PORTLAND — Maine’s community college and private trade school students are more likely to default on federal student loans than students at four-year universities. The Portland Press Herald reports that federal Department of Education data says Maine’s 2011 default rate was 12.8 percent. That is slightly less than the national 13.7 percent rate, which is […]
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Will U.S. budget deal save holiday season for retailers? Maybe not.
NEW YORK (AP) — Will Washington be the Grinch who stole Christmas? After weeks of bickering between Congress and the White House, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law a plan that ended a partial 16-day government shutdown and suspended the nation’s debt limit until early next year. But the measure, which comes just […]
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Government reopens after 16-day shutdown; Obama accuses Republicans of damaging U.S. economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — In withering day-after criticism, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that the 16-day partial government shutdown was a Republican-provoked spectacle that “encouraged our enemies” around the world. Elsewhere in Washington, and around the country, federal employees simply streamed back to their jobs. National parks reopened. The popular panda cam at the National Zoo […]
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Talks to end shutdown stall as McConnell urges Collins-brokered option
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans and Democrats hit an impasse Sunday over spending in their last-ditch struggle to avoid an economy-jarring default in just four days and end a partial government shutdown that’s entering its third week. After inconclusive talks between President Barack Obama and House Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority […]
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Budget default looming
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats in Congress lumbered through a day of political maneuvering Saturday while a threatened default by the Treasury crept uncomfortably closer and a partial government shutdown neared the end of its second week. “We haven’t done anything yet” by way of compromise, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after Senate leaders […]
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G-20 finance officials express urgent need for U.S. to resolve its budget stalemate
WASHINGTON (AP) — World finance officials said Friday the United States needs to take urgent action to address its budget problems that are creating economic uncertainties for the global economy. Finance ministers and central bank leaders for the Group of 20 major economies wrapped up two days of discussions in Washington with a joint statement […]
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Still shut down: Obama, GOP try to negotiate way out of impasse without appearing to negotiate
WASHINGTON (AP) — With time running short, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner accelerated efforts Friday to prevent the U.S. Treasury from default and end a partial government shutdown that stretched into an 11th day. The latest impacts: New aircraft grounded, military chaplains silenced and a crab harvest jeopardized in the Bering Sea. […]
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First shutdown in 17 years: Senate and House rejected each other’s plans as deadline neared
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal government staggered into a partial shutdown Monday at midnight after congressional Republicans stubbornly demanded changes in the nation’s health care law as the price for essential federal funding and President Barack Obama and Democrats adamantly refused. As Congress gridlocked, Obama said a […]
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Strategy by Sens. Cruz, Lee to starve ‘Obamacare’ of money infuriates some fellow Republicans
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ted Cruz and Mike Lee stand as the Senate’s dynamic duo for conservatives, crusading against President Barack Obama’s health care law while infuriating many congressional Republicans with a tactic they consider futile, self-serving and detrimental to the party’s political hopes in 2014. Cruz, the Texan who’s been anything but a wait-your-turn freshman, […]
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Republicans at odds as ‘Obamacare’ showdown nears
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans struggled to tamp down a family feud Thursday as they approached a politically charged showdown with the White House that combines the threat of a government shutdown, a possible first-ever federal default and the GOP’s bid to repeal the nation’s three-year-old health care law. One day after conceding that the […]