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Business groups, state attorneys general and religious organizations have promised swift court challenges to try to block the vaccine-and-testing mandate unveiled yesterday by the Biden administration, according to a Reuters analysis. President Joe Biden has said the country’s patience is growing thin with the 30% of Americans who are not fully vaccinated, and the rule is aimed at ensuring safe workplaces. The vaccine requirement is being imposed through a rarely used process that has a history of being blocked by judges. Imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the rule requires all businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure they are vaccinated or submit to weekly testing and wearing a face covering. OSHA rules typically take seven years to develop. This rule is being issued through an emergency temporary standard (ETS), a process that allows OSHA to address a “grave danger” and is aimed at protecting against that hazard. Prior to an ETS issued in June that applied to health care settings, OSHA had issued nine emergency temporary standards since it was set up in 1971. Of those, six were challenged in court and only one survived unscathed: a standard issued in 1978 aimed at exposure to acrylonitrile, a chemical used in rubber manufacturing. A group of 24 Republican attorneys general warned in September that they would go to court to fight what they said was an illegal mandate. They argued OSHA’s power to issue an emergency rule was limited to workplace hazards such as industrial chemicals, not a widely circulating virus. They also accused the Biden administration of usurping the power to regulate health care, which has traditionally been left to states. Industry, religious and civil liberty groups have also said they plan to sue because they expect the rule to be a burden on businesses or amount to an unconstitutional power grab.

Voters across the U.S. are slated to approve at least $12.6 billion of local-government debt sales on ballots this election, according to preliminary results after Tuesday’s polling, Bloomberg News reported. All in all, voters were asked to decide on about $27 billion of municipal bonds, the lowest tally since 2017, according to data compiled by IHS Markit. The largest measures up for vote were set to fund work ranging from school construction to flood-prevention measures in Virginia Beach. Early results showed more bond proposals passing than failing, but many of the races were tight, with some decided by just a handful of votes. At least $5.1 billion of bonds failed or were failing, according to Bloomberg calculations. “Voters in the races this year seem to want government to move more slowly with projects,” said Dan Solender, head of municipals at Lord Abbett & Co. “There has also been a lot of talk about raising taxes too, so maybe some voters are concerned that if they approve these bond issues, it might lead to more taxes.” Fort Worth, Texas, voters were torn over a $1.2 billion bond to fund construction and renovation of schools in Fort Worth Independent School District. It’s the biggest measure up for consideration this year and part of a nearly $1.5 billion package of debt. The measure was ahead by about 40 votes, according to unofficial results updated Wednesday after midnight, with around 25,000 ballots cast for the proposition altogether.

The Federal Reserve will begin dialing back the extraordinary economic aid it’s provided since the pandemic erupted last year, a response to high inflation that now looks likely to persist longer than it did just a few months ago, the Associated Press reported. In a statement yesterday after its latest policy meeting, the Fed said it will start reducing its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases in the coming weeks, by $15 billion a month, though it reserved the right to change that pace. Those purchases have been intended to hold down long-term interest rates to spur borrowing and spending. With the economy recovering, that’s no longer needed. The Fed’s announcement comes against a backdrop of surging prices across the economy — in food, rent, heating oil, autos and other necessities — that have imposed a burden on households and have become a political liability for the Biden administration and its Democratic allies in Congress. The central bank will slow its $80 billion in Treasury purchases by $10 billion a month and its $40 billion in mortgage bonds by $5 billion in November and December, and said similar reductions “will likely be appropriate” in the following months. That suggests that the central bank might decide to accelerate its pullback in bond-buying if inflation worsens.

New orders for U.S.-made goods unexpectedly rose in September, though manufacturing remains constrained by input shortages, Reuters reported. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that factory orders increased 0.2% in September. Data for August was revised down to show orders rising 1.0% instead of 1.2% as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders unchanged. Orders gained 17.6% on a year-on-year basis. Manufacturing, which accounts for 12% of the economy, is being driven by still-strong demand for goods despite spending shifting back to services. Businesses are rebuilding depleted inventories, but shortages of labor and raw materials stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic remain challenges. The widespread shortages restrained economic growth to its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Monday showed that manufacturing activity slowed in October, with all industries reporting record-long lead times for raw materials.

Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy filings, which tend to be pricier than the more popular chapter 7 process, are ticking back up after declining during the COVID-19 pandemic due to government interventions, including a moratorium on home foreclosures, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings by individuals rose to 10,764 in October, the highest monthly level this year and the fifth monthly increase since May, according to legal-services firm Epiq. Even after rising steadily since May, monthly chapter 13 filings remain far below levels seen in 2019, before the pandemic, Epiq said, based on data from its Aacer business unit. Meanwhile, the more widely used chapter 7 filings have continued to decline. The end of a government-mandated moratorium on home foreclosures in July could well be driving the latest uptick in chapter 13 filings, because the federal moratorium was a big factor behind the decline in those filings since the pandemic started, said Jialan Wang, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved Colombian airliner Avianca's reorganization plan, Avianca said on Tuesday, which will allow the company to complete its chapter 11 bankruptcy process before the end of the year, Reuters reported. Avianca, along with rival Chile's LATAM Airlines, were the two largest carriers in the region before the coronavirus pandemic, but both were sent into bankruptcy restructuring when the virus upended air travel, amid especially strict restrictions in Latin America. Avianca had already posted several years of losses before the pandemic began, and went through a boardroom coup in 2019 led by United Airlines. "The airline expects to successfully complete that process and emerge from chapter 11 before the end of the year as a financially stronger and more efficient airline," the company said in a statement. Avianca will have significantly less debt and more than $1 billion in liquidity when it finishes the bankruptcy process, the statement said.

The U.S. residential rental vacancy rate dropped further in the third quarter as the economy continued to normalize after severe disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially indicating that high inflation could last for a while, Bloomberg News reported. The Commerce Department said yesterday that the rental vacancy rate fell to 5.8% last quarter, the lowest since the second quarter of 2020. That was down from 6.2% in the April-June period and 6.4% a year ago. The collection of data was affected by the coronavirus last year and part of 2021. The Census Bureau, which compiles the report, said the pandemic-related restrictions on data collection had ended in almost all areas in the third quarter, adding that less than 0.5% of cases were affected. In the third quarter, the median asking rent for vacant units was $1,203. That was down from $1,228 in the second quarter, but up from $1,160 a year ago. Rental vacancy rates were lowest in the Northeast and West and higher in the South and Midwest.

Residents of Norwich, Connecticut, will vote Tuesday on whether to gamble with their tax dollars by issuing bonds to cover swelling pension obligations, amid a record year for sales of such debt, Bloomberg News reported. Voters are being asked to approve issuing $145 million of securities to cover Norwich’s pension obligation, after retirement costs almost tripled in the past decade. With interest rates in the municipal market near historic lows, officials expect the earnings from investing that sum will exceed the borrowing cost. “In my 63 years of existence, 32 years of which was in the banking industry, I have never seen interest rates this low,” said Michael Gualtieri, treasurer of the city of about 40,000 in southeastern Connecticut. “I don’t know if we will ever see them this low again or perhaps in my lifetime.” Ninety-three municipalities have sold debt in 2021 to finance their unfunded pension obligations to retirees, the highest number year-to-date in records starting in 1999, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The combined amount of $11.4 billion is the most since a peak in 2003, which included a $10 billion Illinois sale. The push comes amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will announce a taper of its bond purchases this week and raise its benchmark rate from near zero next year.