Today, President Obama will push Congress to extend the low interest rate on federal student loans, which will double to 6.8 percent on July 1 if Congress does not act. Obama will call on Congress to pass the legislation in his weekly address tomorrow and hammer the issue during speeches at colleges next week. Nearly 8 million students take out federal student loans each year.
Fox News may be implicated in the ongoing NewsCorp phone hacking scandal for the first time. There are now four cases of alleged hacking under review in the U.S., and the lead lawyer pursuing Rupert Murdoch’s company in the U.K. says he’s been approached by at least 10 people in the states bearing complaints relating to “dark arts” practiced by NewsCorp.
Two years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and ensuing oil spill, the Department of Justice is instructing the claims facility set up after the BP spill to pay an additional $64 million to victims after an independent audit found that an estimated 7,300 claimants were inadequately compensated.
The GOP-majority on the House Agriculture Committee voted to cut $33 billion over 10 years from funding for food stamps for the nation’s poorest families. Despite the fact that food stamp cuts mean less money for farmers, Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) cheered the vote as “a great day for North Dakota agriculture.”
The new judge overseeing the George Zimmerman case will consider today whether to free the accused second-degree murderer on bond, as his defense is requesting.
Shock rocker and Mitt Romney-backer Ted Nugent said he had a “good, professional” meeting with Secret Service agents that ended without charges or an arrest. The agents met with Nugent Thursday in Oklahoma following his outrageous comments at a National Rifle Association convention.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling on NATO to hasten its withdrawal from the country after controversial photos emerged depicting US troops posing with the dismembered body parts of dead insurgents.
Maryland is going to be the first state to approve a password protection law. The law would protect employees from having to hand over their social media passwords to their managers at a job they apply to or hold.
And finally: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is now denying that he fell asleep at a Bruce Springsteen concert this month, where he was photographed with his head back and eyes closed. But Christie said yesterday that he was trying to listen more closely to have a “spiritual” experience.
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