Columns

If you have a student loan, brace yourself. The pause on federal student loan payments is set to expire August 31, 2022. The pause was put in place in response to the COVID-19 emergency.

It was four in the afternoon on March 10, 1991, when the first planned explosion of Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons went off at the U.S. weapons depot in Khamisiyah, Iraq, and the first gray-white smoke cloud that would come to be called The Plume wafted skyward and drifted over the troops. There would be many blasts that day.

Inflation may be high and the U.S. economy may have dipped into recession, but Democrats are still rushing to back major new spending initiatives. And not just Democrats in deep-blue districts. In swing states like New Hampshire, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Democrats are on board with an additional $1 trillion in spending from the Biden administration.

According to results from a new poll the American Psychiatric Association commissioned on the effects of disasters on mental health, half of Americans are worried about a potential loss of income, 35 percent are worried about gun violenceand 29 percent are anxious about natural disasters.

In an 1802 letter to Albert Gallatin, Thomas Jefferson said, “We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant’s books, so that every member of Congress, and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to controul them.”

Think quick: What comes to mind when you hear the name Benito Mussolini? Bad guy. Bellicose. Bald.

If you want to impress the children in your life — in my case, that would be five grandkids who all have a sweet tooth — break the exciting news that you have arranged for them to own, free of charge, the coolest vehicle ever: the neighborhood ice cream truck.

Dear Attorney General Merrick Garland:

The automated call rang my wife’s phone a little after 3 a.m., saying it was the big box store’s automated fraud prevention line, complete with the company’s number on the caller ID.

Here’s a trend that may not bode well for the future of our country: According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 40 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds have summer jobs — down from 75 percent of teens a generation ago.