Articles written by Josh Boak


Sorted by date  Results 1 - 25 of 142

  • Harris speaks about creating economic opportunity for Latino men; Trump airs familiar grievances

    JOSH BOAK and JILL COLVIN|Oct 23, 2024

    MIAMI, Florida (AP) — Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on Tuesday said she would work to bring more funds to community banks to help Latino men secure small business loans, while Republican Donald Trump's economic roundtable aimed at Latino voters devolved into a tirade of insults against his opponent. Harris said in an interview with Telemundo that "we need to construct a strong economy that supports the working class." "I know that Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that...

  • American despair: In Arizona, high home prices and limited prospects shape voters' presidential pick

    AAMER MADHANI and JOSH BOAK|Oct 18, 2024

    MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Karl Peterson has been living the cruel inverse of the American dream. His rent keeps getting higher, but his apartments keep getting smaller. Peterson left the Midwest nine years ago for the epicenter of an economic boom, only to gradually learn that endless sunshine and desert views are increasingly among the few bargains left in Arizona. Peterson married his wife, Tani, and they struggled to save for a home, moving through four apartments as their rent nearly tripled from $625 to $1,800 a month. He does not believe that e...

  • From the pulpit, Harris calls out Trump for hurricane misinformation. Biden surveys Florida's damage

    JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI|Oct 11, 2024

    GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Kamala Harris used an appearance Sunday before a largely Black church audience in battleground North Carolina to call out Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about the government's hurricane response. President Joe Biden visited Florida for the second time this month to survey storm damage. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, did not speak Trump's name, but he is most prominent among those promoting false claims about the Biden administration's response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene. Florida was in t...

  • Biden talks election, economy and Middle East in surprise news briefing

    JOSH BOAK|Oct 4, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — After 1,080 days as president, Joe Biden on Friday decided to pop in and take questions in the White House briefing room for the first time, striding in with a grin after a strong monthly jobs report and the temporary settlement of a strike by ports workers. The president has been less available than his recent predecessors to questions from White House press corps, making his surprise appearance welcome to the gathered reporters who waited as his press secretary's daily briefing was moved up 15 minutes, then delayed for n...

  • Walz says he'll 'own up' when he misspeaks as the Democratic ticket steps up media interviews

    JOSH BOAK|Oct 4, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a week after verbal stumbles in the only vice presidential debate, Democrat Tim Walz used his debut campaign appearance on a Sunday news show to try to fend off criticism of his stand on abortion rights and "own up" to past misstatements. The interview on "Fox News Sunday" reflected a broader media blitz by presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate as the Democrats seek to garner public attention in the final 30 days of the campaign against Republicans Donald Trump and JD Vance. Harris has taped an i...

  • Biden signs 'common sense' order prioritizing federal grants for projects with higher worker wages

    JOSH BOAK and MATT BROWN|Sep 6, 2024

    ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order for federal grants that will prioritize projects with labor agreements, wage standards, and benefits such as access to child care and apprenticeship programs. Biden said the ideas in his order "are common sense." "Economists have long believed that these good job standards produce more opportunities, better outcomes for workers and more predictable outcomes for businesses as well," he said from an Ann Arbor, Michigan union training center where he made the a...

  • Harris campaign releases new ad to highlight plans to build 3 million homes and reduce inflation

    JOSH BOAK|Aug 28, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris has a new advertising push to draw attention to her plan to build 3 million new homes over four years, a move designed to contain inflationary pressures that also draws a sharp contrast to Republican Donald Trump's approach. Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, highlights her plan in a new minute-long ad released Tuesday that uses her personal experience, growing up in rental housing while her mother saved for a decade before she could buy a home. The ad targets voters in the swing s...

  • Harris says she's ready to debate Trump and accuses him of 'backpedaling' from Sept. 10 faceoff

    JOSH BOAK and CHRIS MEGERIAN|Jul 26, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on Thursday that she's "ready to debate Donald Trump." She accused him of "backpedaling" away from a previous agreement for a debate hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10. "I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage," she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a trip to Indiana and Texas. The Sept. 10 debate was one of two debates that President Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first one was hosted by CNN on June 27, b...

