ripple effects, causing more than 7,500 people at one point Saturday to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.Although that’s a relatively small number of Twitter’s more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world.The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-blue-check-elon-musk-5b3d64e23ae21572ada42a0110e27c5e" target="_blank">$8-per-month subscription service</a>&nbsp;that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue. It has fallen sharply since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ftc-twitter-investigation-musk-layoffs-republicans-c19e698a3531726447895841e3351536" target="_blank">laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce</a>&nbsp;to cut costs and stave off bankruptcy.<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-marijuana-cannabis-elon-musk-pot-d67627f31dcc52fd5586785ecfa2269f" target="_blank">Advertisers have since curbed their spending</a>&nbsp;on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-lgbtq-social-media-twitter-glaad-aab0b650c858c177f34155ae3f5390c6" target="_blank">sometimes-hateful and prickly content</a>&nbsp;that offends a wider part of the service’s audience.Musk recently&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-musk-new-ceo-a5df68e9a1e5f982368390c73aeabb50" target="_blank">hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino</a>&nbsp;as Twitter’s CEO to try to win back advertisers.

Elon Musk imposes daily limits on reading posts on Twitter

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed Friday to push ahead with a new plan providing student loan relief for millions of borrowers, while blaming Republican “hypocrisy” for triggering the day’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa" target="_blank">Supreme Court decision</a>&nbsp;that wiped out his original effort.

Biden said his administration had already begun the process of working under the authority of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which he called “the best path that remains to provide&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-2d6eec61822b9e7a89ff59453d2486a5" target="_blank">as many borrowers as possible</a>&nbsp;with debt relief.”

In the meantime, since student loan-payment requirements are to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-payment-pause-end-642276f724b30890669a60ea2c0bbfd5" target="_blank">resume in the fall, the</a>&nbsp;White House is creating an “on ramp” to repayment and implementing ways to ease borrowers’ threat of default if they fall behind over the next year.

The president said the new programs will take longer than his initial effort would have to ease student loan debt.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said borrowers now angry about the court’s decision should blame Republicans. He is trying to stay on the political offensive even as the ruling undermined a key promise to young voters who will be vital to his 2024 reelection campaign.

“These Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working class, middle class Americans,” Biden said. “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning.”

Trying to place staunch opposition to student loan forgiveness on the GOP could allow Biden’s reelection campaign to maintain the issue as one of strength in the short term. But that may ultimately offer little solace to 43 million Americans who benefited from the initial program and will now have to wait for its replacement to take shape.

“We do not want to go into excruciating debt for our entire lives to enhance our education,” Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led organization that promotes the power of young Americans, said in a statement.

The White House argues that its new efforts will stand up to future legal challenges, even given the Supreme Court’s 6-3 current conservative majority. However, the administration also insisted its original plan was legal .

Biden bristled at suggestions his efforts to ease student loan burdens got borrowers’ hopes up unnecessarily.

“I didn’t give any false hope,” he said. “The Republicans snatched away the hope that they were given.”

The political stakes are especially high since progressive Democrats in Congress and activists have been clamoring for the administration to offer an alternative to Biden’s original student loan plan for months, fearing that the Supreme Court would ultimately move to block the president’s original efforts.

Many progressives argued that the Higher Education Act was the best vehicle all along, though the administration worried that implementation might have been slower had it originally tried employing the act.

The new approach uses a provision allowing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “compromise, waive or release” student loans. The Biden administration used the same basis last year to forgive $6 billion in loans for borrowers who were deceived by their colleges.

The details of the new forgiveness will be negotiated through a federal rulemaking process that the administration launched Friday. The process allows the Education Department to write or change federal regulations with the weight of law.

But there’s no guarantee that the plan could survive another legal challenge.

The Higher Education Act has been used to cancel student debt but never at this scale, and lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that the education secretary “does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation” under the act.

The GOP has long countered that repaying student loans is a fairness issue, and many leading Republicans celebrated Friday’s ruling. Betsy DeVos, who served as secretary of education under President Donald Trump, called Biden’s original plan “deeply unfair to the majority of Americans who don’t have student loans.”

Republicans now seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination lined up to applaud the decision, with former Vice President Mike Pence saying he was “pleased that the court struck down the radical left’s effort to use the money of taxpayers who played by the rules and repaid their debts in order to cancel the debt of bankers and lawyers in New York, San Francisco, and Washington.”

Addressing the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, Trump slammed Biden’s efforts on student loans as “a way of trying to buy votes, that’s all it was.” Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nation’s Nikki Haley said the Supreme Court was “right to throw out Joe Biden’s power grab.”

After Biden announced his response, some Republicans were equally quick to reject it.

“Taxpayers just got sucker punched – again – by this administration,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican. “Today, President Biden announced that taxpayers will be forced to pay for the costliest regulation in our nation’s history.”

BY WILL WEISSERT AND COLLEEN LONGWASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed Friday to push ahead with a new plan providing student loan relief for millions of borrowers, while blaming Republican “hypocrisy” for triggering the day’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa" target="_blank">Supreme Court decision</a>&nbsp;that wiped out his original effort.Biden said his administration had already begun the process of working under the authority of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which he called “the best path that remains to provide&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-2d6eec61822b9e7a89ff59453d2486a5" target="_blank">as many borrowers as possible</a>&nbsp;with debt relief.”In the meantime, since student loan-payment requirements are to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-payment-pause-end-642276f724b30890669a60ea2c0bbfd5" target="_blank">resume in the fall, the</a>&nbsp;White House is creating an “on ramp” to repayment and implementing ways to ease borrowers’ threat of default if they fall behind over the next year.The president said the new programs will take longer than his initial effort would have to ease student loan debt.Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said borrowers now angry about the court’s decision should blame Republicans. He is trying to stay on the political offensive even as the ruling undermined a key promise to young voters who will be vital to his 2024 reelection campaign.“These Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working class, middle class Americans,” Biden said. “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning.”Trying to place staunch opposition to student loan forgiveness on the GOP could allow Biden’s reelection campaign to maintain the issue as one of strength in the short term. But that may ultimately offer little solace to 43 million Americans who benefited from the initial program and will now have to wait for its replacement to take shape.“We do not want to go into excruciating debt for our entire lives to enhance our education,” Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led organization that promotes the power of young Americans, said in a statement.The president said the new programs will take longer than his initial effort would have to ease student loan debt.Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said borrowers now angry about the court’s decision should blame Republicans. He is trying to stay on the political offensive even as the ruling undermined a key promise to young voters who will be vital to his 2024 reelection campaign.“These Republican officials just couldn’t bear the thought of providing relief for working class, middle class Americans,” Biden said. “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is stunning.”Trying to place staunch opposition to student loan forgiveness on the GOP could allow Biden’s reelection campaign to maintain the issue as one of strength in the short term. But that may ultimately offer little solace to 43 million Americans who benefited from the initial program and will now have to wait for its replacement to take shape.“We do not want to go into excruciating debt for our entire lives to enhance our education,” Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z-led organization that promotes the power of young Americans, said in a statement.The White House argues that its new efforts will stand up to future legal challenges, even given the Supreme Court’s 6-3 current conservative majority. However, the administration also insisted its original plan was legal .Biden bristled at suggestions his efforts to ease student loan burdens got borrowers’ hopes up unnecessarily.“I didn’t give any false hope,” he said. “The Republicans snatched away the hope that they were given.”The political stakes are especially high since progressive Democrats in Congress and activists have been clamoring for the administration to offer an alternative to Biden’s original student loan plan for months, fearing that the Supreme Court would ultimately move to block the president’s original efforts.Many progressives argued that the Higher Education Act was the best vehicle all along, though the administration worried that implementation might have been slower had it originally tried employing the act.The new approach uses a provision allowing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to “compromise, waive or release” student loans. The Biden administration used the same basis last year to forgive $6 billion in loans for borrowers who were deceived by their colleges.The details of the new forgiveness will be negotiated through a federal rulemaking process that the administration launched Friday. The process allows the Education Department to write or change federal regulations with the weight of law.But there’s no guarantee that the plan could survive another legal challenge.The Higher Education Act has been used to cancel student debt but never at this scale, and lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that the education secretary “does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation” under the act.The GOP has long countered that repaying student loans is a fairness issue, and many leading Republicans celebrated Friday’s ruling. Betsy DeVos, who served as secretary of education under President Donald Trump, called Biden’s original plan “deeply unfair to the majority of Americans who don’t have student loans.”Republicans now seeking their party’s 2024 presidential nomination lined up to applaud the decision, with former Vice President Mike Pence saying he was “pleased that the court struck down the radical left’s effort to use the money of taxpayers who played by the rules and repaid their debts in order to cancel the debt of bankers and lawyers in New York, San Francisco, and Washington.”Addressing the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, Trump slammed Biden’s efforts on student loans as “a way of trying to buy votes, that’s all it was.” Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nation’s Nikki Haley said the Supreme Court was “right to throw out Joe Biden’s power grab.”After Biden announced his response, some Republicans were equally quick to reject it.“Taxpayers just got sucker punched – again – by this administration,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican. “Today, President Biden announced that taxpayers will be forced to pay for the costliest regulation in our nation’s history.”

