As a student borrower, I’ve experienced a flood of emotions since hearing President Joe Biden’s announcement about federal student loan relief. This is an enormously welcome surprise. I’m among the 60% of all federal student loan borrowers who were Pell Grant recipients and will receive a $20,000 reprieve. But that joy is tempered by the reminder that I’ll still be saddled with $60,000 left to pay.

Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, the power of ritual has been front and center. It’s been moving to witness, and even some people who are skeptical of the monarchy — including Americans — have reacted strongly. Why?

Many of us have been hit by an overdraft fee on our checking account before, and while it was nice to have the protection, the $33 charge — the average overdraft fee these days — definitely stung.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ latest stunt to embarrass President Joe Biden — in advance hopes of replacing him in the Oval Office — was to dump immigrants stopped at the Southern border in a fancy community in New England that was not expecting or prepared to house them.

A long time ago, a respected social critic expressed concern that a new medium would lead to lying.

Peter Thiel, a GOP megadonor and technology billionaire, is a controversial figure within conservative circles. The early investor in Facebook and PayPal co-founder also was an instrumental donor to Trump-backed Senate candidates in Arizona and Ohio.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering in Vladivostok last week that his country had “not lost anything and will not lose anything.” He may be less certain of decisive victory today.

In the year since the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, tens of thousands of Afghans have been forced to suffer through another administrative disaster, this one unfolding mostly in drab D.C. office buildings via mountains of monotonous paperwork.

A multi-state settlement with electronic cigarette maker Juul might not contain an outright admission by the company that it deliberately targeted kids with advertising and candy-flavored vaping liquids as a way to get them hooked on nicotine. But the terms of the settlement make pretty clear exactly what Juul did and what kinds of damage it caused to millions of lives.

In August, a New York Times report revealed that Marble Freedom Trust, one of far-right political powerbroker Leonard Leo’s nonprofits, received a jaw-dropping $1.6 billion contribution from secretive industrialist and conservative mega-donor Barre Seid. It was the largest single contribution ever given to a nonprofit focused on politics. While Seid and Leo remain relatively unknown to the broader public, we should all be concerned with the influence they wield over our judiciary and the impact of this unprecedented windfall on our democracy.

The death of the queen (there’s only one queen) might have come as “a shock,” as new British Prime Minister Liz Truss said outside No. 10 Downing St., but it was certainly not a surprise. When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1952, the cry was “Long live the Queen.” That she did, with dignity and decency, all the way to 96. Having been the United Kingdom’s monarch for 70 years, Elizabeth was the constant ever since Winston Churchill was PM and Harry Truman president.

Newly revealed video shows that consultants hired by former President Donald Trump’s lawyer to help overturn the 2020 election were given access several times to a voting office in Georgia by a Republican official now under investigation for her role in attempting to forward a slate of fake electors on Trump’s behalf. One of those visits came on the same day a voting machine was breached there.

President Joe Biden has fulfilled another one of his campaign pledges by ordering the U.S. Department of Education to cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000.

Grocery shoppers may not realize that what they put in their carts can have far-reaching consequences. Case in point: Northern and southern pigtailed macaques are considered globally threatened with decreasing populations, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature just recently reclassified southern pigtailed macaques as “endangered.” What can that possibly have to do with groceries?

Although her actual power was minimal and her seven-decade reign symbolic, Queen Elizabeth II was a marker of a bygone historical era.