$20,000 in debt forgiveness

President Joe Biden announced a sweeping package of student-debt relief that forgives as much as $20,000 in loans for some, a move he said would help a generation “saddled with unsustainable debt.” “The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate you may not have access to middle-class life that the college degree once provided,” Biden said. He also announced a four-month extension of the moratorium on student loan repayments, as well as plans to allow borrowers with undergraduate loans to cap repayments at 5% of their monthly income. The measures seek to make good on a Biden campaign promise and to curry favor with younger and progressive voters, whose support could help Democrats hoping to stave off a loss of their slim House and Senate majorities. For some of the 45 million Americans with student loans, the package comes as a welcome, if long overdue, relief. For others, it feels like a Band-Aid over a deepening wound. Here’s what some borrowers had to say about it.
—Natasha Solo-Lyons

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

Stock traders remained hesitant to make any huge bets ahead of Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday, which may provide clues on how hawkish the Federal Reserve will be in the face of mounting economic challenges. After wandering aimlessly earlier Wednesday, the S&P 500 posted a small gain. For a second day in a row, the benchmark’s swing was capped within 1%. Such a stretch of intraday calm occurred only three other times in 2022. Here’s your markets wrap.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is heavily favored to cruise to a second term in the November general election, but anything less than a convincing win over Democrat Charlie Crist could spell doom for any 2024 presidential aspirations.

Six months into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the war has upended fundamental assumptions about Russia’s military and economy.

Rich Americans are hiding “vast amounts of income” from the Internal Revenue Service by exploiting a “deeply troubling” loophole in a 12-year-old US law designed to crack down on offshore tax evasion, according to a Senate Finance Committee report.

The IRS announced Wednesday that it will wipe out late fees for taxpayers who struggled to file their tax returns on time during the pandemic.

Gen Z is sharing Wall Street life on TikTok and banks don’t know what to do about it. Interns and entry-level analysts are increasingly posting about their lives in an industry characterized by its confidentiality.

Japan will scrap a requirement to show a negative Covid-19 result to enter the country for travelers who have gotten booster shots, as it faces pressure from the tourism industry and businesses to roll back some of the most stringent pandemic border restrictions left globally.

For renters encountering soaring housing costs in US city centers, decamping to the suburbs no longer offers much of a reprieve. The price advantage of renting in the suburbs versus downtowns has shrunk by 53% from three years ago, according to a report Wednesday from Realtor.com. While suburban renters used to save 12% compared with city dwellers in July 2019, they now pay 5.8% less. The shift is a blow for apartment hunters already squeezed by escalating costs and few options for relief. The median US rent rose 12% in July from a year earlier to $1,879, Realtor.com data show, a 17th straight monthly record.

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