SYNDICATION

(Headline USA) The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in the legal fight over President Joe Biden's controversial student-loan amnesty plan, which is projected to cost upward of $800 billion if it were to take effect. Twenty-six million people have applied and 16 million have been approved to have up to...

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) The majority of the 75 most populous U.S. cities can’t pay their bills and have a combined debt of $266.5 billion, according to new Financial State of the Cities report by Truth in Accounting. The Chicago-based nonprofit’s seventh annual report evaluated fiscal 2021 data and found...

(Bruce Abramson, RealClear Wire) ESG, an acronym for Environmental, Social and Governance, is everywhere. If you work for, advise, invest in, regulate, study, or otherwise care about one or more corporations, you’ve likely encountered the term. Consultancies, banks, investment funds, managers, governments, and international organizations trip over themselves touting their...

(Glenn Minnis, The Center Square) Household debt across the country is sharply on the rise, with U.S. households now collectively on the hook for about $17 trillion in total. The average family holds about $142,680 in debt, according to a new WalletHub report. All told, the personal finance website concludes that...

(Casey Harper, The Center Square) Republicans erupted in outrage after the Biden administration admitted over the weekend that the Wuhan lab was the most likely source of COVID-19, the same lab taxpayers have funded for years. The Wall Street Journal first reported that a classified briefing from the U.S. Energy Department...

(Headline USA) U.S. government bans on Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson claimed Tuesday. The U.S. government “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies," Mao...

(Headline USA) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for reelection Tuesday after a tumultuous, scandal-wrought four years in office and a bruising campaign threaten to make her the city's first one-term mayor in decades. Lightfoot in 2019 became the first black woman and first openly gay mayor of the third-largest U.S....

(Adam Andrzejewski, RealClear Wire) The State Department will spend $750,000 on projects that promote free expression for marginalized groups in the U.S. and other countries. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor will fund “projects that have the goal to promote and protect Freedom of Expression for vulnerable...

(Kerry McDonald, FEE) When star football player Turan Rush returned home to Charleston, West Virginia, after graduating from Eastern Michigan University in 2021, he knew he wanted to make a positive impact on the young people in his community. Growing up on Charleston’s West Side, where he attended the city’s...

(Zeta Cross, The Center Square) By the end of February, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce a decision that will determined how farmers can raise pigs. Proposition 12 is a California ballot initiative that prohibits individual gestation pens for sows and practices that are used in the raising of...

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) Groups are backing a plan to study if medical cannabis could help veterans. A new bipartisan bill would create a comprehensive research plan for the Department of Veterans Affairs to study the effectiveness of medicinal cannabis for the treatment of chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. U.S....

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Military leaders will testify on Tuesday before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee about the impact of the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on DOD employees and military service members. DOD Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert R....