By ANNIE MA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will begin garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers who are in default early next year.

The department said it will send notices to approximately 1,000 borrowers the week of January 7, with more notices to come at an increasing scale each month.

Millions of borrowers are considered in default, meaning they are 270 days past due on their payments. The department must give borrowers 30 days notice before their wages can be garnished.

The department said it will begin collection activities, “only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans.”

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In May, the Trump administration ended the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments, beginning to collect on defaulted debt through withholding tax refunds and other federal payments to borrowers.

The move ended a period of leniency for student loan borrowers. Payments restarted in October of 2023, but the Biden administration extended a grace period of one year. Since March 2020, no federal student loans had been referred for collection, including those in default, until the Trump administration’s changes earlier this year.

The Biden administration tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness to student loans, but those efforts were eventually stopped by courts.

Persis Yu, deputy executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center, criticized the decision to begin garnishing wages, and said the department had failed to sufficiently help borrowers find affordable payment options.

“At a time when families across the country are struggling with stagnant wages and an affordability crisis, this administration’s decision to garnish wages from defaulted student loan borrowers is cruel, unnecessary, and irresponsible,” Yu said in a statement. “As millions of borrowers sit on the precipice of default, this Administration is using its self-inflicted limited resources to seize borrowers’ wages instead of defending borrowers’ right to affordable payments.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

J.J. McCarthy will not play for the Vikings against the Detroit Lions on Christmas Day.

After leaving the game between the Vikings and the New York Giants on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium, McCarthy was determined to have suffered a small hairline fracture in his right hand.

In his absence, Max Brosmer will get the start for the Vikings at quarterback.

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By KRUTIKA PATHI, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — British authorities on Tuesday brought new counts of rape and sexual assault against comedian Russell Brand, who is already facing similar charges involving four women.

The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service said the new charges — one count of rape and one of sexual assault — against Brand were in relation to two further women. The alleged offenses took place in 2009, the CPS said.

Brand, 50, had already been charged in April with two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges were brought following an 18-month investigation sparked when four women alleged they had been assaulted by the controversial comedian.

Prosecutors said that these offenses took place between 1999 and 2005 — one in the English seaside town of Bournemouth and the other three in London. Brand pleaded not guilty to those charges in a London court earlier this year.

He is expected to appear next in court on Jan. 20, in relation to the two new charges brought against him. A trial has also been scheduled for June next year and is expected to last four to five weeks.

The “Get Him To The Greek” actor, known for risqué stand-up routines, battles with drugs and alcohol, has dropped out of the mainstream media in recent years. He built a large following online with videos mixing wellness and conspiracy theories, as well as discussing religion.

When the first batch of charges were announced in April, Brand said that he welcomed the opportunity to prove his innocence.

“I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord,” he said in a social media video. “I was a drug addict, a sex addict and an imbecile. But what I never was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in nonconsensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”

The Associated Press doesn’t name victims of alleged sexual violence, and British law protects their identity from the media for life.

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By KIMBERLEE KRUESI, Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to reallocate federal Homeland Security funding away from states that refuse to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ruling solidified a win for the coalition of 12 attorneys general that sued the administration earlier this year after being alerted that their states would receive drastically reduced federal grants due to their “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

In total, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency reduced more than $233 million from Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The money is part of a $1 billion program where allocations are supposed to be based on assessed risks, with states then largely passing most of the money on to police and fire departments.

FILE – The Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters is photographed in Washington, May 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

The cuts were unveiled shortly after a separate federal judge in a different legal challenge ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal government to require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get FEMA disaster funding.

In her 48-page ruling, McElroy found that the federal government was weighing states’ police on federal immigration enforcement on whether to reduce federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others.

“What else could defendants’ decisions to cut funding to specific counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round numbered amounts — including by slashing off the millions-place digits of awarded sums — be if not arbitrary and capricious? Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result,” McElroy wrote.

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The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore the previously announced funding allocations to the plaintiff states.

“Defendants’ wanton abuse of their role in federal grant administration is particularly troublesome given the fact that they have been entrusted with a most solemn duty: safeguarding our nation and its citizens,” McElroy wrote. “While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions on federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.”

McElroy notably cited the recent Brown University attack, where a gunman killed two students and injured nine others, as an event where the $1 billion federal program would be vital in responding to such a tragedy.

“To hold hostage funding for programs like these based solely on what appear to be defendants’ political whims is unconscionable and, at least here, unlawful,” the Rhode Island-based judge wrote in her ruling, issued little more than a week after the Brown shooting.

Emails seeking comment were sent to the DHS and FEMA.

“This victory ensures that the Trump Administration cannot punish states that refuse to help carry out its cruel immigration agenda, particularly by denying them lifesaving funding that helps prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement.