Secret Service recovers $286M in stolen pandemic loans
The U.S. Secret Service said Friday that it has recovered $286 million in fraudulently obtained pandemic loans and is returning the money to the Small Business Administration. An investigation initiated by the Secret Service’s Orlando office found that alleged conspirators submitted Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications by using fake or stolen employment and personal information. They then used an online bank to conceal and move their criminal proceeds. The Secret Service worked with the bank to identify roughly 15,000 accounts and seize $286 million connected to the accounts.
GOP, Dems seek political boost from student loan debt plan
To Democrats championing the White House’s student loan forgiveness plan, it was the long-awaited delivery of one of President Joe Biden’s campaign promises. To Republicans — and even some in the president’s own party — it was an ill-advised move that was unfair to those who had diligently paid back their loans or decided not to go to college. In the student debt relief plan, both parties see an opportunity to boost their own political message ahead of the critical November midterm elections. While Democrats contended that the loan forgiveness would provide a lifeline for struggling working-class families, Republicans charged that it’s a giveaway to the “elites.”
Challenges around the corner for California’s ban on gas cars
California has laid out an audacious goal: In 13 years, it should no longer be possible anywhere in the state to buy a new car that runs purely on gasoline. Yet it remains to be seen whether California can turn that vision into a reality. The state’s plan to ban sales of new internal-combustion engine vehicles by 2035, approved by regulators Thursday, sets strict limits on what automakers can and can’t sell. Failure to meet those targets carries the threat of stiff penalties. But whether the rule works in practice will depend on whether consumers embrace electric cars and how rapidly automakers can ramp up production of cleaner vehicles.
EPA to designate PFAS as hazardous
The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it will designate the two most commonly detected toxic “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancer and have been found in everything from drinking water to furniture, as hazardous substances. The move does not ban the chemicals, known as PFAS, but the proposed rule is one the most significant actions the EPA has taken to date on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl compounds. The compounds are among more than 4,000 human-made chemicals that break down slowly, seep into water and soil, and can linger in the human body once ingested. The proposed rule could make companies responsible for any environmental cleanup costs.
Fears of a radiation leak mount near Ukraine nuclear plant
Authorities have begun distributing iodine tablets to residents near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in case of a radiation leak, amid mounting fears that the fighting around the complex could trigger a catastrophe. The move came a day after the plant was temporarily knocked offline because of what officials said was fire damage to a transmission line. The incident heightened dread of a nuclear disaster in a country still haunted by the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl.
Official: 6 of 43 missing Mexican students given to army
A Mexican official says six of the 43 college students “disappeared” in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days then turned over to the local army commander who ordered them killed. Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas’ surprise comment Friday directly tied the military to one of Mexico’s worst human rights scandals. And it came with little fanfare as he made a lengthy defense of the commission’s report released a week earlier. At that time, Encinas declared the abductions and disappearances a “state crime” and said the army watched it happen without intervening, but he made no mention of six students being turned over to Col. José Rodríguez Pérez. Mexico’s defense department has not commented on the allegation.
‘Sea cow’ that evoked mermaids is extinct in Chinese waters
The dugong, a species of so-called sea cow that roams the ocean floor in Asia and Africa and is said to have inspired ancient legends of mermaids, has been spotted off China’s southern coast for centuries. Not lately, though. A new study suggests that the dugong has become the first large vertebrate to go functionally extinct in China’s coastal waters. “Functional extinction” means that even if some dugongs are still alive off China’s coast, their numbers are too small to maintain a viable population.
By wire sources