�������ýҕ�l

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked part of an eviction moratorium in New York State that had been imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a move the law’s supporters said might expose thousands to eviction. “This is a very serious setback for our ability to protect tenants in the middle of a pandemic,” said State Senator Brian Kavanagh, a Democrat and one of the sponsors of the moratorium law. (Liptak, 8/12)

A divided U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for some eviction proceedings to resume in New York, blocking a provision that gave renters a shield if they said they were experiencing hardships because of the pandemic. Over the dissents of three liberal justices, the court on Thursday sided with a group of landlords who say they have been devastated by what they contend is an unconstitutional law. (Stohr and Robinson, 8/13)

Washington’s Supreme Court issued a key decision Thursday that helps protect people living in their vehicles from having them towed, in a case that drew widespread attention amid Seattle’s housing crisis. The justices held that it was unconstitutionally excessive for Seattle to impound a homeless man’s truck and require him to reimburse the city nearly $550 in towing and storage costs. Further, the court said, vehicles that people live in are homes and cannot be sold at a public auction to pay their debts — eliminating a financial incentive for towing the cars in the first place. (Johnson, 8/12)

How well the American economy performs over the short- and intermediate-term depends on the path of the coronavirus. At issue is the recent surge in new Covid-19 cases and deaths due to the highly contagious Delta variant and the more recent Lambda variant. Another factor is the clash between politics and science. More on that below. As we experience a new wave of infections, one must ask how long Covid will persist? Between March 1918 and the summer of 1919, the world experienced three distinct waves of the Spanish Flu. Covid-19 will likely exceed this number. Regardless, economic growth in the U.S. will suffer, to some degree, unless we take more aggressive measures to combat Covid. (Patton, 8/12)

The world’s major economies have seen their rapid recovery after easing Covid restrictions begin to run out of steam in the past month as a resurgence in the virus depressed consumer spending, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. There are signs that the recovery in the US and Japan is losing momentum, the OECD said, while parts of Europe and China have slowed as consumers remain reluctant to eat out, visit attractions and shop as they did before the pandemic. (Inman, 8/10)

Lisa Grim braced herself as she turned the key to her family’s new apartment.It had taken more than a month to find a landlord willing to accept her — a newly widowed 33-year-old raising two kids, barely making $20,000 a year. None of the other 20 apartments had returned her calls and emails. This unit, which she had rented sight unseen, was the only one that approved her application. ... Nine months had passed since her husband Alan, 37, died of covid-19 in a rural Missouri ICU once again filling with coronavirus patients. Nine months since Lisa realized that without Alan’s salary, they could no longer afford their mortgage, forcing her to put the family’s house on the market and move to this apartment an hour away from everything her boys had known. (Wan, 8/9)