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Beset by COVID-19 and its fallout, local landlords are offloading their properties to cash-rich institutional investors, and America's real-estate market may never be the same, Reuters reported. Before the pandemic, boyhood friends Michael Murano and Richard Tyson owned 96 rental units in their hometown of Rochester, New York. They offered accommodation to low-income tenants, many in the service industry, from rooming houses to single-family starter homes. Today, they're well on their way to liquidating the entire portfolio. Two-thirds of the units are already gone. The buyers? Large investors with all-cash offers. Many of America's landlords have gone a year and a half without being paid by tenants, who've been protected by several state and local eviction moratoria as well as an umbrella federal ban enacted 11 months ago. The owners have been waiting for $46 billion to help them survive without that income. The funds were approved by Congress months ago, but bureaucracy creaks; only $3 billion has reached them so far, according to U.S. Treasury Department data.

Federal workers will be required to prove their coronavirus vaccination status or submit to a series of rigorous safety protocols, President Joe Biden announced yesterday as his administration prepares for an expected surge in infections, CNBC.com reported. Biden also detailed a number of other steps aimed at persuading more people to get inoculated for Covid — including calling on state and local governments to give out $100 prizes to those who get their shots. The president unveiled the new measures in an impassioned speech that made a direct appeal to those who are still wary of the vaccines. “This is an American tragedy. People are dying, and will die, who don’t have to die,” Biden said in the East Room of the White House. “This is not about red states and blue states. It’s literally about life and death,” he said. “With freedom comes responsibility. Your decision to be unvaccinated impacts someone else.” The new rules and perks come as officials at all levels of government struggle to bolster Covid vaccination rates that have flattened out in recent weeks, even as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads nationwide.

As the Delta variant of the coronavirus has become the most predominant variant in the United States and medical experts issue confusing advice, restaurateurs find themselves once again making difficult decisions on health mandates. Many, where laws allow it, have taken that to a new level this week, requiring their patrons to bring proof of vaccination before dining, the New York Times reported. “For us, it’s really just a preventive measure to make our employees and our diners feel safer,” said Patricia Howard, the owner of Dame, a seafood restaurant in Greenwich Village. Her restaurant’s new vaccination policy, which applies to diners outdoors as well as indoors, was announced to customers on Wednesday on social media. Many restaurant owners said that as infection rates have risen recently, they began to consider setting their own safety rules. But the announcement on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that vaccinated people should resume wearing masks indoors added new urgency, prompting some owners to make drastic decisions to respond to a much more contagious variant. In states including California and New York, some restaurant owners are mandating vaccines for customers and employees, and reinstating older health protocols like requiring that both groups wear masks. But in states like Florida and Arkansas, which have had huge spikes in coronavirus cases, laws are more stringent. Businesses are not allowed to ask customers for proof of vaccines, and local governments cannot issue mask mandates.

The Small Business Administration will allow borrowers with Paycheck Protection Program loans of $150,000 or less to apply online for forgiveness directly from the agency, American Banker reported. Lenders will have to opt in to allow the SBA to process the applications, and they will still issue a decision on whether to grant forgiveness, according to rulemaking documents the agency issued to the industry Wednesday. The agency has not said when the portal might open. The initiative, which the SBA touted as a way to start closing down a program that launched in April 2020, was welcomed by banks that are still dealing with the cost of processing applications from borrowers who want forgiveness. Through May, banks had funneled nearly $800 billion in forgivable PPP loans to small businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Small Business Administration says that loans of $150,000 or less comprise 93% of the outstanding Paycheck Protection Program debt. The SBA said in its rulemaking documents that since last summer, it has received comments from borrowers and lenders stating that “the loan forgiveness process is overwhelming and difficult to manage.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said that President Biden does not have the legal authority to unilaterally forgive federal student loans, breaking from fellow Democratic leaders, The Hill reported. Pelosi yesterday argued that Biden can only delay or pause student loan debt by executive order, not cancel it entirely. “He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power,” she said. “That would best be an act of Congress.” Biden has faced steady pressure from progressive Democrats to wipe out up to $50,000 per borrower in federally held student debt through an executive order. While it’s not clear if Biden has the legal authority to do so, many prominent Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) argue that he does. Read more.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT titled, "Student Loan Bankruptcy Reform."