By Eliza Haverstock | NerdWallet

More than 150,000 borrowers who signed up for the newest student loan repayment plan — Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) — just found out President Joe Biden will forgive their remaining debt. If you weren’t one of the lucky borrowers, it’s not too late to join their ranks.

“This is the first announcement, hopefully, in a slew of announcements,” says Amy Czulada, outreach and advocacy manager of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a nonprofit student loan borrower advocacy organization, of the forgiveness email affected borrowers received.

The Education Department has not shared a timeline for future SAVE forgiveness announcements but said it will discharge eligible loans on a “rolling basis” going forward.

You must enroll in SAVE and meet two key criteria to qualify for debt forgiveness now:

Borrowed $12,000 or less in federal student loans.
Spent at least 10 years in repayment, including the pandemic pause and other time counted under the IDR account adjustment.

If you meet these requirements, Czulada says, “Please enroll — this could really change your life in a matter of minutes.” Private student loans are not eligible for the SAVE program or federal student loan forgiveness.

Each additional $1,000 in federal student loans you borrowed above $12,000 adds an extra year to your SAVE repayment, up to 20 or 25 years, depending on loan type. Your SAVE forgiveness timeline hinges on the original sum of all federal student loans you borrowed, not the amount you currently owe or the amount you owe on a single loan.

For example, if you took out between $12,001 and $13,000, you must spend 11 years in repayment instead of 10 before SAVE will forgive your remaining balance.

The SAVE plan offers other benefits, like reduced or $0 monthly payments, based on the borrower’s income. As of Feb. 21, more than half of the 7.5 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE have $0 payments. And starting in July, those who do owe money each month may see their already-reduced bills slashed in half.

You can sign up for SAVE at any time, but the sooner you do so, the sooner your monthly payments — even the $0 payments — will start counting toward SAVE’s forgiveness threshold.

Watch for upcoming White House email

This week, the White House plans to start emailing borrowers who — if they switch to the SAVE plan — could qualify for loan forgiveness now.

If you began repayment in early 2014, and you originally borrowed $12,000 or less, you may get an email encouraging you to enroll in SAVE.

Keep an eye on your inbox and be wary of student loan scams. Official Education Department messages will only come from one of three senders: noreply@studentaid.gov, noreply@debtrelief.studentaid.gov or ed.gov@public.govdelivery.com.

Consolidate your FFELP, Perkins or HEAL loans

Most borrowers can directly enroll in SAVE and automatically get credit toward forgiveness for past months spent in repayment, under the IDR account adjustment. However, a small group of borrowers with the following discontinued loan types must consolidate their loans to qualify for both the IDR account adjustment and the SAVE plan:

Commercially held FFELP student loans.
Perkins student loans.
Health Education Assistance Loan (HEAL).

You must begin the consolidation process by April 30 to get credit for past repayment periods under the IDR account adjustment. If you consolidate after April 30 and sign up for SAVE, you’ll start with zero months toward forgiveness — potentially adding years or decades to your repayment timeline.

“If they had been paying for 10 years and consolidate on May 1, there’s a chance that all of that will basically be erased and they’d have to start all over again, so we’re encouraging as many folks as possible to apply for consolidation if they need to by April 30,” says Sabrina Calazans, managing director of the Student Debt Crisis Center, a nonprofit group that aims to advance student debt relief.

To verify which types of loans you have, log into your StudentAid.gov account, navigate your dashboard and select “My Aid” from the dropdown menu. Under the “Loan Breakdown” section, you can click “View Loans” and “View Loan Details.”

Sign up for Fresh Start if you have defaulted student loans

Borrowers with defaulted federal student loans must sign up for the Fresh Start program to get their loans into good standing before they can enroll in SAVE. Remember, SAVE can also give you $0 monthly payments if your annual income is at or below $32,800 as an individual or $67,500 for a four-person household.

If you sign up for Fresh Start before October, you’ll receive credit toward SAVE forgiveness for any months spent in default from March 2020 through the month you exit default, plus any other months when your loans were in good standing.

Enroll in SAVE on StudentAid.gov

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There’s no income limit to qualify for SAVE. Most federal student loans are automatically eligible for the plan; parent PLUS loans are ineligible.

The easiest way to sign up for SAVE is on StudentAid.gov, Calazans says. Alternatively, you can call your servicer or submit a paper IDR application.

