Day 1157: "Enough is enough."
1/ The Biden administration will cancel nearly $6 billion in federal student loans for 78,000 Americans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The latest student debt cancellation allows eligible borrowers to have their remaining debt forgiven if they have made a certain number of payments and are working for approved employers, like teachers, nurses, and firefighters. An additional 380,000 borrowers in the public sector are one to two years away from qualifying for the same debt forgiveness. In total, Biden has canceled $144 billion of federal student loan debt for nearly 4 million borrowers. (USA Today / NBC News / NPR / CNN / CBS News / Associated Press / CNBC / Axios)
2/ Congressional leaders released details of their $1.2 trillion deal to fund the government and avert a partial government shutdown. The package would fund about three-quarters of the federal government for the next six months, including defense, homeland security, financial services, and health agencies. The House will vote on the package on Friday, meaning lawmakers will need to waive a rule giving members 72 hours to consider legislation before voting on it. Meanwhile, Rand Paul and other Senate conservatives have threatened to slow swift passage of the bill down by introducing amendments. Government funding expires at midnight Friday. (Axios / Associated Press / Politico / NPR / Washington Post / New York Times)
3/ New York Attorney General Letitia James took her first step toward seizing Trump’s golf club and private estate in Westchester County, formally entering the judgments with the clerk’s office. James said she’s prepared to start seizing assets if Trump misses the March 25 deadline to post a $454 million bond for the civil fraud judgment she won against him. Trump’s lawyers claim it’s “a practical impossibility” to get the more than $350 million, plus roughly $100 million in interest, together by the deadline. Trump asked the appeals court to pause the judgment, saying 30 bonding companies have turned him down and he’ll be forced to sell properties in a “fire sale” to raise money if the court doesn’t waive the bond or allow him to post a smaller one for $100 million. (Bloomberg / CNN / The Hill / USA Today / Washington Post / Axios / CNBC)
4/ Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said no further delay in Trump’s hush money trial is warranted and that fewer than 300 of the some 200,000 documents turned over to Trump’s lawyers are relevant to the criminal case. Last week, Judge Juan Merchan delayed the March 25 start of Trump’s hush money case by at least 20 days to give Trump’s lawyers time to review the records. Trump had asked Merchan to dismiss the indictment and delay the trial for 90 days, claiming prosecutors withheld information from them about the federal prosecution of Michael Cohen. Bragg, however, told Merchan there was nothing in the material that should push the start of the trial past mid-April, saying “Enough is enough. These tactics by defendant and defense counsel should be stopped.” Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election. (NBC News / CNN / Washington Post / New York Times)
5/ The U.S. submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations calling for “an immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza tied to the release of Israeli hostages. The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on the resolution Friday morning. The draft resolution being circulated says that the Security Council “determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering, and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, said the “gaps are narrowing” between Israel and Hamas to get a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, but conceded that “there’s still real challenges.” (NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / New York Times / The Guardian / Axios)