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The Supreme Court on Friday blocked the Biden administration’s student loan handout.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Biden administration cannot go forward with its student loan debt handout program.

In a 6-3 decision, the court held that federal law does not allow the Secretary of Education to cancel more than $430 billion in student loan debt. 

"The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. "Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree."

President Biden strongly disagreed with the court's decision and will make an announcement later today detailing new actions to protect student loan borrowers, a White House source told Fox News Digital. 

BIDEN STUDENT LOAN ‘REDISTRIBUTION’ COULD BENEFIT FELONS, GOP OFFICIALS CLAIM IN LETTER DEMANDING DETAILS

President Biden’s DOE is planning “workarounds” if the Supreme Court rules against student loan forgiveness. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci / AP Newsroom)

The White House source said Biden intends to blame Republicans for denying student borrowers the relief he promised to deliver to them.   

Biden's student loan initiative, which had been on hold pending litigation, involved the federal government providing up to $10,000 in debt relief – and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients – for people who make less than $125,000 a year. The program was expected to cost the government more than $400 billion.

Biden made the unprecedented push for debt cancelation in August 2022, and his administration accepted some 16 million applications before Republicans objected, and the program was put on hold.

SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF COLORADO GRAPHIC DESIGNER WHO REFUSED TO CREATE SAME-SEX WEDDING WEBSITES

A visitor with a sign regarding student loan payments outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Republicans argued Biden lacked the authority to unilaterally forgive student loans. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office said Biden's plan would cost taxpayers roughly $400 billion. Republicans were outraged at the total, arguing the forgiveness would be unfair to those who either paid their way through college, repaid their loans or never attended college in the first place.

The justices heard two separate challenges to the law. In one case, Department of Education v. Brown, the court said a pair of private borrowers who sought to challenge the loan forgiveness plan lacked standing to sue. 

The second and more relevant case is Biden v. Nebraska, where six states sued challenging the loan forgiveness scheme. The court found that Missouri at least had standing to sue because the program would open a nonprofit government corporation set up by the state, called MOHELA, to face an estimated $44 million in annual fees. READ THE SUPREME COURT’S DECISION BELOW. APP USERS: CLICK HERE

Biden's administration had relied on a federal statute, called the HEROES Act, to enact the plan, claiming the law gave the secretary of education power to "waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs … as the secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military national emergency." 

The court majority shot down that argument. "The authority to ‘modify’ statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to existing regulations," Roberts wrote, "not transform them." 

Roberts went on to say the Department of Education's "modifications" to the law "created a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program" than what Congress intended in the HEROES Act. This program effectively granted loan forgiveness "to nearly every borrower in the country," Roberts said. 

BIDEN VETOES CANCELING HIS $400 BILLION STUDENT LOAN HANDOUT, VOWS HE'S ‘NOT GOING TO BACK DOWN'

President Biden faced opposition to his student loan forgiveness program. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

"The Secretary's comprehensive debt cancelation plan cannot fairly be called a waiver — it not only nullifies existing provisions, but augments and expands them dramatically," the chief justice wrote. "It cannot be mere modification, because it constitutes ‘effectively the introduction of a whole new regime' … And it cannot be some combination of the two, because when the Secretary seeks to add to existing law, the fact that he has ‘waived’ certain provisions does not give him a free pass to avoid the limits inherent in the power to ‘modify.'"

"However broad the meaning of ‘waive or modify,’ that language cannot authorize the kind of exhaustive rewriting of the statute that has taken place here." 

The court's three liberal justices dissented. "The majority overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans. I respectfully dissent from that decision," Justice Elena Kagan wrote. 

Biden's Education Department had already been exploring potential workarounds to offer handouts via other means in anticipation of a ruling against the administration.

Republicans unveiled their own plan to address student loans and high college costs in June, introducing a series of five bills. The plan from Senate Republicans supports programs aimed at making sure students understand the real cost of college and also shuts off loans for programs that do not result in salaries that are high enough to justify those loans.