Biden offers new student debt relief plan, lashes out at GOP after Supreme Court ruling

As the third largest economy in the world, Japan is a vital trade partner of the United States, especially agriculture producers in Nebraska’s Third District. According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, more than half of Nebraska’s pork exports and more than a quarter of our state’s beef exports were purchased by Japan last year, totaling $156 million and $405 million respectively. Japan is Nebraska’s largest export market for pork and eggs, our second largest market for beef, and our third largest market for corn and overall ag exports.

The mutual benefit of a strong trade relationship for Third District producers and Japanese consumers is extraordinary. Sales of Nebraska beef to Japan have increased exponentially over the last two decades, as our producers have worked hard to meet demand for high-quality meat prized by Japanese consumers. Expanding cooperation and market access for Nebraska’s top-notch products continues to hold even greater promise for the future. As Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade and co-chair of the U.S.-Japan Caucus, I am working to build on our historic partnership.

While progress on trade with Japan has been significant in the 21st century, Congress can and must do more to address both tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. An agreement signed by President Trump in 2019 reduced tariffs on an estimated 90 percent of food and agriculture products exported to Japan; however, there are additional opportunities to expand our partnership with Japan. Congressionally-approved trade agreements are the strongest way to support American producers and consumers, and a comprehensive agreement should be the next step to maximize cooperation and growth between our nations.

This week, I joined several of my Ways and Means colleagues on a visit to Japan where we met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Foreign Affairs Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and other Japanese officials to discuss the importance of our countries’ ties and mutual economic opportunity. Japan is not only an important economic partner but also a critical ally for security in the region. I was grateful for the chance to join these leaders in looking to the future and am optimistic about what we can accomplish as we continue to work together.

As China and North Korea continue to posture aggressively, it is as important as ever for the United States to strengthen our bonds with and reaffirm our support for those who share our values.

Taiwan is another significant ally in the Indo-Pacific region, and last week, with my support, the House passed United States-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade First Agreement Implementation Act. This bill expresses congressional support for the initial agreement on trade with Taiwan and imposes requirements for congressional consultation of any further negotiations between the United States and Taiwan.&nbsp;

Additionally, I have introduced a resolution calling for a bilateral trade agreement to avoid double taxation between the U.S. and Taiwan. While the United States and Taiwan cannot enter a formal treaty addressing the tax treatment of international investment, similar tax treatment can be achieved through legislation passed by each country.

Advancing the long-term economic stability American businesses and our trusted allies need to invest for the future and combat the influence of bad actors are among my top priorities in Congress. Any time we can increase opportunity to sell our top-notch products to eager consumers in Japan is a win for Third District farmers and ranchers. I will continue to work to expand markets for Nebraska products while advancing American interests abroad.

As the third largest economy in the world, Japan is a vital trade partner of the United States, especially agriculture producers in Nebraska’s Third District. According to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, more than half of Nebraska’s pork exports and more than a quarter of our state’s beef exports were purchased by Japan last year, totaling $156 million and $405 million respectively. Japan is Nebraska’s largest export market for pork and eggs, our second largest market for beef, and our third largest market for corn and overall ag exports.The mutual benefit of a strong trade relationship for Third District producers and Japanese consumers is extraordinary. Sales of Nebraska beef to Japan have increased exponentially over the last two decades, as our producers have worked hard to meet demand for high-quality meat prized by Japanese consumers. Expanding cooperation and market access for Nebraska’s top-notch products continues to hold even greater promise for the future. As Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade and co-chair of the U.S.-Japan Caucus, I am working to build on our historic partnership.While progress on trade with Japan has been significant in the 21st century, Congress can and must do more to address both tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade. An agreement signed by President Trump in 2019 reduced tariffs on an estimated 90 percent of food and agriculture products exported to Japan; however, there are additional opportunities to expand our partnership with Japan. Congressionally-approved trade agreements are the strongest way to support American producers and consumers, and a comprehensive agreement should be the next step to maximize cooperation and growth between our nations.This week, I joined several of my Ways and Means colleagues on a visit to Japan where we met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Foreign Affairs Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and other Japanese officials to discuss the importance of our countries’ ties and mutual economic opportunity. Japan is not only an important economic partner but also a critical ally for security in the region. I was grateful for the chance to join these leaders in looking to the future and am optimistic about what we can accomplish as we continue to work together.As China and North Korea continue to posture aggressively, it is as important as ever for the United States to strengthen our bonds with and reaffirm our support for those who share our values.Taiwan is another significant ally in the Indo-Pacific region, and last week, with my support, the House passed United States-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade First Agreement Implementation Act. This bill expresses congressional support for the initial agreement on trade with Taiwan and imposes requirements for congressional consultation of any further negotiations between the United States and Taiwan.&nbsp;Additionally, I have introduced a resolution calling for a bilateral trade agreement to avoid double taxation between the U.S. and Taiwan. While the United States and Taiwan cannot enter a formal treaty addressing the tax treatment of international investment, similar tax treatment can be achieved through legislation passed by each country.Advancing the long-term economic stability American businesses and our trusted allies need to invest for the future and combat the influence of bad actors are among my top priorities in Congress. Any time we can increase opportunity to sell our top-notch products to eager consumers in Japan is a win for Third District farmers and ranchers. I will continue to work to expand markets for Nebraska products while advancing American interests abroad.

