Within a modern but nondescript building a few hundred feet from Stockholm’s pretty Riddarfjarden Bay, a frosted glass wall in Josef Fares’s office displays etched characters from It Takes Two, his video game studio’s “Toy Story”-esque cooperative adventure about an adult couple’s broken relationship. Near his desk, in a lighted case, sits a pair of Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves. “I can relate, you know, to someone who’s speaking his mind,” Fares said. In an industry where executives have become mired in tech marketing-speak and can be as protected by publicists as Hollywood stars are, Fares stands out. Many gamers know the garrulous designer for his appearance at the glitzy Game Awards in 2017, when he twice dismissed the Oscars with a swear word before raising his middle finger to the camera. The sentiment could come as a shock from a person who began his artistic career as a moviemaker, including an autobiographical coming-of-age film set during the Lebanese civil war that was Sweden’s entry for best international feature at the Oscars in 2006. But for the past dozen years, Fares’s passion has been video games, especially cooperative experiences that can be played on the couch with a sibling, partner, child or friend. Fares enjoyed games from the moment he played Pong on an Atari 2600 while living in Beirut; he fell in love in 1988 when he experienced Super Mario Bros. in Stockholm. After working with a few students to make a game demo in 2009, Fares got excited. That very night he came up with the concept of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, about siblings working together in a time of crisis. His interest in movies dwindled. “It’s like falling in love with something I can’t quit,” Fares, 47, said. “There’s not a single day in my life that I don’t think about video games.” During an era of faceless online gaming, Fares has shown time and time again that there is still a market for the communal experience. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013) became an essential part of the indie game revolution. Hazelight, the studio he began afterward, found immediate success with A Way Out (2018), a cooperative prison-escape experience, and then sold nearly 23 million copies of It Takes Two (2021). Hazelight’s newest game, Split Fiction, is a rocket-fast roller coaster ride of science fiction, fantasy and collegiality that has received critical praise. During the game’s eight chapters, which can be played online, two daring scribes travel to fantastical, sometimes surreal environments. Fares said there was usually one key word from which a game blossoms. For Brothers, it was “sorrow.” For Split Fiction, it was “friendship.” Neil Druckmann, the studio director of Naughty Dog whose credits include Uncharted and The Last of Us, called Fares a “high-energy dude” and a “confident artist” who wanted to try things no one had done. He likened Fares’s work to making music. “There’s a little bit of, like, a hip-hop to it, you know, where you’re kind of sampling these ideas,” Druckmann said. “But he’s making them his own.” There are regular nods to pop culture and gaming history in Split Fiction, including “Dune,” Crash Bandicoot and Mario Kart. There is both “The Lord of the Rings” and The Legend of Zelda. The list goes on. In one sequence, Fares borrows a little from the movies “Shrek” and “Babe.” As you control a pig that flies by passing gas, colorful confetti, white stars and a rainbow emerge from the porcine behind. Fares’s personality is regularly described as “eccentric” or “crazy,” and he even pokes fun at his persona. The video of his Oscars outburst — in which he highlighted how video games are an interactive experience — is an Easter egg in It Takes Two. But on a recent video call, Fares, dressed in a beige, cable-stitched sweater, was reflective. Sitting on a beige couch in Hazelight’s office with his feet up on the cushions, he explained how his parents had tried to emigrate to Sweden from Beirut five times before their application was approved. They were eager to get their six children to a peaceful environment far away from the constant bombings of Lebanon’s civil war, which took 150,000 lives and created a million refugees between 1975 and 1990. “The first 10 years of my life was very violent and very harsh,” said Fares, who added that the formative experience built his self-assurance. In 2005, Fares documented his childhood in the midst of war through “Zozo,” a movie that depicted bombs exploding, apartments blowing up and lives eliminated. Oddly but effectively, a shellshocked child befriends a chick he finds on his rooftop. Fares himself had a chicken as a pet, a friend he could talk to amid the real-life devastation he witnessed. When he left it with older chickens, the chick was attacked and killed. “It was traumatic,” he said, a terribly disquieting moment. Several of Fares’s other movies featured his brother, Fares Fares, an actor who went on to appear in the television series “Tyrant,” “Westworld” and “The Wheel of Time.” And as he did with “Zozo,” also Fares’s nickname, he has placed portions of his life in Hazelight’s games, sometimes bravely. At the end of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, there is an emotional burial. “I actually buried my own little brother,” Fares said. “He died in his birth. So he was still a baby. And for some reason, me and my sister went to bury him.” It is here that Fares talked quietly about the need for family and friends. All of Hazelight’s games are cooperative endeavors, played best with two people sitting near each other on the couch. The studio tries to balance its desire for challenging gameplay with its concern of causing too much strife, and the automatic save points in Split Fiction come frequently. “We build up a super hard trust between two people,” Fares said. “And then you all of a sudden, you might trash it and you might have to go against each other. There’s something interesting about that to create this kind of tension between two people.” Earlier in the day, before work, Fares had driven his two young daughters to school. He was now readying to pick them up. Mio and Zoe, the two characters in Split Fiction, are named after his children, he said, “so I can have them with me even when I’m working.” In the game, Mio is introverted and Zoe is extroverted; unlike his children, they do not immediately care for each other’s company. Early on, after each voices a distaste for the other’s favored writing genre, the authors are forced to jump from one moving space vehicle to another, all while under attack. The scene is backed by a sci-fi soundtrack with high-tension synths by the musician Gustaf Grefberg, who has scored all of Hazelight’s games. Grefberg believed in Fares’s vision as soon as he saw a prototype of Brothers. “I begged Josef to work with him,” Grefberg said. Moved by Fares’s excitement and confidence, Grefberg wanted to join a team that had so many new ideas. An annual game jam at Hazelight known as “Freaky Week” generates free-flowing ideas from across the 83-person company. Beyond Fares’s intensity — “When Josef says he wants more action, he says it as if it’s almost like an emotional word,” Grefberg said — he is deeply philosophical. The colleagues have had wide-ranging conversations about the meaning of meditation, Zen concepts and spirituality. That does not mean Fares has lost his ambition. He may even return to filmmaking, if he can find the time. “I believe Split Fiction could potentially be a great movie,” he said. The game already has audiences transfixed.

