Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

Nationals can’t solve Nate Eovaldi, drop series finale to Rangers

Israel’s offensive is destroying Gaza’s ability to grow its own food

Riot police and over 2,000 arrests: A look at 2 weeks of campus protests

‘It’s been abused’ Rep. McCaul on motion to vacate threat

Journalism in India is under assault

The dangerous new call for regime change in Beijing

Ukrainian men abroad voice anger over pressure to return home to fight 

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Biden honors distinguished Americans; Trump back in N.Y. court

Hope Hicks witnessed nearly every Trump scandal. Now she must testify.

State laws measure if a woman is close enough to death for an abortion

Ask Amy: Should I be the best man if I think the bride is abusive?

Carolyn Hax: Husband keeps pushing modest spouse to wear sexier clothes

Miss Manners: Host eats luxurious breakfast, leaves cereal for guest

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

Demetrius Freeman

President Biden and top congressional leaders expressed optimism about urgent negotiations over the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/26/debt-ceiling-explained/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">debt ceiling</a> after a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, as the administration’s liberal allies worried that talks with House Republicans over the budget risk rewarding the GOP’s hard-line stance.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sounded confident that an agreement could be reached ahead of a June 1 deadline to raise the nation’s borrowing limit or risk a global economic catastrophe. Biden gave a similar assessment, though major differences remain between the two sides before a deal can be struck.

White House officials also announced that Biden would be cutting short a visit to Asia as the administration seeks to finalize an agreement. Aides to McCarthy and Biden will negotiate directly, lawmakers said, slimming down the number of parties involved in the talks as the deadline nears. The White House said staff would continue meeting daily, adding that Biden will check in with leaders by phone during his trip this week and in person when he returns.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti have been appointed to lead the negotiations for the president, while Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) and McCarthy’s staff will lead the negotiations for McCarthy. Congressional Democratic leaders said they approved that arrangement.

“We’re going to continue to make progress toward avoiding default,” the president said at a White House Jewish American Heritage Month celebration shortly after what he called a “good, productive meeting” with congressional leadership. “There was an overwhelming consensus … that defaulting on the debt is not an option.”

Emerging from the White House meeting Tuesday afternoon, McCarthy  said: “It is possible to get a deal by the end of the week. It’s not that difficult to get to an agreement.”

The current phase of negotiations began shortly after the House passed legislation last month that would raise the debt ceiling but also cut federal spending sharply, roll back green-energy programs and impose work requirements for some recipients of benefit programs. Biden had said for months that Congress <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/01/21/biden-aides-want-force-gop-abandon-debt-limit-threats/?itid=lk_inline_manual_12" target=_blank>should raise the debt limit</a> without any policy concessions from the White House, but as the “X-date” deadline for the government to run out of money nears, officials have been talking almost daily since last week.

The positive signals surrounding negotiations Tuesday came amid new pressure on the administration from its left flank not to agree to new work requirements on federal programs, which McCarthy said  must be included in a final deal. Democratic Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) strongly criticized such proposals and threatened to vote against a deal that included them, potentially imperiling Democratic support for an agreement.

7 doomsday scenarios if the U.S. crashes through the debt ceiling

Publicly, Biden administration officials are adamant that they are working with House Republicans on a deal to fund the federal government in the next fiscal year — not to raise the debt ceiling. Privately, however, some Biden aides recognize that the negotiations appear to be in part about the debt limit. Behind the scenes, negotiators are clear that any deal on the budget must resolve the debt ceiling as well. Democratic negotiators also acknowledge that they will have to agree to more spending cuts if they want to secure a longer extension of the debt ceiling increase — an implicit recognition that lawmakers are bartering over the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, an approach Biden has repeatedly disavowed.