Statement From Adrian Smith Regarding Expanding Markets for Nebraska Products

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Leonard Hatten, 28, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced by Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. to 268 months in federal prison today in federal court in Omaha following Hatten’s conviction by a jury in March of this year for five counts of federal law violations: one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by way of robbery with two co-defendants, two counts of interference with commerce by robbery, and two counts of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to the armed robberies.&nbsp; In addition to 268 months imprisonment, Chief Judge Rossiter sentenced Hatten to a 5-year term of supervised release following his prison sentence and ordered Hatten to make restitution to the businesses he helped to rob, jointly and severally, with his co-defendants.&nbsp; There is no parole in the federal system.&nbsp; Hatten was also ordered to pay a special assessment of $500.00 and restitution of $1,540.00.

At trial, multiple victims testified to being physical assaulted by Hatten, which included shoving one manager of a restaurant under a counter, pointing a gun at a pregnant cashier’s stomach and striking her on the buttocks, and dragging another employee by his hair through a store during a robbery.

The stores robbed were Family Dollar at 2601 North 16th&nbsp;Street on October 10, 2019, and Kwik Shop at 5929 North 72nd&nbsp;Street on October 29, 2019. Both stores are in Omaha. One of the overt acts charged as part of the conspiracy was the robbery of a Tobacco Hut located in Council Bluffs.

Co-defendant Donovan Shaw was previously sentenced to 112 months on April 28, 2023.&nbsp; Co-defendant Spencer Scott is scheduled for sentencing on July 20, 2023, at 9:00 a.m.

FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said, “Hatten’s crime spree in Nebraska and Iowa terrorized innocent victims.&nbsp; His sentence today is the result of the FBI’s unwavering commitment to working closely with our local and state partners to bring violent criminals to justice.”

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Omaha Police Department.

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Leonard Hatten, 28, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced by Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. to 268 months in federal prison today in federal court in Omaha following Hatten’s conviction by a jury in March of this year for five counts of federal law violations: one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by way of robbery with two co-defendants, two counts of interference with commerce by robbery, and two counts of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to the armed robberies.&nbsp; In addition to 268 months imprisonment, Chief Judge Rossiter sentenced Hatten to a 5-year term of supervised release following his prison sentence and ordered Hatten to make restitution to the businesses he helped to rob, jointly and severally, with his co-defendants.&nbsp; There is no parole in the federal system.&nbsp; Hatten was also ordered to pay a special assessment of $500.00 and restitution of $1,540.00.At trial, multiple victims testified to being physical assaulted by Hatten, which included shoving one manager of a restaurant under a counter, pointing a gun at a pregnant cashier’s stomach and striking her on the buttocks, and dragging another employee by his hair through a store during a robbery.The stores robbed were Family Dollar at 2601 North 16th&nbsp;Street on October 10, 2019, and Kwik Shop at 5929 North 72nd&nbsp;Street on October 29, 2019. Both stores are in Omaha. One of the overt acts charged as part of the conspiracy was the robbery of a Tobacco Hut located in Council Bluffs.Co-defendant Donovan Shaw was previously sentenced to 112 months on April 28, 2023.&nbsp; Co-defendant Spencer Scott is scheduled for sentencing on July 20, 2023, at 9:00 a.m.FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said, “Hatten’s crime spree in Nebraska and Iowa terrorized innocent victims.&nbsp; His sentence today is the result of the FBI’s unwavering commitment to working closely with our local and state partners to bring violent criminals to justice.”This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Omaha Police Department.

48-Year-old Omaha Man Sentenced in Armed Robbery Conspiracy   

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a Black student who was raised by a single mother, Makia Green believes she benefited from a program that gave preference to students of color from economically disadvantaged backgrounds when she was admitted over a decade ago to the University of Rochester.

As a borrower who still owes just over $20,000 on her undergraduate student loans, she had been counting on President Joe Biden's promised debt relief to wipe nearly all of that away.

Now, the student loan cancellation plan has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa">dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court</a>, which on Thursday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-race-f83d6318017ec9b9029b12ee2256e744">struck down affirmative action</a>&nbsp;in college admissions. Both policies disproportionately help Black students. To Green and many other people of color, the efforts to roll them back reflect a larger backlash to racial progress in higher education.

“I feel like working people have been through enough — I have been through enough,” said Green, a community organizer. “From a pandemic, an uprising, a recession, the cost of living price going up. I deserved some relief.”

The rulings could also have political consequences among a generation of young voters of color who took Biden at his word when he campaigned on canceling debt.

“Despite today’s upsetting ruling, we demand that the Biden Administration delivers on the promise of student loan debt relief,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in a statement. “Education has long been regarded as a path toward generational wealth, economic liberation, and securing the American dream. Let’s be clear — student debt is killing that dream.”

The president's plan&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-biden-plan-d9c8e18774a744187c9af634bf4eb728">forgave up to $10,000</a>&nbsp;in federal student debt for borrowers, and doubled the debt relief to $20,000 for borrowers who also received Pell Grants. About half of the average debt held by Black and Hispanic borrowers would have been wiped out, according to the White House.

Six Republican-led states filed a legal challenge questioning whether the president, a Democrat, had authority to forgive the debt. On Friday, the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa">Supreme Court held</a>&nbsp;the administration needed Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program.

In the affirmative action cases, the court was considering the use of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-ketanji-brown-jackson-us-supreme-court-college-admissions-affirmative-action-196ab930c799bcdc8b2a4a220641dd48">race-conscious admissions policies</a>&nbsp;that many selective colleges have used for decades to help build diversity on their campuses. The cases were brought by a conservative activist who argues the Constitution forbids the use of race in college admissions.

Together, the cases are crushing to Black Americans, the Rev. Al Sharpton said.

“The reality is race plays a factor in admissions, from pre-K to post-doctorate, and institutions just saw their best tool for fairness outlawed,” Sharpton said.

On student loans, Sharpton said: “Generations of Black youth were sold a bill of goods that higher education was a pathway out of poverty – only to be saddled with crushing debt that never lets them see their dreams fully realized.”

Both cases focused on policies that address historic racial disparities in access to higher education, as&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-covid-health-education-07bf5c4ff1928793f01e907a63cafa36">Black borrowers</a>&nbsp;tend to take on disproportionately more debt to afford college, said Dominique Baker, an education policy professor at Southern Methodist University.

Backlash to racial progress tends to follow periods of social change and advancement, Baker said. In a study published in 2019, Baker found states were more likely to adopt bans on affirmative action when white enrollment at public flagship universities dropped.

“These are policy tools that have an explicit aim around reducing the power of white supremacy,” Baker said. The two court challenges, she said, can be seen “as linked backlash to two attempts towards racial justice.”

Green, who grew up in a low-income household in Harlem, New York, graduated from Rochester with about $40,000 in federal loan debt. Some of that was erased under a public service forgiveness program when she completed two terms with Americorps, and she whittled it down further with monthly installments until the government&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-default-0eb5a2bdb0ed4cfbd9663f822dfd457c">paused repayment</a>&nbsp;due to the pandemic. Payments will&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-payment-pause-end-642276f724b30890669a60ea2c0bbfd5">restart in September</a>.

Green said she sees both court cases as connected to conservative&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-race-ban-schools-4c4df1728f5265eee3684268035570c2">attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs</a>. Critics say opposition to such programs is rooted in questions of fairness and in white grievances over the advancement of nonwhite people.

“This is white supremacy at work,” Green said. “This is a long tactic of conservative, white supremacist-leaning groups to use education and limit Black people’s access to education, as a way to further control and oppress us.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, many colleges developed affirmative action plans to address the fact that many predominantly white schools struggled to attract people from historically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities. Policies were also created to promote greater inclusion of women.