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"This would prevent some of the worst examples of students being exploited for profit. It would force schools to bring down cost and to compete for students. What an idea," Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said of the bill. "It would also protect students from getting buried in debt they can never, ever pay."

Fox News' Mark Meredith contributed to this report.

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Donald Trump’s tariffs: What’s going on and what does it all mean?

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Donald Trump's tariffs: What's going on and what does it all mean?

Donald Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, kicking off a trade war that will affect the globe.

Here we look at the tariffs and what they all mean for the world:

What did Trump announce?

The US president said on Sunday that goods from Mexico and Canada will face 25% tariffs, while 10% taxes will be implemented on imports from China.

Canadian energy, including oil, natural gas and electricity, will be taxed at a 10% rate.

Trade war latest: Follow live updates

The levies were expected to all take effect on Tuesday, with Mexico and Canada both announcing counter-tariffs of their own in response.

However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a news conference on Monday that implementation of the tariffs would be paused for a month, after she and Mr Trump had a conversation and came to an agreement.

But Mr Trump has also threatened to go further, saying tariffs on the European Union would be implemented “pretty soon”.

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Trump’s proposed tariffs

When questioned about the UK, the president said Britain was “out of line” when it came to trade but he thought the situation could be “worked out” without the use of tariffs.

What are tariffs, and how do they work?

Put simply, tariffs are taxes on goods that are brought in from other countries.

By raising the price of imports, tariffs aim to protect domestic manufacturers by making locally made goods cheaper.

Contrary to what Mr Trump has said, it is not foreign countries that pay tariffs, but the importing companies that buy the goods.

For example, American businesses like Walmart or Target pay tariffs directly to the US treasury.

In the US, these tariffs are collected by customs and border protection agents, who are stationed at 328 ports of entry across the country.

Tariffs graphic
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Mr Trump’s proposed tariffs

To compensate for tariffs, companies then put up their prices, so customers end up paying more for goods.

Tariffs can also damage foreign countries as it makes their products pricier and harder to sell.

This can lead to them cutting prices (and sacrificing profits) to offset levies and maintain their market share in the US.

Why is Trump doing this?

Mr Trump has argued that imposing higher levies will help reduce illegal migration and the smuggling of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the US.

On Mexico, the US leader claimed drug traffickers and the country’s government “have an intolerable alliance” that in turn impacts national security.

He further claimed that Mexican drug cartels are operating in Canada.

Tariffs graphic

On China, he said the country’s government provides a “safe haven” for criminal organisations.

He has also pledged to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing.

“We may have short term some little pain, and people understand that. But long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he said.

His aim appears to be to force governments in those countries to work much harder to prevent what he calls illegal migration and the smuggling of the deadly drug fentanyl – as appears to have been agreed by Mexico. But, even if the countries do not do what America wants, it will still potentially benefit firms that produce goods in the US.

What could the consequences be?

Mexico and Canada are two of America’s largest trading partners, with the tariffs upending decades-old trade relationships.

Goods that could be affected most by the incoming tariffs include fruit and veg, petrol and oil, cars and vehicle parts and electronic goods.

New analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale University found that the average US household would lose the equivalent of $1,170 US dollars (£944) in income from the tariffs.

Read more: This is how US consumers will be affected

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Why Trump’s tariffs could cost you

The research also found that economic growth would slow and inflation would worsen, as the tariffs forced up prices.

Immediate consequences were felt on Monday morning, as shares on Asian markets took a tumble.

Japan’s Nikkei opened down 2.9% while Australia’s benchmark – often a proxy trade for Chinese markets – fell 1.8%. Stocks in Hong Kong, which include listings of Chinese companies, fell 1.1%.

UK stocks were also significantly down, with the benchmark FTSE 100 index – containing the most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange – dropped more than 1.3% on the open.

