US national debt tops $30T as borrowing surged amid pandemic
America’s gross national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time Tuesday, a milestone that underscores the fragile nature of the country’s long-term economic health as it grapples with soaring prices and the prospect of higher interest rates. The breach of that threshold, revealed in new Treasury Department figures, arrived years earlier than previously projected as a result of trillions in federal spending that the United States has deployed to combat the pandemic. The borrowing binge has left the nation with a debt burden so large that the government would need to spend an amount larger than America’s entire annual economy in order to pay it off.
Jan. 6 panel examining Trump’s role in proposals to seize voting machines
The House Jan. 6 committee is scrutinizing former President Donald Trump’s involvement in proposals to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, according to three people with knowledge of the committee’s activities. It is not clear what evidence the committee is examining as it looks at any role Trump might have played in encouraging or facilitating the drafting of a so-called national security finding. But the committee recently received documents from the Trump White House including what court filings described as a “document containing presidential findings concerning the security of the 2020 election after it occurred and ordering various actions,” along with related notes.
Two officers killed at Bridgewater College in Virginia
A gunman fatally shot a police officer and a campus safety officer at Bridgewater College in Virginia Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. The assailant, who fled after the 1:20 p.m. shooting, was captured at 1:55 p.m. after a “massive search operation,” the college said in a statement. Pictures from the scene show him being detained near a riverbank. In an email sent at 5:04 p.m. to the students and faculty, David Bushman, the president of the college, said that the two officers had been killed. He identified the victims as John Painter, the police officer, and J.J. Jefferson, the campus safety officer.
Killer in 2011 Norway massacre denied parole
Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people in attacks in 2011, was denied parole Tuesday by a Norwegian court that said he “appeared devoid of empathy and compassion for the victims of the terror.” Breivik, 42, who has served 10 years of a 21-year sentence, showed no signs that his extremist views had waned. Breivik’s lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, said that they would appeal. On July 22, 2011, Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo, killing eight people. He then went on a shooting rampage at a summer camp on the island of Utoya, killing 69 people.
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