Since the late 1970s, the Supreme Court had three times&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-education-higher-8bd85791095f617f6fa66c1552670f3d">upheld affirmative action</a>&nbsp;in college admissions on grounds that institutions have a compelling interest to address past discrimination that shut nonwhite students out of higher learning. Justices had also agreed with arguments that more diverse student bodies promoted cross-racial understanding.

Some students and advocates worried about how the ruling would affect diversity on campuses.

Tarina Ahuja, a rising senior at Harvard College, said being part of a diverse student body has been a crucial part of her undergraduate experience. She recalled classes where students discussed their lived experiences on topics such as police violence, colonialism and labor movements — discussions that would have fallen flat without a diverse range of student perspectives.

In anticipation of a ruling against race-conscious admissions, some colleges have been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-admissions-1d37af28939a533551cff45fa577ceb0">considering adding more essays</a>&nbsp;to get a better picture of an applicant’s background — an approach seemingly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/college-admissions-affirmative-action-race-0ec3f355ea77828d9a7aa07fa1b2ebde">endorsed by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling</a>. Others have been planning to boost recruiting in racially diverse areas. But in states that have already banned affirmative action, similar efforts at selective colleges have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-diversity-5551cdb2b7206cd9112433e858be4d59">largely failed to maintain diversity gains</a>.

Jonathan Loc, a graduate student at Harvard who helped organize teach-ins in support of affirmative action, said that for students of color, it's impossible to speak about their lives without mentioning race, whether through hardships faced or simply their pride in their cultural heritage.

“I grew up as the son of refugees in a low-income community and a single-parent family burdened with the model minority myth,” he said. “But I think that that kind of narrative also helps me to be an Asian American focused on racial justice, focused on making sure that everyone who has a unique story related to their racial background or any background has that story heard.”

It will be important for colleges to find ways to show they see the students as more than a number on paper, said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“We need the schools to say, 'Look, the court says we can’t consider race, but we still see you,'” said Hewitt, whose organization defended affirmative action before the Supreme Court in October.

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/8/1566222092492.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — As a Black student who was raised by a single mother, Makia Green believes she benefited from a program that gave preference to students of color from economically disadvantaged backgrounds when she was admitted over a decade ago to the University of Rochester.As a borrower who still owes just over $20,000 on her undergraduate student loans, she had been counting on President Joe Biden's promised debt relief to wipe nearly all of that away.Now, the student loan cancellation plan has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa">dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court</a>, which on Thursday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-race-f83d6318017ec9b9029b12ee2256e744">struck down affirmative action</a>&nbsp;in college admissions. Both policies disproportionately help Black students. To Green and many other people of color, the efforts to roll them back reflect a larger backlash to racial progress in higher education.“I feel like working people have been through enough — I have been through enough,” said Green, a community organizer. “From a pandemic, an uprising, a recession, the cost of living price going up. I deserved some relief.”The rulings could also have political consequences among a generation of young voters of color who took Biden at his word when he campaigned on canceling debt.“Despite today’s upsetting ruling, we demand that the Biden Administration delivers on the promise of student loan debt relief,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in a statement. “Education has long been regarded as a path toward generational wealth, economic liberation, and securing the American dream. Let’s be clear — student debt is killing that dream.”The president's plan&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-biden-plan-d9c8e18774a744187c9af634bf4eb728">forgave up to $10,000</a>&nbsp;in federal student debt for borrowers, and doubled the debt relief to $20,000 for borrowers who also received Pell Grants. About half of the average debt held by Black and Hispanic borrowers would have been wiped out, according to the White House.Six Republican-led states filed a legal challenge questioning whether the president, a Democrat, had authority to forgive the debt. On Friday, the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-forgiveness-supreme-court-653c2e9c085863bdbf81f125f87669fa">Supreme Court held</a>&nbsp;the administration needed Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program.In the affirmative action cases, the court was considering the use of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-ketanji-brown-jackson-us-supreme-court-college-admissions-affirmative-action-196ab930c799bcdc8b2a4a220641dd48">race-conscious admissions policies</a>&nbsp;that many selective colleges have used for decades to help build diversity on their campuses. The cases were brought by a conservative activist who argues the Constitution forbids the use of race in college admissions.Together, the cases are crushing to Black Americans, the Rev. Al Sharpton said.“The reality is race plays a factor in admissions, from pre-K to post-doctorate, and institutions just saw their best tool for fairness outlawed,” Sharpton said.On student loans, Sharpton said: “Generations of Black youth were sold a bill of goods that higher education was a pathway out of poverty – only to be saddled with crushing debt that never lets them see their dreams fully realized.”Both cases focused on policies that address historic racial disparities in access to higher education, as&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-covid-health-education-07bf5c4ff1928793f01e907a63cafa36">Black borrowers</a>&nbsp;tend to take on disproportionately more debt to afford college, said Dominique Baker, an education policy professor at Southern Methodist University.Backlash to racial progress tends to follow periods of social change and advancement, Baker said. In a study published in 2019, Baker found states were more likely to adopt bans on affirmative action when white enrollment at public flagship universities dropped.“These are policy tools that have an explicit aim around reducing the power of white supremacy,” Baker said. The two court challenges, she said, can be seen “as linked backlash to two attempts towards racial justice.”Green, who grew up in a low-income household in Harlem, New York, graduated from Rochester with about $40,000 in federal loan debt. Some of that was erased under a public service forgiveness program when she completed two terms with Americorps, and she whittled it down further with monthly installments until the government&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-default-0eb5a2bdb0ed4cfbd9663f822dfd457c">paused repayment</a>&nbsp;due to the pandemic. Payments will&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/student-loan-payment-pause-end-642276f724b30890669a60ea2c0bbfd5">restart in September</a>.Green said she sees both court cases as connected to conservative&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-race-ban-schools-4c4df1728f5265eee3684268035570c2">attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs</a>. Critics say opposition to such programs is rooted in questions of fairness and in white grievances over the advancement of nonwhite people.“This is white supremacy at work,” Green said. “This is a long tactic of conservative, white supremacist-leaning groups to use education and limit Black people’s access to education, as a way to further control and oppress us.”In the 1960s and 1970s, many colleges developed affirmative action plans to address the fact that many predominantly white schools struggled to attract people from historically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities. Policies were also created to promote greater inclusion of women.Since the late 1970s, the Supreme Court had three times&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-education-higher-8bd85791095f617f6fa66c1552670f3d">upheld affirmative action</a>&nbsp;in college admissions on grounds that institutions have a compelling interest to address past discrimination that shut nonwhite students out of higher learning. Justices had also agreed with arguments that more diverse student bodies promoted cross-racial understanding.Some students and advocates worried about how the ruling would affect diversity on campuses.Tarina Ahuja, a rising senior at Harvard College, said being part of a diverse student body has been a crucial part of her undergraduate experience. She recalled classes where students discussed their lived experiences on topics such as police violence, colonialism and labor movements — discussions that would have fallen flat without a diverse range of student perspectives.In anticipation of a ruling against race-conscious admissions, some colleges have been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-admissions-1d37af28939a533551cff45fa577ceb0">considering adding more essays</a>&nbsp;to get a better picture of an applicant’s background — an approach seemingly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/college-admissions-affirmative-action-race-0ec3f355ea77828d9a7aa07fa1b2ebde">endorsed by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling</a>. Others have been planning to boost recruiting in racially diverse areas. But in states that have already banned affirmative action, similar efforts at selective colleges have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-diversity-5551cdb2b7206cd9112433e858be4d59">largely failed to maintain diversity gains</a>.Jonathan Loc, a graduate student at Harvard who helped organize teach-ins in support of affirmative action, said that for students of color, it's impossible to speak about their lives without mentioning race, whether through hardships faced or simply their pride in their cultural heritage.“I grew up as the son of refugees in a low-income community and a single-parent family burdened with the model minority myth,” he said. “But I think that that kind of narrative also helps me to be an Asian American focused on racial justice, focused on making sure that everyone who has a unique story related to their racial background or any background has that story heard.”It will be important for colleges to find ways to show they see the students as more than a number on paper, said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.“We need the schools to say, 'Look, the court says we can’t consider race, but we still see you,'” said Hewitt, whose organization defended affirmative action before the Supreme Court in October.___The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.___