Before choosing SAVE, use the Education Department’s loan simulator tool to estimate your monthly payments, payoff timelines and potential forgiveness under different plans.

SAVE isn’t a good fit for everyone. “The higher your income is, the less likely it is that SAVE makes sense,” says Kristen Ahlenius, director of education and advice at Your Money Line, a workplace financial wellness company that works with student loan borrowers. A high income could leave you owing more on SAVE than you would on the regular 10-year repayment plan.

 

The article Biden Just Erased $1.2B in Student Loans. Yours Could Be Next originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Prosecutors charged a former St. Paul police officer Thursday with arson at the building that houses his wife’s St. Paul restaurant.

Law enforcement reviewed video from several cameras and saw a person, later identified as 55-year-old Tou Mo Cha, exiting Checker Board Pizza and then repeatedly entering the apartment entry to the building in Payne-Phalen, according to a criminal complaint. Cha walked away and the apartment entry started on fire.

When Cha was a St. Paul police officer, he was charged in 2004 with lending his department-issued handgun. The gun was used in a pair of drive-by shootings that targeted members of the Hmong community; no one was injured. Cha pleaded guilty to making terroristic threats in 2005 and resigned from the police force.

Reached by phone on Friday, Cha said he was unaware he’d been charged in the fire and said he was surprised.

“I had no intention or anything to do with it,” Cha said. “… I had no knowledge, I had no desire, I had no motivation to do anything like that. That’s my only income, my only job.”

The business remains closed — there was smoke damage “upstairs somewhere,” Cha said. The bar and upstairs portion of the building had been undergoing renovations for years, Cha said, adding that he still opened the kitchen for takeout and delivery before the fire.

Property records indicate the building at 992 Arcade St. is not owned by Cha or his wife.

The business, owned by Cha’s wife, has also been called Checkerbar Food & Liquor. She voluntarily relinquished the last city licenses at the location in 2020, according to St. Paul’s Department of Safety and Inspections. The business had a license for food service from the Minnesota Department of Health.

Arson charge: Fire started at apartment entryway

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Cha, of Little Canada, with second-degree arson of a building. Prosecutors gave the following information in a complaint:

Tou Mo Cha in a 2019 mugshot. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

On Aug. 9, there was a fire at 990 Arcade St., a convenience store, and subsequently across Jenks Street at the building that houses Checker Board Pizza. That fire was at 1:25 p.m.

Video from the area showed Cha’s wife coming out of Checker Board Pizza and going to their vehicle. Cha went between the pizza shop and the doorway of the apartment, and the fire started a few minutes after he drove away.

Cha told police he had not gone to the apartment entryway where the fire started, “however, the video shows him to be there,” the complaint said.

Fire examiners concluded the fire began in the entry staircase of the apartment portion of the building. It was possibly ignited with gasoline.

The fire caused extensive damage to the building, costting more than $100,000.

Cha’s first court date wasn’t listed in court records as of Friday.

Past cases connected to bar

Cha was sentenced in 2019 to 90 days in jail for his involvement in an assault outside Checker Board Pizza the year before. The case was at the center of an incident that resulted in the firing of five St. Paul police officers.

Cha admitted in court to hitting a man he described as his wife’s nephew in the head with a club outside Checker Board Pizza. The man was hospitalized and needed 24 staples to close the gash in his head.

The police department said five officers failed to intervene and lied about what happened, leading to then-St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell firing them.

Before that case, police had received reports about Checker Board Pizza.

In 2014, 34-year-old Nicholas James Keilen died a couple of months after he said bouncers assaulted him outside the bar and restaurant. The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office ruled the manner of Keilen’s death as undetermined, and no one was arrested or charged.

Other men told police in 2011 and 2014 that security guards assaulted them. And in 2013, a group of people reported to police that Cha had pepper-sprayed them. No bar employees were charged in those cases.

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INDIANAPOLIS — J.J. McCarthy skillfully navigated his media availability on Friday morning at the NFL Combine. As a top quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft, he had to know he was going to get peppered with questions from beat writers far and wide about which teams he has had formal interviews with this week.

His answer about the Vikings stood out above the rest. He confirmed that he had a formal interview, then raved about getting a chance to talk shop with head coach Kevin O’Connell throughout the allotted 18-minute session. There seemed to be genuine excitement in his voice.