  • Harris tells roaring Wisconsin crowd November election is 'a choice between freedom and chaos'

    CHRIS MEGERIAN and JOSH BOAK|Jul 24, 2024

    WEST ALLIS, Wisconsin (AP) — A roaring crowd of battleground state voters greeted Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday as she opened her public case against Republican former President Donald Trump by declaring November's election will be "a choice between freedom and chaos." "In this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week," Harris said. "We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead." Harris arrived in the Milwaukee area having locked up n...

  • Biden's legacy: Far-reaching accomplishments that didn't translate into political support

    JOSH BOAK|Jul 19, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting in the Oval Office behind the iconic Resolute desk in 2022, an animated President Joe Biden described the challenge of leading a psychologically traumatized nation. The United States had endured a life-altering pandemic. There was a jarring burst of inflation and now global conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, as well as the persistent threat to democracy he felt Donald Trump posed. How could Biden possibly heal that collective trauma? "Be confident," he said emphatically in an interview with The Associated Press. "...

  • Trump blasts Biden over Laken Riley's death after Biden says he regrets using term 'illegal'

    JOSH BOAK and MICHELLE PRICE|Mar 8, 2024

    ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regretted using the term "illegal" during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Laken Riley, as his all-but-certain 2024 GOP rival, Donald Trump, blasted the Democrat's immigration policies and blamed them for her death at a rally attended by the Georgia nursing student's family and friends. Biden expressed remorse after facing frustration from some in his party for the use of the term to describe people who arrived or are living in the U.S. illegally. "I s...

  • Biden's budget proposal for a second term offers tax breaks for families and lower health care costs

    JOSH BOAK and FATIMA HUSSEIN|Mar 8, 2024

    MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday released a budget proposal aimed at getting voters' attention: It would offer tax breaks for families, lower health care costs, smaller deficits and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Unlikely to pass the House and Senate to become law, the proposal for fiscal 2025 is an election year blueprint about what the future could hold if Biden and enough of his fellow Democrats win in November. The president and his aides previewed parts of his budget going into last week's State of t...

  • Biden administration would cap credit card late fees at $8, part of campaign against junk fees

    KEN SWEET and JOSH BOAK|Mar 6, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced a rule Tuesday to cap all credit card late fees, the latest effort in the White House push to end what it has called junk fees and a move that regulators say will save Americans up to $10 billion a year. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new regulations will set a ceiling of $8 for most credit card late fees or require banks to show why they should charge more than $8 for such a fee. The rule would bring the average credit card late fee down from $32. The bureau estimates banks b...

  • 6 in 10 US adults doubt mental capability of Biden and Trump, AP-NORC poll finds

    JOSH BOAK and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX|Mar 1, 2024

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A poll finds that a significant share of U.S. adults doubt the mental capabilities of 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner in what could be a rematch of the 2020 election. More than 6 in 10 (63%) say they're not very or not at all confident in Biden's mental capability to serve effectively as president, turning his coming State of the Union address into something of a real-time audition for a second term. A similar but slightly smaller share (...

  • Hunter Biden investigations lead to ethical concerns about President Biden, an AP-NORC poll shows

    JOSH BOAK and LINLEY SANDERS|Oct 15, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Ethical concerns are casting a shadow over President Joe Biden as he seeks reelection amid investigations into his son Hunter and an impeachment inquiry, with a poll showing that 35% of U.S. adults believe the president himself has done something illegal. An additional 33% say they think the Democratic president behaved unethically, but not illegally. And 30% say Joe Biden did nothing wrong, according to the poll. The results of the survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reflect both a vast p...

  • Inflation drops to 3% and Biden hopes to turn a weakness with voters into a strength

    JOSH BOAK|Jul 12, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The politics of inflation took a sharp turn Wednesday with a report showing consumer prices rose at the slowest pace since the early months of Joe Biden's presidency. Republicans have hammered Biden over the cost of groceries, gasoline, utilities and more, saying his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package and push for electric vehicles were responsible for pushing inflation to a four-decade high. The GOP argument has resonated with voters, but the report on consumer prices for June suggests that inflation has eased d...