In Europe, stock markets opened sharply lower while the euro slid 1.3%. The Europe-wide index of companies, the Stoxx 600 dropped as much as 1.5%.

While Mexico’s peso hit its lowest in nearly three years.

‘Very scary path’

Sky News’ data and economics editor Ed Conway said the long term consequences of a trade war is that “everyone gets poorer”, which is what happened to the world before World War Two.

“As countries get poorer, they get frustrated and you get more nationalism,” Conway said, speaking on Friday’s Sky News Daily podcast.

“This is exactly what happened in the 1930s, and the world ended up at war with each other. It is a very, very scary path, and yes, we are basically on a potential of that path.”

However, Conway added that one positive of Mr Trump’s tariffs could be highlighting “massive imbalances” within the global economy.

He said Mr Trump may be able to shift the conversation to problems that “economists don’t want to talk about”.

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“At the moment, we have a dysfunctional global economy,” he explained.

“You have got massive imbalances like trade deficits [when a country’s imports exceeds the value of its exports] and trade surpluses [when a country’s exports exceeds the cost of its imports].

“There might well be a better way of everyone getting together and having a conversation and working out how to align their affairs, so we don’t have these imbalances in the future.

“And tariffs help to get you to this point.”

How has the world reacted?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacted strongly against Mr Trump’s tariffs, saying his country would impose 25% tariffs on $155bn Canadian dollars (£85.9bn) of US goods in response.

He added that the move would split the two countries apart, and urged Canadians to choose domestic products rather than American ones.

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Tariffs against Canada ‘will put US jobs at risk’

Mexican President Ms Sheinbaum posted on X on Sunday to say she had ordered her economy minister to implement tariff and non-tariff measures to defend Mexico’s interests.

She said her government “categorically rejects” the claim that it has “alliances with criminal organisations” and called on the White House to “fight the sale of drugs on the streets of their major cities”.

A day later, she posted saying she and Mr Trump had a “good conversation” and “reached a series of agreements”.

These agreements include Mexico sending 10,000 troops to the border to “prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl”.

Mr Trump responded to the agreement with Ms Sheinbaum, saying negotiations between the two will be ongoing to try and achieve a “deal”.

Meanwhile, China has claimed the US action violates World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and vowed to bring a case before the body that governs global commerce.

It also threatened to take “necessary counter-measures to defend its legitimate rights and interests”.

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Mexico responds to Trump’s tariffs

A spokesperson for the UK government reiterated that the US is an “indispensable ally” and one of the country’s “closest trading partners”.

They added that the trading relationship was “fair and balanced”, after Mr Trump criticised the UK, saying it was “out of line”.

European Union (EU) leaders have also taken a strong stance against looming US tariffs.

Kaja Kallas, the chief of foreign policy for the bloc, said there were no winners in a trade war, and if the US and Europe started one “then the one laughing on the side is China”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz added that the EU is strong enough to “respond to tariffs with our own tariffs”, while French President Emmanuel Macron said declarations by the US were pushing Europe to be “stronger and more united”.

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EU can react with its own tariffs

What’s the history of trade wars?

Imposing tariffs is not new to Mr Trump, or the US for that matter.

During his first term in the White House, he imposed higher levies on China and Vietnam.

In 2018, he imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminium from most countries, a response to what he said was the unfair impact of Chinese steel driving down prices and negatively affecting the US steel industry.

China then hit back with retaliatory tariffs on US imports, including 15% on 120 American products such as fruits, nuts, wine and steel pipes and a 25% tariff on US pork and recycled aluminium.

Before that, democrat Jimmy Carter went so far as to completely ban the sale of wheat to Russia, which remained in effect until Ronald Reagan ended it in 1981.

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In 2019, Mr Trump also used the threat of tariffs as leverage to persuade Mexico to crack down on migrants crossing Mexican territory on their way to the US.

A study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Mr Trump’s tariffs the first time around failed to restore jobs to the American heartland.