In student loan, affirmative action rulings, advocates fear losses for racial equality

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that John Wade Burton, 67, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln by Senior United States District Court Judge John M. Gerrard to a 14-year term of imprisonment for possession of child pornography. After he completes his prison sentence, Burton will serve a ten-year term of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Burton was also ordered to pay $21,000 in restitution. Burton was convicted following a jury trial which concluded on February 15, 2023.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received a tip from a foreign law enforcement agency that an IP address originating from the United States had accessed a couple of child pornography websites on The Onion Router (TOR) network. The tip traced back to Burton’s residence in Lincoln. The FBI obtained a search warrant for Burton’s home, and the warrant was executed on November 17, 2020. Several electronic devices were seized from the home and later examined by the FBI. Devices found in Burton’s bedroom, basement, and a hard drive located in the garage all contained files depicting child pornography. In total, more than 200 videos, and more than 1,800 images depicting child pornography were discovered. Pictures of the defendant, a copy of his driver’s license, and his resume were also located on a couple of those same devices.

Burton was interviewed by an FBI agent. He said he used a program which is designed to access the TOR network, and which is supposed to avoid leaving evidence on the computer of having accessed the TOR network. The defendant said he used that program to access the TOR network at least 100 times between February 14, 2018, and November 17, 2020.

Burton was previously convicted in Missouri of having sexually assaulted a child who was less than 14 years old. He was sentenced to prison for that offense and was in custody from February 15, 2007, to February 14, 2018. When the search warrant was executed in this case, Burton was on parole for that offense.

At the time his home was searched, Burton lived with his then 89-year-old father. His father passed away on March 5, 2021, after the search warrant was served, and before Burton’s trial. At trial, Burton argued his deceased father was the person who was responsible for having downloaded all the child pornography. At today’s sentencing hearing, Judge Gerrard told Burton, “The jury did not believe you, and neither do I.”

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Nebraska State Patrol and the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Department. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that John Wade Burton, 67, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln by Senior United States District Court Judge John M. Gerrard to a 14-year term of imprisonment for possession of child pornography. After he completes his prison sentence, Burton will serve a ten-year term of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Burton was also ordered to pay $21,000 in restitution. Burton was convicted following a jury trial which concluded on February 15, 2023.The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received a tip from a foreign law enforcement agency that an IP address originating from the United States had accessed a couple of child pornography websites on The Onion Router (TOR) network. The tip traced back to Burton’s residence in Lincoln. The FBI obtained a search warrant for Burton’s home, and the warrant was executed on November 17, 2020. Several electronic devices were seized from the home and later examined by the FBI. Devices found in Burton’s bedroom, basement, and a hard drive located in the garage all contained files depicting child pornography. In total, more than 200 videos, and more than 1,800 images depicting child pornography were discovered. Pictures of the defendant, a copy of his driver’s license, and his resume were also located on a couple of those same devices.Burton was interviewed by an FBI agent. He said he used a program which is designed to access the TOR network, and which is supposed to avoid leaving evidence on the computer of having accessed the TOR network. The defendant said he used that program to access the TOR network at least 100 times between February 14, 2018, and November 17, 2020.Burton was previously convicted in Missouri of having sexually assaulted a child who was less than 14 years old. He was sentenced to prison for that offense and was in custody from February 15, 2007, to February 14, 2018. When the search warrant was executed in this case, Burton was on parole for that offense.At the time his home was searched, Burton lived with his then 89-year-old father. His father passed away on March 5, 2021, after the search warrant was served, and before Burton’s trial. At trial, Burton argued his deceased father was the person who was responsible for having downloaded all the child pornography. At today’s sentencing hearing, Judge Gerrard told Burton, “The jury did not believe you, and neither do I.”The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Nebraska State Patrol and the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Department. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

Lincoln Man Sentenced to 14 Years for Possession of Child Pornography   

By ANNELISE HANSHAW <a href="https://missouriindependent.com/2023/01/30/open-enrollment-missouri-school-choice/">Missouri Independent</a>

At the center of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://missouriindependent.com/2023/06/30/u-s-supreme-court-rules-against-biden-administration-student-loan-debt-relief-plan/">U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness</a>&nbsp;program on Friday was a little-known Missouri nonprofit that goes by MOHELA.

Based in St. Louis, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority is a quasi-governmental entity created by state lawmakers in 1981 to service student loans.

And when former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt went looking for legal standing in order to bring a lawsuit challenging the president’s program, he relied on the relationship between the state and MOHELA — even though the company wanted nothing to do with the lawsuit.

On Friday, the six conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Schmitt that, despite the company’s reluctance, MOHELA gave Missouri standing to sue. The court then struck down the program, with Chief Justice John Roberts accusing the executive branch of a power grab over the legislature.

“Today, we have concluded that an instrumentality created by Missouri, governed by Missouri, and answerable to Missouri is indeed part of Missouri; that the words ‘waive or modify’ do not mean ‘completely rewrite;’ and that our precedent — old and new — requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy,”&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf">Roberts wrote</a>.

The ruling affects more than 777,000 Missourians with federal student loans who would have received $10,000-$20,000 of relief under the proposal.

In addition to Schmitt, five other attorneys general from Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, seeking to bar the Secretary of Education from providing student loan relief.&nbsp;

<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/20230104222942852_22-506tsUnitedStates.pdf">The attorneys general argued&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;the secretary didn’t have authority and the forgiveness program would hurt state tax revenue.

The Supreme Court had to decide whether Missouri’s attorney general could sue on behalf of MOHELA before determining the validity of the loan relief.

The district-court judge dismissed the case, saying MOHELA can represent itself in litigation. But the Supreme Court reversed that decision, finding that MOHELA is an “instrumentality of Missouri.”

“The secretary’s plan will cut MOHELA’s revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students. This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself,” Roberts wrote.

Some predict that debt cancellation would increase MOHELA’s revenue.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/RI_Flawed-Claims-of-Legal-Standing-in-Biden-v-Nebraska_brief_202305.pdf">Projections from the Roosevelt Institute</a>&nbsp;show a steep increase as MOHELA takes over federal loans dropped by other servicers and is paid for each cancellation.

