Greece’s bailout expires, country becomes 1st developed nation to default on IMF payment
Greece’s bailout expires, country becomes 1st developed nation to default on IMF payment
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece slipped deeper into its financial abyss after the bailout program it has relied on for five years expired at midnight Tuesday and the country failed to repay a loan due to the International Monetary Fund, deepening fears over whether it will be able to remain in the eurozone.
With its failure to repay the roughly 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) to the IMF, Greece became the first developed country to fall into arrears on payments to the fund. The last country to do so was Zimbabwe in 2001.
After Greece made a last-ditch effort to extend its bailout, eurozone finance ministers decided in a teleconference late Tuesday night that there was no way they could reach a deal before the deadline.
“It would be crazy to extend the program,” said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the eurozone finance ministers’ body known as the eurogroup. “So that cannot happen and will not happen.”
“The program expires tonight,” Dijsselbloem said.
Big income, big taxes: Since 1981, GOP candidate Jeb Bush has paid at rate of 36 percent
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has earned nearly $29 million since leaving the Florida governor’s mansion and paid an effective federal income tax rate of roughly 36 percent in the past three decades, according to tax returns released by his campaign on Tuesday.
In an effort designed to show a commitment to transparency, Bush posted the tax returns on a website that outlines his work history since 1981, including most of the time that has passed since the two-term Florida governor left office in 2007. In those recent years, Bush has served on numerous corporate boards and has seen his income rise sharply.
“Today, I’m releasing 33 years of tax returns — more than any presidential candidate in history,” Bush wrote on the website.
From 2007 to 2013, Bush reported nearly $29 million in total income. His primary occupation during that time was as a consultant, although he also made nearly $10 million giving speeches from 2007 through the end of last year.
Bush earned nearly $7.4 million in total income in 2013, the year covered by the most recent tax return released.
Fight for gay marriage turns now to clerks who defy Supreme Court, refuse marriage licenses
MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis shut her blinds at work Tuesday to block the view of rainbow-clad protesters outside. They carried flowers and flags and signs saying “you don’t own marriage.” They chanted “do your job.”
Moments later, she told a lesbian couple who walked in asking for a license to try another county.
Davis is among a handful of public officials across the Bible Belt so repulsed by the thought of enabling a same-sex marriage that they are defying the U.S. Supreme Court and refusing to issue a license to anyone, gay or straight.
“It’s a deep-rooted conviction; my conscience won’t allow me to do that,” Davis told The Associated Press. “It goes against everything I hold dear, everything sacred in my life.”
Some judges and clerks in Alabama and Texas have done the same, ordering their offices in the name of religious liberty and free speech to issue no marriage licenses at all.
Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck say they’ve decided to divorce after 10 years of marriage
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As regulars at a local farmer’s market, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner and their three young children looked like the perfect Hollywood family.
The stars took turns working so they could nurture their careers and their kids — devoted parents who appeared arm-in-arm at countless industry events.
“It’s work, but it’s the best kind of work,” Affleck famously said of his marriage to Garner when he accepted the best picture Oscar for “Argo.”
Now, it seems the work is done. After weeks of public speculation about their relationship, the couple announced Tuesday they plan to end their 10-year marriage with a divorce.
“We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children,” Garner and Affleck said in a joint statement. “This will be our only comment on this private, family matter.”
Chris Christie warns of blunt campaign in 2016 even if it makes people ‘cringe’
LIVINGSTON, N.J. (AP) — A tough-talking New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his 2016 campaign for president Tuesday with a promise to tell voters the truth even if it makes them cringe.
The Republican governor, a one-time GOP favorite who faded and now tries to climb back, lashed out at “bickering leaders” from both political parties in a kickoff rally in the gymnasium of his old high school. And in his trademark blunt style, he told voters — and warned Republican rivals — that he’s ready to be aggressive in the 2016 contest.
“You’re going to get what I think whether you like it or not, or whether it makes you cringe every once in a while or not,” Christie declared. He added: “I am now ready to fight for the people of the United States of America.”
He went on to a town hall meeting in Sandown, New Hampshire, receiving enthusiastic applause from the standing-room crowd as he arrived with his family. “I want to be the next president of the United States and I intend to win this election,” he told the meeting, held in an actual town hall.
Christie has already held nearly a dozen town halls in New Hampshire, a state key to his hopes, and plans more as he spends the next week in the state.
In losing a battle at the Supreme Court, foes see ‘blueprint’ for defeating the death penalty
ATLANTA (AP) — A strongly worded dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court’s narrow decision this week upholding the use of an execution drug offered a glimmer of hope to death penalty opponents in what they considered otherwise a gloomy ruling. One advocate went so far Tuesday as to call it a blueprint for a fresh attack on the legality of capital punishment itself.
But even those who see Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent as a silver lining think it will take time to mount a viable challenge.
And Breyer’s words don’t change the fact that the Supreme Court has consistently upheld capital punishment for nearly four decades. The five justices forming the majority in Monday’s decision made it clear they feel that states must somehow be able to carry out the death penalty.
In disagreeing with the 5-4 ruling that approved Oklahoma’s use of an execution drug, Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called it “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,” which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
“It was a sweeping and powerful dissent that issues an invitation that we should accept, which is to make the case for why today the death penalty itself is no longer constitutional,” said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the Capital Punishment Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.