[naviga:h3]Mnuchin makes 2nd emergency debt move[/naviga:h3]

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday he is making a second emergency move to keep the government from going above the debt limit while awaiting congressional action to raise the threshold.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Mnuchin said he will not be able to fully invest in a large civil service retirement and disability fund. Skipped investments will be restored once the debt limit has been raised, he said.

In September, Congress agreed to suspend the debt limit, allowing the government to borrow as much as it needed. But that suspension ended Friday.

The government said the debt subject to limit stood at $20.46 trillion on Friday. Mnuchin has said he will employ various “extraordinary measures” to buy time until Congress raises the limit.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in a recent report that Mnuchin has enough maneuvering room to stay under the limit until late March or early April.

If Congress has not acted before Mnuchin has exhausted his bookkeeping maneuvers, the government would be unable to borrow the money it needs to meet its day-to-day obligations, including sending out Social Security and other benefit checks and making interest payments on the national debt.

In August 2011, a standoff between Congress and the Obama administration over raising the borrowing limit came down to the wire and prompted the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency to impose the first downgrade of the government’s credit rating.

Raising the debt limit is a separate issue from the need for Congress to pass a spending bill to cover government operations. A failure to pass a spending bill triggers a partial government shutdown but does not carry the potential catastrophic market disruptions that a failure to raise the debt limit poses.

In his new letter, Mnuchin said, “I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible.”

[naviga:h3]Apple finishes deal for app Shazam[/naviga:h3]

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has bought Shazam, the maker of a song-recognition app that Apple’s digital assistant Siri has already been using to help people identify the music playing on their iPhones.

The companies didn’t disclose the price of the acquisition announced Monday. Technology news site Recode previously reported Apple is paying about $400 million for Shazam, citing three unidentified people familiar with the deal.

Apple Inc. issued a statement describing Shazam as “natural fit” with its services.

“We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam,” Apple said. The Cupertino, Calif., company declined to say whether Shazam’s app will still be available after the deal closes.

Some of Shazam’s features conceivably could be blended into Apple’s music streaming services.

Siri began drawing upon Shazam’s technology to answer questions about songs as part of a 2014 update to the iPhone’s operating system.

The Shazam deal marks Apple’s biggest acquisition in music since paying $3 billion for Beats Electronics’ line of headphones and music service in 2014.

Digital services have been playing an increasingly important role for Apple as the sales of iPhones — the company’s main moneymaker — have slowed.

Shazam was founded in 2002 and made one of the first apps for the iPhone. It has about 250 employees working at its London headquarters and seven other offices in the U.S., Australia and Germany.

[naviga:h3]Spirit boots breast-feeding woman from plane[/naviga:h3]

A woman making a long-planned trip with her parents and young son says Spirit Airlines kicked the family off the plane when she didn’t immediately stop breast-feeding the 2-year-old, who was restless after a long delay.

Mei Rui, a concert pianist and cancer researcher, says she asked for a few minutes to let her son fall asleep in her arms while the plane was still at the gate in Houston and other passengers were walking around.

A Spirit spokesman disputed the woman’s account on Monday. He said Rui repeatedly failed to follow flight attendants’ instructions to buckle her son into his seat after the plane’s door was closed.

The spokesman says Rui told crew members they would have to drag her off the plane while she recorded them.