1/ Biden canceled up to $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients, and up to $10,000 for individual borrowers who make under $125,000 per year. Biden will also extended the federal student loan payment pause for what he called the “final time” through Dec. 31. About 43 million borrowers will benefit, and 20 million will have their debt completely canceled. The White House estimates that nearly 90% of relief will go to people earning less than $75,000. Student loan debt in the U.S. totals nearly $1.75 trillion. (Associated Press / NPR / Axios / CNBC / NBC News / USA Today / New York Times / Washington Post)

2/ Voters in rural western Michigan defunded their town’s only public library over books with LGBTQ content, accusing the librarians “grooming” children and promoting an “LGBTQ ideology.” The Patmos Library was stripped of 85% of its funding for next year and is in danger of closing. Meanwhile, in Idaho, a group of conservative Christians want to ban more than 400 books with LGBTQ characters, scenes describing sexual activity, or invoking the occult from a public library in Bonners Ferry. None of the books, however, are in the library’s collection. (Washington Post / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

3/ Roughly 20 million U.S. homes are behind on their utility bills – about 1 in 6 American homes. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association said it’s the worst-ever crisis the group has documented as the average price consumers pay for electricity surged 15% in July from a year earlier – the biggest 12-month increase since 2006. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, electric utilities have shut off power to more than 3.6 million households, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. “I expect a tsunami of shutoffs.” (Bloomberg / Center for Biological Diversity)

4/ As many as 1 in 6 trees native to the contiguous U.S. are in danger of going extinct due to climate change. A new study assessing the health of all 881 tree species native to the Lower 48 found that extreme weather and prolonged droughts make trees vulnerable to invasive insects and pathogens – the predominant drivers of extinction risk. Biden’s plan to halve emissions in the U.S. by the end of the decade depends on forests to ...