%1

Under pressure to address the nation’s soaring housing costs, the Biden administration yesterday announced significant new actions to protect tenants and make renting more affordable, the Washington Post reported. The announcement involves multiple federal agencies that will gather information on unfair housing practices. It also includes a “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” that, while not binding, sets clear guidelines to help renters stay in affordable housing. The White House is also launching a call to action, dubbed the “Resident-Centered Housing Challenge,” that aims to get housing providers as well as state and local governments to strengthen policies in their own markets. After months of deliberation, the moves come as the housing market continues to pose a serious problem for people who don’t own their homes — and for the economy overall. While inflation has fallen for the past six months, average rental prices have continued to increase rapidly, disproportionately hurting vulnerable households that spend the bulk of their budgets on rent. Meanwhile, the country is stuck in a massive housing shortfall, complicating efforts to lower costs or simply find enough places for the 44 million American renter households to go.

Former Sabres goaltender Robin Lehner, now with the Vegas Golden Knights, and his wife have filed for bankruptcy in Nevada, citing up to $50 million in debts to dozens of creditors, the Buffalo News reported. The chapter 7 bankruptcy filing offers a glimpse into the couple's financial problems, including money owed to no fewer than 50 people and companies. They filed for bankruptcy Dec. 30, months after a Wisconsin company sued Lehner for $4 million, claiming the NHL player and his father failed to make any payments last year on a business loan. Both Lehner and his father, Michael, are listed as principal members in a Nevada business license filing for Solarcode, a limited liability corporation doing business in multiple states, including Nevada and Arizona. Solarcode in January 2022 agreed to a four-year repayment plan with Eclipse Service but missed its first five payments, leading the Wisconsin company in late June 2022 to sue in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee. Lehner's debts also included missed payments for a collection of rare snakes he purchased for $1.2 million in 2017, according to the bankruptcy filing. Lehner keeps the snakes at his reptile farm in Plato, Missouri. He and his wife, Donya, estimate their assets are worth up to $10 million. Lehner signed a five-year, $25 million contract with the Knights in 2020, but the Swedish hockey player has spent the 2022-23 season recovering from hip surgery.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said a big chunk of its consumer lending business lost slightly more than $3 billion since 2020, revealing for the first time the costly toll of the Wall Street giant’s Main Street push, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ahead of fourth-quarter earnings, scheduled to publish next week, Goldman released financial information that reflects its new reporting structure. The bank in October announced a sweeping reorganization that combined its flagship investment-banking and trading businesses into one unit, while merging asset and wealth management into another. Marcus, Goldman’s consumer-banking arm, launched in 2016 to a strong start, rolling out savings accounts, personal loans and credit cards. Its 2019 credit-card partnership with Apple Inc. signaled its ambitions to be a big player in the business. But the unit was never profitable, and Goldman has scaled back its plan to bank the masses. The October reshuffling parceled out the consumer business to different parts of the bank. Before the shift, it was under the same umbrella as Goldman’s wealth-management division.