Author: Reporter

Unexpectedly high medical bills are common in the United States, but there are ways to get relief. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one in five Americans are affected by outstanding medical debt, for a total cost of $88 billion. In a 2022 study, the bureau found that roughly 20% of U.S. households report that they have medical debt, with collections appearing on 43 million credit reports. As of the second quarter of 2021, 58% of all bills in collections on credit records were medical bills. Medical debt affects households unevenly, too, according to the agency. Past-due bills...

In the name of consumer protection, a slew of U.S. federal agencies are working to make it easier for Americans to click the unsubscribe button for unwanted memberships and recurring payment services. A broad new government initiative, dubbed “Time Is Money,” includes new regulations and the promise of more for industries spanning from healthcare and fitness memberships to media subscriptions. “The administration is cracking down on all the ways that companies, through paperwork, hold times and general aggravation waste people’s money and waste people’s time and really hold onto their money,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, told...

The world’s nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on such deterrence in 2023, a Swedish think tank said in June. “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War,” said Wilfred Wan, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s weapons of mass destruction program. Russia and its ally Belarus launched a second stage of drills in June intended to train their troops in tactical nuclear weapons, part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discourage the West from ramping up support for...

When the U.S. Postal Service launched Project Safe Delivery last year, officials pledged they would be “doubling down” on their efforts to combat growing rates of letter carrier robberies. The crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests, and robberies slowed toward the end of the year. But, overall, the number of postal carriers who were robbed in 2023 rose again and the number who were injured nearly doubled as criminals continue to target carriers for their antiquated “arrow keys” that allow access to mailboxes. This week, legislation is being introduced in Congress to accelerate the replacement of tens of...