JM Rieger

It’s debt ceiling day at the White House again

“The issue here is principle: If you accept the idea that you can, in essence, be held to blackmail with the debt ceiling, it will be done again and again. Not to be crass, but it’s essentially negotiating with terrorists who have taken hostages,” said Dean Baker, a liberal economist at the Center for Economic Policy and Research, a left-leaning think tank. “More and more people in progressive circles are becoming concerned with it.”

Concerns are  mounting among many Democratic lawmakers that Biden could agree to a deal that would impose new work requirements on some federal benefits. McCarthy told reporters Tuesday that he would insist that such requirements be included in any final agreement, after Biden suggested Sunday that he was open to GOP proposals on the matter.

Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, told reporters that the idea of imposing work requirements on food stamps, as some Republicans have proposed, is “despicable” and that the White House should not give in to GOP demands to do so.

It’s a restriction Congress has put on how much money the federal government can borrow to pay its bills, which has been in place since 1917. Because the government usually spends more than it takes in, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/26/debt-ceiling-explained/" target="_blank">Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling fairly frequently to pay for its operations</a> (sort of like a credit card bill).

If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the government can’t borrow and might not be able to pay its bills (like bond interest) on time. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/07/why-debt-ceiling-breach-would-not-be-first-us-default/" target="_blank">That’s called a default</a>, and it’s never happened before on this scale (though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-passes-debt-limit-bill/2011/08/02/gIQAIp2kpI_story.html" target="_blank">the U.S. got close in 2011</a>). It would probably tip the U.S. into a recession and shake the global economy.

Why does the U.S. keep raising the debt limit?

Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. can keep issuing bonds, which investors around the world buy because they’re seen as a safe and reliable investment. In turn, the government can fund projects from the military to social programs.

Why is raising the debt limit a fight?

Until recently, it was routine for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Since 1960, Congress has intervened 78 times to change it in some way. But it has become a political battle <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/26/debt-ceiling-explained/" target="_blank">because it is one of the few must-pass bills</a>, so lately Republicans have seen it as an opportunity to make demands.

“I cannot support a deal that is only about hurting people,” the senator said. “If the Republicans are really serious about lowering the amount of the national debt, then, by golly, let’s bring in some revenues.”

Fetterman said in a statement that he “cannot in good conscience support a debt ceiling proposal that pushes people into poverty.”

The debt limit is the maximum amount the federal government can borrow under the law, currently about $31 trillion. That limit must be raised by as soon as June 1 to avoid a potential economic catastrophe, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned lawmakers again on Monday.

White House officials on Tuesday said Biden would cut short his upcoming foreign trip because of the ongoing negotiations. The president is scheduled to leave Wednesday morning to attend the Group of Seven meeting in Hiroshima, Japan. He was then slated to travel to Papua New Guinea and Australia, but that portion of the trip has been canceled.

The emerging deal could extend the debt ceiling by two years — crucially, past the 2024 presidential election — in a victory for the Biden administration, while also potentially setting the government’s total spending through then. In exchange for avoiding the economic instability of a default, the White House would agree at least in part to GOP demands to set new limits on spending while rescinding unused pandemic funding and, potentially, approving a permitting deal to encourage energy production.

GOP rejected White House effort to close tax loopholes in debt ceiling talks

If any spending cuts in a final deal are not too dramatic, the administration could explain that it was always going to have to compromise on spending in an era of divided government and that the timing of the debt ceiling increase was largely coincidental.

The president also seemed to emphasize the need for compromise.

“Congressional Republicans have not been willing to discuss raising revenues, but policy differences between the parties should not stop Congress from avoiding default,” Biden said.

The White House has made clear that it has some red lines in the talks despite the threats to the debt limit, ruling out a deal that would pare back Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act or cut many government programs by more than 20 percent, as House Republicans have sought.

“A key part of this is whether the White House will be able to credibly say the elements that get negotiated are ones that would have been on the table this year anyway,” said David Kamin, who served as deputy director of the White House National Economic Council earlier in the Biden administration. “I think the White House is focused on trying not to reward Republicans for irresponsibly using the debt limit as a focal point for negotiations.”