The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan, said MOHELA qualifies as a third party, not an arm of the government. Thus, Missouri had no standing to bring the lawsuit, she argued.&nbsp;

“If MOHELA had brought this suit, we would have had to resolve it, however hot or divisive. But Missouri? In adjudicating Missouri’s claim, the majority reaches out to decide a matter it has no business deciding. It blows through a constitutional guardrail intended to keep courts acting like courts,” Kagan wrote.

Although MOHELA is named 85 times in the court’s opinion, the nonprofit’s employees were opposed to the loan servicer’s inclusion, as recently revealed by the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://protectborrowers.org/internal-mohela-emails-press-release/">Student Borrower Protection Center</a>.

This month, the SBPC&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://protectborrowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SBPC-SLR-10-19-2022-Internal-E-Mails-z_Redacted.pdf">released internal MOHELA emails</a>&nbsp;it obtained through Missouri’s Sunshine Law showing employees discussing the case, with some confused at the organization’s inclusion in the lawsuit.

“The MO state AG needed to claim that our borrowers were harmed for standing, so they’re making us look bad by filing it not only with MO on it, but especially bad because they filed it in MO,” another employee wrote.

In October, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush sent a letter to MOHELA’s executive director Scott Giles and asked for the company’s stance on the attorney general’s lawsuit and accused MOHELA of being involved.&nbsp;

MOHELA had been largely silent up to that point.

“​​In Missouri alone, your efforts to halt cancellation could rob Missouri families — particularly Black and brown families who are disproportionately impacted by the student debt crisis — of more than $12.7 billion in life-changing economic relief,” Bush wrote.

MOHELA responded to Bush’s letter by distancing itself from the litigation. It informed the congresswoman that it was not involved in the decision to file the federal case.

“MOHELA has not had, and does not have, a contractual relationship or agreement with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office on any topic including as to student debt relief. The only communications between MOHELA and that office as it relates to student debt relief, is that the office recently filed a series of sunshine law requests on MOHELA seeking copies of documents relative to MOHELA’s federal loan servicing contract,” the company wrote in a letter to Bush.&nbsp;

<a target="_blank" href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.198213/gov.uscourts.moed.198213.1.0_1.pdf">Attorneys argued</a>&nbsp;that loan cancellations would deprive MOHELA from the interest it would otherwise receive. Bush asked the organization about its capacity to serve as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program servicer.

MOHELA took over the PSLF program July 1, 2022,&nbsp; after the former servicer resigned. These loans are not the Federal Student Aid contested by the attorneys general and are actively being forgiven.

MOHELA said it had “available funds in excess of operating expenses” with its reserves dedicated to student financial aid.

“We are committed to meeting the expectations and requirements as directed and administered by Federal Student Aid,” it said.

Federal student loan relief isn’t new. The secretary of education has paused student loan payments during national emergencies historically through the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, or HEROES Act.

In March 2020, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos chose to use this precedent to stop payments and the accrual of interest during the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As federal employees in the Biden Administration looked toward the resumption of loan payments, they learned that Americans were at a higher risk of delinquency and faced economic pressures,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/20230104222942852_22-506tsUnitedStates.pdf">the secretary of education said in litigation.</a>.

The Department of Education decided that $10,000 in relief, and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, would keep delinquency rates at or below pre-pandemic levels.

The secretary of education was planning to use the HEROES Act to forgive the payments, but Friday’s Supreme Court decision found that would be beyond the scope of the act. The secretary said he is allowed to “modify” the HEROES Act, but Roberts wrote that the widespread student-loan forgiveness was beyond a simple edit.

Schmitt, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/1674791643000754179">wrote on Twitter</a>&nbsp;he was “proud to have brought this case.”

“Working folks who paid off their loans or took another path shouldn’t have to pay for the unpaid loans of the tenured college professor,” he said.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said on Twitter that the ruling showed a commitment to inequality.

“On eliminating student loan relief, the Supreme Court again shows its activist stripes,” he wrote,&nbsp;“working overtime to protect the wealthy, erase opportunity for the poor, and to build permanent inequality, harming the chance for millions to build their lives free of burdensome debt.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/1/1673377040107.png" alt="White House image" />
 <figcaption>White House image</figcaption>
 </figure>By ANNELISE HANSHAW <a href="https://missouriindependent.com/2023/01/30/open-enrollment-missouri-school-choice/">Missouri Independent</a>At the center of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://missouriindependent.com/2023/06/30/u-s-supreme-court-rules-against-biden-administration-student-loan-debt-relief-plan/">U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness</a>&nbsp;program on Friday was a little-known Missouri nonprofit that goes by MOHELA.Based in St. Louis, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority is a quasi-governmental entity created by state lawmakers in 1981 to service student loans.And when former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt went looking for legal standing in order to bring a lawsuit challenging the president’s program, he relied on the relationship between the state and MOHELA — even though the company wanted nothing to do with the lawsuit.On Friday, the six conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Schmitt that, despite the company’s reluctance, MOHELA gave Missouri standing to sue. The court then struck down the program, with Chief Justice John Roberts accusing the executive branch of a power grab over the legislature.“Today, we have concluded that an instrumentality created by Missouri, governed by Missouri, and answerable to Missouri is indeed part of Missouri; that the words ‘waive or modify’ do not mean ‘completely rewrite;’ and that our precedent — old and new — requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy,”&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf">Roberts wrote</a>.The ruling affects more than 777,000 Missourians with federal student loans who would have received $10,000-$20,000 of relief under the proposal.In addition to Schmitt, five other attorneys general from Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, seeking to bar the Secretary of Education from providing student loan relief.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/20230104222942852_22-506tsUnitedStates.pdf">The attorneys general argued&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;the secretary didn’t have authority and the forgiveness program would hurt state tax revenue.The Supreme Court had to decide whether Missouri’s attorney general could sue on behalf of MOHELA before determining the validity of the loan relief.The district-court judge dismissed the case, saying MOHELA can represent itself in litigation. But the Supreme Court reversed that decision, finding that MOHELA is an “instrumentality of Missouri.”“The secretary’s plan will cut MOHELA’s revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students. This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself,” Roberts wrote.Some predict that debt cancellation would increase MOHELA’s revenue.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/RI_Flawed-Claims-of-Legal-Standing-in-Biden-v-Nebraska_brief_202305.pdf">Projections from the Roosevelt Institute</a>&nbsp;show a steep increase as MOHELA takes over federal loans dropped by other servicers and is paid for each cancellation.The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan, said MOHELA qualifies as a third party, not an arm of the government. Thus, Missouri had no standing to bring the lawsuit, she argued.&nbsp;“If MOHELA had brought this suit, we would have had to resolve it, however hot or divisive. But Missouri? In adjudicating Missouri’s claim, the majority reaches out to decide a matter it has no business deciding. It blows through a constitutional guardrail intended to keep courts acting like courts,” Kagan wrote.Although MOHELA is named 85 times in the court’s opinion, the nonprofit’s employees were opposed to the loan servicer’s inclusion, as recently revealed by the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://protectborrowers.org/internal-mohela-emails-press-release/">Student Borrower Protection Center</a>.This month, the SBPC&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://protectborrowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SBPC-SLR-10-19-2022-Internal-E-Mails-z_Redacted.pdf">released internal MOHELA emails</a>&nbsp;it obtained through Missouri’s Sunshine Law showing employees discussing the case, with some confused at the organization’s inclusion in the lawsuit.“Are we the bad guys?” one asked.“The MO state AG needed to claim that our borrowers were harmed for standing, so they’re making us look bad by filing it not only with MO on it, but especially bad because they filed it in MO,” another employee wrote.In October, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush sent a letter to MOHELA’s executive director Scott Giles and asked for the company’s stance on the attorney general’s lawsuit and accused MOHELA of being involved.&nbsp;MOHELA had been largely silent up to that point.“​​In Missouri alone, your efforts to halt cancellation could rob Missouri families — particularly Black and brown families who are disproportionately impacted by the student debt crisis — of more than $12.7 billion in life-changing economic relief,” Bush wrote.MOHELA responded to Bush’s letter by distancing itself from the litigation. It informed the congresswoman that it was not involved in the decision to file the federal case.“MOHELA has not had, and does not have, a contractual relationship or agreement with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office on any topic including as to student debt relief. The only communications between MOHELA and that office as it relates to student debt relief, is that the office recently filed a series of sunshine law requests on MOHELA seeking copies of documents relative to MOHELA’s federal loan servicing contract,” the company wrote in a letter to Bush.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.198213/gov.uscourts.moed.198213.1.0_1.pdf">Attorneys argued</a>&nbsp;that loan cancellations would deprive MOHELA from the interest it would otherwise receive. Bush asked the organization about its capacity to serve as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program servicer.MOHELA took over the PSLF program July 1, 2022,&nbsp; after the former servicer resigned. These loans are not the Federal Student Aid contested by the attorneys general and are actively being forgiven.MOHELA said it had “available funds in excess of operating expenses” with its reserves dedicated to student financial aid.“We are committed to meeting the expectations and requirements as directed and administered by Federal Student Aid,” it said.Federal student loan relief isn’t new. The secretary of education has paused student loan payments during national emergencies historically through the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, or HEROES Act.In March 2020, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos chose to use this precedent to stop payments and the accrual of interest during the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.As federal employees in the Biden Administration looked toward the resumption of loan payments, they learned that Americans were at a higher risk of delinquency and faced economic pressures,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/20230104222942852_22-506tsUnitedStates.pdf">the secretary of education said in litigation.</a>.The Department of Education decided that $10,000 in relief, and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, would keep delinquency rates at or below pre-pandemic levels.The secretary of education was planning to use the HEROES Act to forgive the payments, but Friday’s Supreme Court decision found that would be beyond the scope of the act. The secretary said he is allowed to “modify” the HEROES Act, but Roberts wrote that the widespread student-loan forgiveness was beyond a simple edit.Schmitt, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/1674791643000754179">wrote on Twitter</a>&nbsp;he was “proud to have brought this case.”“Working folks who paid off their loans or took another path shouldn’t have to pay for the unpaid loans of the tenured college professor,” he said.Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said on Twitter that the ruling showed a commitment to inequality.“On eliminating student loan relief, the Supreme Court again shows its activist stripes,” he wrote,&nbsp;“working overtime to protect the wealthy, erase opportunity for the poor, and to build permanent inequality, harming the chance for millions to build their lives free of burdensome debt.”

