The Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments in a partisan legal fight over President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe away or reduce student loans held by millions of Americans.

The high court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, heard arguments on Tuesday on two challenges to the plan, which has so far been blocked by Republican-appointed judges on lower courts.

Arguments were scheduled to last two hours but were likely to go much longer. The public can listen in on an outside link or the court’s website.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday ordered officials to tighten control of the border with Ukraine after a spate of drone attacks that Russian authorities blamed on Kyiv delivered a new challenge to Moscow more than a year after its full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

One drone crashed just 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from Moscow in an alarming development for Russian defenses.

While Putin didn’t refer to any specific attacks in a speech in the Russian capital, his comments came hours after drone attacks targeted several areas in southern and western Russia and authorities closed the airspace over St. Petersburg in response to what some reports said was a drone.

Heavy snow bookended the United States on Tuesday, with a late-season storm bringing a messy morning commute to the Northeast and leaving California residents to dig out, or in some cases simply wait for help, after yet another storm.

Hundreds of schools across southern New England either closed for the day or delayed opening as the most significant snowfall of what has been a mild winter hit overnight. As much as 7 or 8 inches of snow blanketed some communities by sunrise.

Hannah Cavalli can be reached at cava1050@stthomas.edu.