The emerging deal may also involve a two-step plan floated by House Republicans for speeding up the nation’s permitting process for energy projects, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.

As a first step, the person said, the deal would change the permitting process under the National Environmental Policy Act, a 1970 law that requires the federal government to analyze the environmental impact of its proposed actions. As a second step, House GOP leaders would agree to pursue separate legislation to address Democrats’ top permitting priorities: accelerating the approval of renewable-energy projects and electric transmission lines.

However, many Democrats would probably object to punting their priorities to later negotiations. And some liberal lawmakers have criticized what they see as attempts to undermine the National Environmental Policy Act and other bedrock environmental laws.

Concern is building on the left about a potential agreement, especially as Republicans appear more emboldened on work requirements. Talking to reporters Tuesday, McCarthy said it would be “ludicrous” to fail to reach an agreement and default because of resistance to negotiating on such requirements. Asked in another exchange whether work requirements on certain federal programs were a “red line,” the speaker responded, “Yes.”

The president’s liberal allies in Congress have thus far supported the administration’s approach to the debt ceiling, and many are wary of publicly criticizing the administration until a deal becomes public. But that could change as the contours of an agreement come into focus.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said work requirements for federal food stamp programs were “ridiculous.”

“We have work requirements,” Durbin said, adding that if Republicans want “to impose work requirements on disabled people and children,” they should say so.

On Monday, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) led a group of lawmakers in sending a letter to Biden urging the White House not to accept new work requirements.

Capitol Police also arrested 12 people in the Rotunda on Tuesday afternoon during a demonstration calling on Congress to raise the debt limit without cutting spending on social programs or efforts to fight climate change. The protesters sat on a banner that read “OUR LIVES ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE.”

Ahead of the meeting  Tuesday, House Republicans emphasized that they view work requirements as critical.

“Look: You saw the president himself say over this weekend he voted for these work requirements; why would you back away from them today?” said Graves, a top House Republican in the debt ceiling discussions. “I’ll say it again: Then-Senator Biden voted for this.”

Invoking the 14th Amendment to dodge the debt limit is risky, Biden aides fear

Liberal lawmakers have in prior years called for the White House to resolve the debt ceiling issue by unilateral means, such as by minting a $1 trillion coin or invoking the 14th Amendment to disregard the borrowing cap. Even allies who agree that those <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/08/debt-ceiling-14th-amendment-biden/" target="_blank">measures are risky</a> say that encouraging what the administration sees as GOP “hostage-taking” would be worse, since it gives Republicans an incentive to continue to weaponize the debt ceiling for concessions. While the details of a deal are unclear, liberal allies are also worried about broad cuts to programs that millions of Americans depend on — and are particularly wary of re-creating the budget cuts that similar standoffs over the debt ceiling forced during the Obama administration. Many economists believe those cuts slowed the economic recovery after the Great Recession.

Tyler Pager, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Maxine Joselow and Ellie Silverman contributed to this report.

New York State Associated Press Young Journalist of the Year

Cornell University, BA in history

Jeff Stein is the White House economics reporter for The Washington Post. He was a crime reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and, in 2014, founded the local news nonprofit the Ithaca Voice in Upstate New York. He was also a reporter for Vox.

Jeff Stein

Yale University, BA in History

Rachel Siegel is an economics reporter covering the Federal Reserve. She previously covered breaking news for the Post's financial section and local politics for the Post's Metro desk. Before joining the Post in June 2017, Rachel contributed to The Marshall Project and The Dallas Morning News.

Rachel Siegel

George Washington University, BA in political communications

George Washington University, MA in strategic communications

Marianna Sotomayor covers the House of Representatives for The Washington Post. Sotomayor joined The Post in 2021 from NBC News.

Marianna Sotomayor

Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, 2020

Harvard College, BA in history and literature

Liz Goodwin covers Congress for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2022, Goodwin covered national politics and served as Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe. 