USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden can make an increasingly strong case that he’s helped fix inflation — if only he can get voters to believe him.

Figures issued this past week reflected a historic level of progress on battling high prices, hinting that inflation could be near the Federal Reserve’s 2% target around the time of November’s election. The consumer price index posted an an annual increase of 3.4%, but the prices charged by the producers of goods and services rose a meager 1% over the past year.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump was ordered Friday to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times and three investigative reporters after he sued them unsuccessfully over a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices.

The newspaper and reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner were dismissed from the lawsuit in May. Trump’s claim against his estranged niece, Mary Trump, that she breached a prior settlement agreement by giving tax records to the reporters is still pending.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — MyPillow chief executive and prominent election denier Mike Lindell said Friday that Fox News has stopped running his company’s commercials, disputing the network’s assertion that it is simply because he hasn’t paid his bills.

Lindell went public by tweeting that Fox, which had been one of MyPillow’s biggest advertising outlets, had canceled him. He said in his tweet that he didn’t know why but that he suspected that the network was trying to silence him. Fox denied that.

NEW YORK (AP) — When New York City officials erected a sprawling tent complex on a remote former airport in Brooklyn to house asylum-seeking migrants this fall, many of the recent arrivals and their advocates questioned the wisdom of placing thousands of people in a flood zone, miles from schools and other services, just as winter set in.

Those worries became reality this week when forecasts of a storm packing drenching rains and punishing winds forced a hasty evacuation Tuesday of the complex built on Floyd Bennett Field’s Runway 19.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden’s son pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal tax charges filed after the collapse of a plea deal that could have spared him the spectacle of a criminal trial during the 2024 campaign.

Hunter Biden has been accused of nine felony and misdemeanor tax offenses. The charges stem from what federal prosecutors say was a four-year scheme to skip out on paying the $1.4 million he owed to the IRS and instead use the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle that by his own admission included drugs and alcohol.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump wrested an opportunity to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil fraud trial Thursday, unleashing a barrage of attacks in a six-minute diatribe before being cut off by the judge.

In an extraordinary move for any defendant, Trump not only sought to make his own summation but then brushed past a question from the judge about whether he would follow rules requiring him to keep his remarks focused on matters related to the trial.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington’s relationship with Beijing will face its biggest test since the leaders of the two countries met in November, as the United States seeks to keep the Taiwan Straits calm after Taiwanese v oters select a new president this weekend.

At stake is the peace and stability of the 110-mile-wide (177-kilometer-wide) strip of water between the Chinese mainland and the self-governed island. Any armed conflict could put Washington head-to-head against Beijing and disrupt the global economy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and British militaries bombed more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on Thursday, in a massive retaliatory strike using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. Air Force’s Mideast command said it struck over 60 targets at 16 sites in Yemen, including “command-and-control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS says it has collected an additional $360 million in overdue taxes from delinquent millionaires as the agency’s leadership tries to promote the latest work it has done to modernize the agency with Inflation Reduction Act funding that Republicans are threatening to chip away.

Leadership from the federal tax collector held a call with reporters Thursday to give updates on how the agency has used a portion of the tens of billions of dollars allocated to the agency through Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will start canceling student loans for some borrowers in February as part of a new repayment plan that’s taking effect nearly six months ahead of schedule.

Loan forgiveness was originally set to begin in July under the new SAVE repayment plan, but it’s being accelerated to provide faster relief to borrowers, President Joe Biden said Friday. It’s part of an effort “to act as quickly as possible to give more borrowers breathing room” and move on from their student debt, the Democratic president said in a statement.