By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden said on Monday his administration would cancel student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, targeting those who attended schools that defrauded students, those with permanent disabilities and public service workers. Biden said the total number of Americans who have had their student debt canceled by his administration was now over 5 million. The 150,000 borrowers for whom student loan relief was approved included almost 85,000 borrowers who … Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumers expect inflation to increase over the next 12 months and beyond, likely reflecting concerns that broad tariffs on imports pledged by President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration could raise prices for households. The University of Michigan’s survey showed consumers’ one-year inflation expectations jumped to 3.3% in January, the highest level since May, from 2.8% in December. That raised the 12-month inflation expectations above the 2.3%-3.0% range seen in the two years … Read more…

By Katie Paul (Reuters) – Meta Platforms is ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, including those for hiring, training and picking suppliers, it said in a memo to employees posted on an internal company forum on Friday. The move comes in the run-up to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the company attempts to mend relations with the leader who has criticized its political content policies and threatened its CEO with imprisonment. “The … Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Elon Musk, who U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to oversee a government cost-cutting effort, acknowledged that his declared goal of cutting $2 trillion in spending from the $6.8 trillion federal budget would be a long shot. “I think if we try for 2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting 1,” Musk, the world’s richest person, said in a discussion on Wednesday with Mark Penn, a political strategist and former … Read more…

By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -Kroger has agreed to pay $110 million to resolve a lawsuit by the state of Kentucky alleging the supermarket chain’s pharmacies helped fuel a deadly opioid epidemic by flooding its communities with hundreds of millions of doses of addictive painkillers. The settlement was announced on Thursday by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, whose state had opted to not participate in a broader $1.4-billion deal Kroger finalized last year that resolved similar … Read more…