Emergency Loans Are Costing US Schools Millions — and Lining Wall Street Pockets

In school districts from Pennsylvania to Illinois, Kentucky to West Virginia, state and local budget delays are putting the pinch on classrooms and costing districts tens of millions of dollars in additional borrowing fees — money going straight to Wall Street. In effect, political failures like budget delays, faulty tax software programs, or just political impasses are forcing some of the…
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Senate GOP Blocks TSA Pay as Trump Threatens to Send ICE to Airports

As Senate Republicans on Saturday voted against advancing a Democratic bill to pay Transportation Security Administration workers during talks over Department of Homeland Security funding, GOP President Donald Trump tried to pin the blame for the partial DHS shutdown on Democrats and threatened to flood U.S. airports with immigration agents. The conduct of immigration agents under DHS — which…
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House Passes Bill to End Partial Government Shutdown, Sends Measure to Trump

Washington — The U.S. House cleared a government funding package Tuesday, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump, who is expected to quickly sign it and end the partial shutdown that began this past weekend. The 217-214 vote followed a tumultuous couple of weeks on Capitol Hill after the package stalled in the Senate. Democrats demanded additional restraints on immigration…
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Democrats Cave on Demands for DHS Reforms, Agree to Short-Term Spending Bill

Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House on Thursday evening to avert a government shutdown that was set to occur this weekend over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Earlier in the day, Democrats blocked a spending bill using a filibuster in order to force the Trump administration into negotiations over its violent deportation campaign in cities across the U.S.
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Calls to West Virginia 211 Helpline Skyrocketed by 1,680 Percent Amid SNAP Delay

Over the last two weeks, employees with the state’s 24/7 call center spent days, evenings and weekends answering phone call after call from West Virginians in need of groceries while food stamps were delayed. “It’s a little daunting when you come in every morning and there’s 60 voicemails and every one of them needs something,” said Margaret O’Neal, president and CPO of the United Way of…
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Could the Destruction of the ACA Force Democrats to Champion Medicare for All?

After the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Senate Democrats faltered and ended their standoff with their Republican colleagues. Democrats had initially dug in for the funding fight, they said, to protect subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These government tax credits, set to expire at the end of the year, keep health insurance affordable for the millions of Americans who are…
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