WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that it projects this year’s federal budget deficit to be $400 billion higher, a 27% increase compared to its original estimate released in February.

The major drivers of the change include: higher costs from the supplemental spending package signed in April that provides military aid to Ukraine and Israel; higher-than-estimated costs of reducing student loan borrower balances; increased Medicaid spending; and higher spending on FDIC insurance after the agency has not yet recovered payments it made after the banking crises of 2023 and 2024.

The report also projects that the nation’s publicly held debt is set to increase from 99% of gross domestic product at the end of 2024 to 122% of GDP — the highest level ever recorded — by the end of 2034. “Then it continues to rise,” the report states.

Deficits are a problem for lawmakers in the coming years because of the burden of servicing the total debt load, an aging population that pushes up the total cost of Social Security and Medicare and rising health care expenses.

The report cuts into President Joe Biden’s claim that he has lowered deficits, as borrowing increased in 2023 and is slated to climb again this year.

The White House budget proposal released in March claims to reduce the deficit by roughly $3 trillion over the next 10 years and would raise tax revenues by a total of $4.9 trillion in the same period.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the report “is further evidence of the need for Congress to pass President Biden’s Budget to reduce the deficit by $3 trillion — instead of blowing up the debt with $5 trillion of more Trump tax cuts.”

A May CBO report estimates that extending the provisions of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would increase deficits by nearly $5 trillion into 2034.

Donald Trump recently told a group of CEOs that he would further cut the corporate tax rate he lowered while in office, among other things. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the 10-year cost of the legislation and executive actions Trump signed into law in 2017 was $8.4 trillion, with interest.

Putin in Pyongyang: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in North Korea early on Wednesday, after saying the two countries want to cooperate closely to overcome U.S.-led sanctions in the face of intensifying confrontations with Washington.

Putin was met at Pyongyang’s airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. They shook hands and embraced, and Kim later joined Putin in his car to personally guide him to Pyongyang’s Kumsusan State Guest House, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said. The agency described their meeting as a historic event that demonstrates the “invincibility and durability” of the two nations’ friendship and unity.

Putin, making his first trip to North Korea in 24 years, said in comments that appeared in its state media hours before he landed that he appreciates the country’s firm support of his military actions in Ukraine. The Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in 2022.

Biden fundraisers: President Joe Biden is again joining forces with former President Bill Clinton to rake in campaign cash, with a joint fundraiser with the two men Tuesday set to raise $8 million — part of a roughly $40 million total that Biden’s reelection campaign has pulled in the last five days.

The vast majority of the $40 million sum, confirmed by a Biden campaign official, comes from Saturday’s glitzy fundraiser with Biden and former President Barack Obama in Los Angeles that raised more than $30 million. Meanwhile, first lady Jill Biden has been on her own personal fundraising swing that has brought in $1.5 million.

Biden and Clinton, who appeared together with Obama at a March fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York, are headlining Tuesday’s event, which is being held at the home of former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton adviser. Jill Biden and former first lady Hillary Clinton will also be at the fundraiser in McLean, Va., a tony suburb of Washington.

Ecuador visa policy: Ecuador on Tuesday announced the suspension of an agreement with China that had waived visas for Chinese citizens traveling to the South American country, citing a “worrying” increase in irregular migration.

Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said the suspension of the bilateral agreement is temporary and would start July 1. It added that the measure was taken after authorities saw that around 50% of Chinese nationals entering Ecuador didn’t leave the country “through regular routes” nor within the permitted 90 days they were allowed to stay under the waiver agreement.

California wildfires: Big new wildfires challenged California firefighters Tuesday even as they increased containment of earlier blazes that erupted as dry north winds arrived over the weekend.

Evacuations were ordered after the Aero Fire erupted Monday and spread over more than 8 square miles near Copperopolis, a small community in Calaveras County, about 100 miles east of San Francisco in the state’s historic Gold Country region.

Authorities set up three evacuation centers, but the number of evacuees was unknown.

Three structures were destroyed and one was damaged, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. A decrease in winds and a rise in relative humidity overnight helped firefighters gain 20% containment.

The Aero Fire is among the latest blazes to erupt in California in a matter of days as a quiet start to fire season suddenly became active, with flames consuming drying grasses and brush encouraged by back-to-back wet winters. Most of the fires have been kept small, but a handful have charred thousands of acres.

In the northern Central Valley, a blaze dubbed the Sites Fire erupted Monday afternoon and spread over nearly 16 square miles of rural Colusa County, about 105 miles north of San Francisco. There was no containment as of Tuesday afternoon.

Mass. 911 system back up: The 911 system across Massachusetts was restored Tuesday after going down for several hours, which made it impossible for anyone to reach emergency services through the call number.

The Massachusetts State Police said around 3:45 p.m. EDT that the system had been restored. Officials didn’t provide any details about the cause of the outage. It was unclear how many communities were affected by outage, said Elaine Driscoll, director of communications and policy at the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.