Lawmakers try to save student-loan deal
WASHINGTON – A handful of senators struggled Thursday to hold together a bipartisan deal to keep student-loan rates from doubling July 1 while their colleagues traded political barbs with little more than a week to go before the deadline.
Top White House officials, meanwhile, told lawmakers they were open to changes in President Barack Obama’s student-loan proposal if a compromise could be reached that would win congressional approval.
The behind-the-scenes negotiations were an attempt to head off a rate increase that Congress’ Joint Economic Committee estimated would cost the average student borrower an extra $2,600. Both parties rushed to microphones to point fingers at the other for the potential hike but kept in touch with back-channel efforts that would prevent them from being blamed for adding to already-high college costs.
Taliban offer to free U.S. soldier for prisoners
KABUL, Afghanistan – The Taliban proposed a deal in which they would free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their most senior operatives at Guantanamo Bay, while Afghan President Hamid Karzai eased his opposition Thursday to joining planned peace talks.
The idea of releasing these Taliban prisoners has been controversial. U.S. negotiators hope they would join the peace process but fear they might simply return to the battlefield, and Karzai once scuttled a similar deal partly because he felt the Americans were usurping his authority.
The proposal to trade U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the Taliban detainees was made by senior Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail in response to a question during a phone interview with The Associated Press from the militants’ newly opened political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf nation of Qatar.
Associated PRess