  • Biden says teaching should not be 'life-threatening' job

    JOSH BOAK and COLLEEN LONG|Apr 23, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden honored the nation's best teachers Monday, saying they go above and beyond by providing food and supplies out of their own pockets and often find themselves "explaining the unexplainable, from banned books to duck-and-cover drills." "Teaching should not be a life-threatening profession," Biden said, referencing deadly school shootings that plague the United States. "And educators should not need to be armed to feel safe in the classroom." He spoke at a Rose Garden event that honored the Council of Chief S...

  • China's global influence worries U.S. majority: AP-NORC poll

    JOSH BOAK and HANNAH FINGERHUT|Feb 24, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Just 40% of U.S. adults approve of how President Joe Biden is handling relations with China, a new poll shows, with a majority anxious about Beijing's influence as the White House finds its agenda increasingly shaped by global rivalries. About 6 in 10 say they are gravely concerned about China, the world's second-largest economy after the United States, according to the survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Biden has portrayed his domestic agenda on infrastructure and computer chip d...

  • State of the Union: Biden sees economic glow, GOP sees gloom

    JOSH BOAK|Feb 5, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Going into Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Joe Biden sees a nation with its future aglow. Republicans take a far bleaker view — that the country is beset by crushing debt and that Biden is largely responsible for inflation. And the GOP now holds a House majority intent on blocking the president. The harder reality is that the United States is on a tight rope, trying to balance efforts to reduce inflation with the need to stay upright and avoid falling into a recession. That's with the seemingly inherent con...

  • Biden 2024? Most Democrats say no thank you: AP-NORC poll

    JOSH BOAK and HANNAH FINGERHUT|Feb 5, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for President Joe Biden, despite his insistence that he plans to seek reelection in 2024. That's according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows just 37% of Democrats say they want him to seek a second term, down from 52% in the weeks before last year's midterm elections. While Biden has trumpeted his legislative victories and ability to govern, the poll suggests relatively few U.S. adults give him high marks on either. F...

  • US Treasury buys time for Biden and GOP on debt limit deal

    JOSH BOAK|Jan 20, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government bumped up against its debt limit Thursday, prompting the Treasury Department to take "extraordinary" accounting steps to avoid default — as friction between President Joe Biden and House Republicans raised concern about whether the U.S. can sidestep an economic crisis. The Treasury Department said in a letter to congressional leaders it had started taking "extraordinary measures" as the government had run up against its legal borrowing capacity of $31.381 trillion. An artificially imposed cap, the debt cei...

  • EXPLAINER: How ominous is the debt limit problem?

    JOSH BOAK|Jan 18, 2023

    WASHINGTON (AP) — On the brink of hitting the nation's legal borrowing limit on Thursday, the government is resorting to "extraordinary measures" to avoid a default. Sounds ominous, right? But -- take a breath -- the phrase technically refers to a bunch of accounting workarounds. Yes, accounting. Because the debt cap limits the issuance of government bonds — a way the U.S. borrows money — these workarounds shift money among accounts and should keep the government open through at least June, according to a letter last week by Treasury Secretary...

  • Trump's tax returns to be discussed by congressional panel

    JOSH BOAK and MEG KINNARD|Dec 21, 2022

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to publicly release years of Donald Trump's tax returns, which the former president has long tried to shield. Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has kept a close hold on the panel's actions, including whether the panel will meet in a public or private session. And if lawmakers move forward with plans to release the returns, it's unclear how quickly that would happen. But after a yearslong battle that ultimately resulted in th...

  • Trump tax audits required by IRS were delayed, panel says

    JOSH BOAK and BRIAN SLODYSKO|Dec 21, 2022

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional panel found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and leading members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of the ongoing reviews. A report released by the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating back to 1977 that mandates audits of a p...

  • On the money: Yellen's next milestone is name on US currency

    FATIMA HUSSEIN and JOSH BOAK|Dec 7, 2022

    FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Faith in the U.S. dollar has often hinged in part on what Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says. On Thursday, the focus will be on what she writes, as the government churns out its first currency bearing her signature. Yellen loops her capital "J" and "Y," with the rest of her name flowing in a haste that suggests handwriting might not have been the top priority for this pathbreaking economist. She made her reputation as a stoic chair of the Federal Reserve and a shrewd forecaster, and now she's at the forefront of far-f...

Page Down