President Joe Biden said Sunday he remains "optimistic" about finding an agreement with his Republican opponents to raise the US debt limit and avoid a default, which his administration warned would cause "catastrophic" consequences. Congressional Republicans are demanding budget cuts in exchange for lifting the US borrowing limit, while the White House has insisted for months that the nation's credit should not be up for negotiation. Alarm bells are meanwhile ringing over the possibility of a first-ever US default, with uncertainty over the actual date the government would stop being able to pay its bills. The two ... (full story)