Company played central role in downfall of Biden loan forgiveness program

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Senior United States District Judge John Gerrard ruled today that Orion J. Ross of Lincoln, Nebraska should be punished for the actions he took that helped bring about the murder of Lincoln Police Department Officer Mario Herrera.&nbsp; Judge Gerrard specifically found that Ross told his accomplice, Felipe Vazquez, where to get a stolen firearm that was stashed in the bedroom where the two were barricaded together.&nbsp; LPD officers issued repeated commands for Vazquez to surrender and exit the bedroom peacefully, but instead, Vazquez cocked the firearm Ross made available to him.&nbsp; Ross then shattered the window of the bedroom in an action intended to distract officers so that Vazquez could escape through the window while firing the weapon.&nbsp; Vazquez shot Officer Herrera during his escape with the stolen handgun that Ross made available to him.&nbsp; Judge Gerrard found these actions were part of ongoing conspiracies between Ross, Vazquez, and other members of the No Name Demons gang to possess firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence and drug trafficking.&nbsp; As a result, Judge Gerrard sentenced Ross to 30 years in federal prison for what the Court called a “senseless and brutal murder.”&nbsp; The Court further described its familiarity with the No Name Demons gang overall as a gang that espoused “extreme violence,” a “code of silence,” and the Court noted that there were many other victims of this gang’s violent acts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Ross is subject to 6 years of supervised release following the 30-year term of imprisonment.

Ross was charged in his indictment with eleven other members of the No Name Demons gang. Many of those defendants were previously sentenced by Judge Gerrard to include:

Isaiah James Dorsey, sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for his role in a gang rape and for firearms conspiracy in furtherance of crimes of violence.

Krysean Reynolds, sentenced to 200 months in federal prison for his role in a gang rape and for firearms conspiracy in furtherance of crimes of violence.

Lorenzo Anderson, sentenced to 102 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Yuko Gusko, sentenced to 90 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Rice Hill, sentenced to 88 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Kyce Davis, sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Kallam Yiel, sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Bryan Castillo, sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.

Three other defendants have yet to be sentenced. Tang Lian is the next defendant set to be sentenced in the case on July 19, 2023, at 10:30 a.m.

Following the sentencing today, FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said, "As a member of a violent gang, Orion Ross terrorized Lincoln neighborhoods; ultimately leading to the death of one of our own.&nbsp; Ross may not have pulled the trigger, but his actions make him just as responsible for the killing of Officer Mario Herrera.&nbsp; While no sentence will bring Officer Herrera back or end his family’s pain, the FBI, and our federal, local, and state partners in the Lincoln Safe Streets Gang Task Force, hope they can take some comfort in the fact this violent gang has been dismantled and its members are behind bars. “

This case was primarily investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Lincoln Police Department with operational assistance from the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office and the Nebraska State Patrol.

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Senior United States District Judge John Gerrard ruled today that Orion J. Ross of Lincoln, Nebraska should be punished for the actions he took that helped bring about the murder of Lincoln Police Department Officer Mario Herrera.&nbsp; Judge Gerrard specifically found that Ross told his accomplice, Felipe Vazquez, where to get a stolen firearm that was stashed in the bedroom where the two were barricaded together.&nbsp; LPD officers issued repeated commands for Vazquez to surrender and exit the bedroom peacefully, but instead, Vazquez cocked the firearm Ross made available to him.&nbsp; Ross then shattered the window of the bedroom in an action intended to distract officers so that Vazquez could escape through the window while firing the weapon.&nbsp; Vazquez shot Officer Herrera during his escape with the stolen handgun that Ross made available to him.&nbsp; Judge Gerrard found these actions were part of ongoing conspiracies between Ross, Vazquez, and other members of the No Name Demons gang to possess firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence and drug trafficking.&nbsp; As a result, Judge Gerrard sentenced Ross to 30 years in federal prison for what the Court called a “senseless and brutal murder.”&nbsp; The Court further described its familiarity with the No Name Demons gang overall as a gang that espoused “extreme violence,” a “code of silence,” and the Court noted that there were many other victims of this gang’s violent acts.&nbsp;&nbsp; Ross is subject to 6 years of supervised release following the 30-year term of imprisonment.Ross was charged in his indictment with eleven other members of the No Name Demons gang. Many of those defendants were previously sentenced by Judge Gerrard to include:Isaiah James Dorsey, sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for his role in a gang rape and for firearms conspiracy in furtherance of crimes of violence.Krysean Reynolds, sentenced to 200 months in federal prison for his role in a gang rape and for firearms conspiracy in furtherance of crimes of violence.Lorenzo Anderson, sentenced to 102 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Yuko Gusko, sentenced to 90 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Rice Hill, sentenced to 88 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Kyce Davis, sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Kallam Yiel, sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Bryan Castillo, sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for firearms conspiracy.Three other defendants have yet to be sentenced. Tang Lian is the next defendant set to be sentenced in the case on July 19, 2023, at 10:30 a.m.Following the sentencing today, FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said, "As a member of a violent gang, Orion Ross terrorized Lincoln neighborhoods; ultimately leading to the death of one of our own.&nbsp; Ross may not have pulled the trigger, but his actions make him just as responsible for the killing of Officer Mario Herrera.&nbsp; While no sentence will bring Officer Herrera back or end his family’s pain, the FBI, and our federal, local, and state partners in the Lincoln Safe Streets Gang Task Force, hope they can take some comfort in the fact this violent gang has been dismantled and its members are behind bars. “This case was primarily investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Lincoln Police Department with operational assistance from the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office and the Nebraska State Patrol.