The tariffs “neither raised nor lowered US employment” when they were supposed to protect jobs, according to Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

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Swedish anti-Islam campaigner sentenced over Koran burnings days after co-defendant shot dead

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Swedish anti-Islam campaigner sentenced over Koran burnings days after co-defendant shot dead

A man who staged public burnings of the Koran in Sweden has been found guilty of hate crimes, five days after his co-defendant was shot dead.

Salwan Najem, a 50-year-old Swedish citizen, was given a suspended sentence and fined 4,000 crowns (£289) over the Koran burnings and derogatory comments he made about Muslims in the 2023 incidents.

His actions sparked unrest and anger towards Sweden in Muslim countries.

His fellow campaigner, Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, 38, was shot dead last week on the day he had been due to receive his verdict in a parallel case.

Five people were detained over the killing but later released.

Swedish police said on the day after the shooting on 29 January that Momika was shot dead in a house in Sodertalje, a town near Stockholm. The case against Momika was subsequently dismissed.

Sweden’s prime minister expressed concern the shooting may be linked to a foreign power.

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Burning the Koran is seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act because they consider it the literal word of God.

The Stockholm district court said Sweden had extensive free speech rights and that followers of a religion must accept that they would sometimes feel offended, but that Najem and Momika had “by a wide margin” overstepped the mark for reasonable and factual religious criticism.

The court said the Koran did not have any special protection just because it was a holy scripture for Muslims and that there could be cases where burning was not considered a hate crime.

Najem was found guilty of hate crimes for “having expressed contempt for the Muslim ethnic group because of their religious beliefs on four occasions”, the court said.

Najem’s lawyer has said he would be appealing against the verdict.

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Father pays tribute to British teen killed by drone while fighting in Ukraine

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Father pays tribute to British teen killed by drone while fighting in Ukraine

The father of an 18-year-old Briton who died on the frontline in Ukraine has described how attending his son’s funeral “was the most difficult thing I have ever done”.

James Wilton, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, had just finished college when he decided he wanted to go to Ukraine as a volunteer fighter to help fend off Russia’s land, air and sea invasion of its smaller neighbour.

He was killed by a drone in July as he crossed open ground while carrying a heavy pack on his back. His friend, an American volunteer named Jason, tried to save him but was unable to.

Follow all the latest on the Ukraine war

James’s father, Graham Wilton, said his son had “only just turned 18” when he decided he wanted to go to Ukraine, where the war with Russia has been raging on for almost three years.

As he paid tribute to the “polite, likeable young man”, Mr Wilton said the teenager was resolved to go despite his mother and sisters being “dead set against him going”.

‘Some of the best days of his life’

Mr Wilton said his son “made it clear” that joining the fight in Ukraine was what he wanted, so he “did everything I possibly could to make sure he knew exactly what was involved and that he could be fully prepared for what may lay ahead”.

Mr Wilton said James, who “never really had a bad word to say about anyone or anything”, spent three months in Ukraine where he received combat training, and he described them as “some of the best days of his life”.

He said: “Unfortunately it was not to be and I guess you can never fully prepare for what happens on the battlefield.

“I thank Jason for his bravery in trying to save James in a bad moment and for getting him off the battlefield, even if it was in vain.”

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North Koreans ‘blow themselves up’

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Jason told The Sun newspaper how they were crossing open ground, 20m apart, when James froze after seeing a Russian drone above them.

While they tried to run for cover, weighed down with backpacks, two more drones appeared and James was fatally wounded by one of them.

When Jason then went back to help the teenager, one of the drones hovered above him and he thought he was about to die as well, but it flew off without attacking him.

Jason was subsequently badly injured by a mine.

Speaking of his son’s funeral in Ukraine, Mr Wilton said: “This was the most difficult thing I have ever done.

“I spent two weeks in Kyiv and [with] James’ comrades and friends and it was a very emotional trip.

“I made some friends for life in James’ fellow soldiers and wish them all well.”

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