“Everything they want out of a quarterback aligns with what I want,” McCarthy said. “Just being able to get on the board with them and go through their plays was something really special.”

It’s impossible to ignore that McCarthy’s personality checks a lot of boxes with the Vikings contemplating their future. He loves the game more than anything and has a selflessness about him that doesn’t go unnoticed. That is exactly the type of person O’Connell has described in the abstract whenever he has been asked about the position.

“I’m not going to start being selfish now because I have to sell myself,” McCarthy said. “I’m going to sell myself on how much I care about my teammates. It goes hand in hand with who I am as a person. Just being selfless and caring about the guy next to me more than myself is something that’s innate, and I really can’t change.”

After garnering praise for his selflessness while leading Michigan to a national championship, that trait has almost become a knock on him throughout the predraft process. The biggest criticism of McCarthy is the fact that he wasn’t asked to throw the ball very much. He completed 240 of 332 passes for 2,991 yards and 22 touchdowns for the Wolverines in 2023.

His rebuttal?

“The only stat I cared about was W’s,” McCarthy said. “We did pretty good in that category.”

That said, McCarthy knows he has something to prove on Saturday afternoon at the NFL Combine, and he’s looking forward to putting his talents on full display. He confirmed that he will throw during the workouts on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, while adding that he will not run the 40-yard dash due to some hamstring tightness.

Asked if he had any specific goals in mind, McCarthy noted that he’s trying not to put too much pressure on himself.

“I’m more of a process guy,” he said. “Just worried about focusing on my fundamentals.”

Though it’s still unclear who the Vikings plan to take in the 2024 NFL Draft, if they considering a quarterback, it wouldn’t be surprising if McCarthy is near the top of the list.

“I’m a tough and gritty guy who only cares about winning at the end of the day,” McCarthy said. “Just pretty much everything a team would want in a starting quarterback.”

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By MEGAN JANETSKY (Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Campaigning formally starts on Friday for the biggest election in Mexico’s history.

Voters will choose the president, along with the winners of 628 seats in Congress and thousands of local positions. Elections will occur in all 32 jurisdictions, with more than 20,000 positions up for grabs, making it the country’s largest election, according to the National Electoral Institute.

The country of 130 million people has often been marked by its “macho” culture. Now it is almost certain to elect its first woman president.

Also at play are issues such as escalating cartel warfare, the political legacy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the long, often tumultuous relationship with the United States.

When is the Mexican election and how does voting work?

Parties selected their candidates well before the official start of campaigning for the presidential, congressional and municipal elections. On June 2, millions of voters will turn out at the polls to vote for their new leaders. The winner of the highly anticipated presidential elections will serve a six-year term.

While most eyes are on the presidential race, Mexicans will also vote for 128 senators, 500 congressional representatives and for tens of thousands of local government positions.

Who is running the Mexican elections?

Leading presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has enjoyed a comfortable lead, with around 59% of the vote, according to a February poll. The former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum is seen as a continuation of populist leftist leader López Obrador and is backed by his Morena party.

Senator Xóchitl Gálvez is in a not-so-close second with around 36% of the vote. Gálvez is a fierce critic of López Obrador and is running under the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition. Trailing behind both is little-known Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party.

What are other risks in Mexico’s elections?

In swaths of the country eclipsed by cartel violence, many have raised concerns about a security crisis that has spiraled under López Obrador. In the first two months of the year, a handful of candidates were slain before the election season officially began. Watchdogs warn that this year’s elections could be Mexico’s most violent on record.

For critics, the election has become increasingly about democratic concerns, which fueled massive February protests against electoral reforms made by López Obrador. However, the leader remain highly popular for many in Mexico’s working class, López Obrador’s base. With high inflation rates, such voters are likely to stick with a candidate that they feel will advocate for them. A great number feel that the president and his Morena party have done that.

Has there ever been a female president in Mexico?

A female president would be a huge step in a country with soaring levels of gender-based violence and deep gender disparities.

Mexico still has a famously intense “machismo,” or male chauvinism, culture, expressed in its most extreme form in a high rate of femicides, but also daily in hundreds of more subtle ways.

While Mexican women have advanced to positions of political power in public life — in part because of required representation quotas for public office — women suffer from high levels of gender violence. Femicides, or the killing of women because of their gender, have been a persistent problem for decades.

This story has been corrected to show that Mexican presidents serve a six-year term, not a five-year term.

Follow AP’s Latin-America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america