21 Year Old Lincoln Gang Member Sentenced for His Role in the Murder of Officer Mario Herrera

<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/06/30/abortions-in-nebraska-rose-6-in-2022-as-more-out-of-state-patients-sought-care/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Abortions reported to have occurred in Nebraska last year rose 6% compared to the year before — making 2022 the state’s busiest year for abortions in more than a decade.

Last year also marked when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade. As the high court returned decisions about abortion to individual states, more out-of-state patients also sought care in Nebraska.

A&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://dhhs.ne.gov/Abortion%20Reports/2022%20Statistical%20Report%20of%20Abortions.pdf">new report</a>&nbsp;issued Friday by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services states that 2,507 abortions were reported to DHHS in 2022, compared to 2,360 in 2021.&nbsp;

The data collection dates back to 2000, with reported abortions in the state decreasing almost annually between 2000 and 2016. From 2017 on, the number has been steadily increasing.

The last year that reported abortions surpassed 2,500 in Nebraska was in 2009.

About 21% of the abortions reported in 2022 were for patients who do not live in Nebraska — compared to 12% out-of-state patients whose abortions were reported the year before.

The future of abortion access in Nebraska is expected to change with the passage of Legislative Bill 574 in May. With that bill, abortions are banned after 12 weeks gestational age instead of 22.

The bill included exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies and the life of the mother.

According to Friday’s DHHS report, 89% of the reported abortions were estimated to have occurred before 12 weeks gestational age.&nbsp;

About 33% of the abortions were estimated at or less than six weeks gestational age —&nbsp;state lawmakers attempted to pass a different proposal this year to restrict abortions at about that point but failed by one vote.

Gov. Jim Pillen has&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/06/29/nebraska-gov-jim-pillen-says-he-wont-stop-on-abortion-seeks-total-ban/">vowed to continue pushing</a>&nbsp;to further restrict abortion, including a ban at conception, as long as he is in office. Abortion-rights advocates have pledged to fight those efforts.

The DHHS report also indicates that the average and median age of patients who received abortions is younger. The average age was 26.5, down from 26.8 the year prior; the median and most common age at which abortions occurred is 22, down from 26.

Of patients living outside Nebraska, most came from the neighboring states of Iowa (146), Kansas (121), Missouri (102) and South Dakota (51). There were also dozens of patients from Texas (59) and Oklahoma (30).

Each state has had similar fights to further restrict access to abortion.

Zach Wendling<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/06/30/abortions-in-nebraska-rose-6-in-2022-as-more-out-of-state-patients-sought-care/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Abortions reported to have occurred in Nebraska last year rose 6% compared to the year before — making 2022 the state’s busiest year for abortions in more than a decade.Last year also marked when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade. As the high court returned decisions about abortion to individual states, more out-of-state patients also sought care in Nebraska.A&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://dhhs.ne.gov/Abortion%20Reports/2022%20Statistical%20Report%20of%20Abortions.pdf">new report</a>&nbsp;issued Friday by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services states that 2,507 abortions were reported to DHHS in 2022, compared to 2,360 in 2021.&nbsp;The data collection dates back to 2000, with reported abortions in the state decreasing almost annually between 2000 and 2016. From 2017 on, the number has been steadily increasing.The last year that reported abortions surpassed 2,500 in Nebraska was in 2009.About 21% of the abortions reported in 2022 were for patients who do not live in Nebraska — compared to 12% out-of-state patients whose abortions were reported the year before.The future of abortion access in Nebraska is expected to change with the passage of Legislative Bill 574 in May. With that bill, abortions are banned after 12 weeks gestational age instead of 22.The bill included exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies and the life of the mother.According to Friday’s DHHS report, 89% of the reported abortions were estimated to have occurred before 12 weeks gestational age.&nbsp;About 33% of the abortions were estimated at or less than six weeks gestational age —&nbsp;state lawmakers attempted to pass a different proposal this year to restrict abortions at about that point but failed by one vote.Gov. Jim Pillen has&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/06/29/nebraska-gov-jim-pillen-says-he-wont-stop-on-abortion-seeks-total-ban/">vowed to continue pushing</a>&nbsp;to further restrict abortion, including a ban at conception, as long as he is in office. Abortion-rights advocates have pledged to fight those efforts.<h2>More out-of-state and younger patients</h2>The DHHS report also indicates that the average and median age of patients who received abortions is younger. The average age was 26.5, down from 26.8 the year prior; the median and most common age at which abortions occurred is 22, down from 26.Of patients living outside Nebraska, most came from the neighboring states of Iowa (146), Kansas (121), Missouri (102) and South Dakota (51). There were also dozens of patients from Texas (59) and Oklahoma (30).Each state has had similar fights to further restrict access to abortion.In the cases of Missouri, Kansas and Texas, there were significantly more patients in 2022 than 2021 — 18, 12 and 5 patients, respectively, living in those states. No patients reported living in Oklahoma in 2021.Patients who live in the following states also received abortions in Nebraska: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, North Dakota and Tennessee.More patients attributed the reason for an abortion in 2022 to contraceptive failure or no contraceptive used compared to the previous year.<h2>Future of abortion restrictions in Nebraska</h2>Shortly after Pillen signed LB 574 into law on May 22, with the abortion restrictions taking effect the next day, opponents filed a May 30&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/05/30/nebraska-lawsuit-targets-combo-bill-on-abortion-gender-affirming-care/">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;challenging the bill in court.Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, are arguing that LB 574 violates the Nebraska Constitution’s&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/05/10/could-single-subject-rule-trip-up-merger-of-abortion-and-anti-trans-bills/">single subject rule</a>.&nbsp;They argue that because LB 574 restricts&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/05/10/final-say-on-nebraska-gender-care-legislation-would-be-delegated-to-executive-appointee-and-dhhs/">gender-affirming care for minors</a>, in addition to abortion, it contains two subjects and is unconstitutional.Supporters of the bill argue the law deals with medical procedures or the health and well-being of babies and children.The lawsuit will be considered at a&nbsp;<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/legal-arguments-in-challenge-to-new-abortion-ban-put-off-until-july-19/">July 19 hearing</a>&nbsp;between attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the state of Nebraska.