They were conned by skilled online criminals into draining their retirement savings. After the shock, shame and grief that followed, the victims were often left with something else: an enormous income tax bill. Mary Ellen Strange, a 75-year-old widow who was deceived by fraudsters impersonating federal investigators, now owes the Internal Revenue Service an estimated $100,000 this year. Linda Gilmore, an 80-year-old former nurse, has to pay nearly $50,000. Cindy, 62, and Tina, 51, a married couple in California, owe roughly $250,000 to the federal and state governments. Lori, a sales executive in North Carolina who owed $225,000 in the 2023 tax season, decided that filing for bankruptcy was her best option. (Several victims agreed to participate in this article if only their first names were used because of privacy concerns.) Like thousands of others, they were drawn into cybercriminals’ fabricated worlds, which are built upon intricate plot lines and a mastery of manipulation. They had been led to believe that the scammers were government officials, Amazon fraud investigators or potential love interests, and they were tricked into transferring large sums for any number of concocted reasons. The punishing tax bills arise because the victims pulled from individual retirement accounts or 401(k) plans, where money is taxed when it’s taken out. The withdrawals inflated their incomes, even though the funds disappeared shortly after being passed to the criminals. The victims are left with few options. Ms. Strange lost nearly $378,000 — and that’s before taxes. “It is a double punch,” she said. “It is a gut punch from your own government after you have been robbed blind.” There used to be an easier way for people with the largest tax bills to deduct these losses from their income, using a tax deduction for victims of personal casualties, disasters and theft. But that and many other individual breaks were eliminated or narrowed as part of the Republican-led tax overhaul known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which helped to pay for broader tax cuts, including a reduced corporate tax rate. The current structure of the deduction now treats victims unevenly. It can be used only with certain types of scams, even though all scams are built on a similar foundation of lies, often spun by organized criminals in faraway scam factories overseas. The tax deduction, in its pared down form, says that personal casualty and theft losses can be claimed only in situations like federally declared disasters or “transactions entered into for profit.” That means deductibility now depends on whether the victims had a goal of profiting when they entered into transactions with scammers. Victims who lost money on a sham crypto trading platform operated by criminals working in Thailand, for example, have a more clear-cut path to tax relief than a person who lost the same amount to criminals posing as government officials claiming the money needs to be moved to be protected from a global hacking ring. “This leads to profoundly disparate impacts: those that thought they were making a buck by investing with a cryptocurrency ‘guru’ are better positioned than those who fell victim to a romance scam,” Patrick Thomas, a tax lawyer, said in a letter included in a 2024 report from the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Victims may also qualify for another type of relief, offered after the Bernie Madoff scandal, if their circumstances qualify as something related to a Ponzi scheme, which is also generally investment related. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But the relief options are less clear for the many others lured into different schemes. “It’s a complete inequity in the current system,” said James Creech, a director at the tax advocacy and controversy practice at Baker Tilly, a large accounting and advisory firm in San Francisco. He said there were three reasons people were usually pulled into these schemes: financial, fear and love. “But when you get to fear, that is where you get into the gray area” of the law. He said he still tried to navigate the possibilities for his clients. Some victims who don’t fit neatly within the confines of the casualty loss deduction may still have defensible cases, he said, particularly those who thought they were safeguarding their income-producing retirement money from criminals so that it could continue to grow over time. “But there’s a lot of work to get there,” Mr. Creech said. “This is one of those things where it really involves kind of a deep conversation with the client. My caveat with that is that it’s truly an unknown,” he added. The I.R.S. hasn’t issued any broad guidance for online victims, but some tax lawyers have said they hear it is being developed. To help support a case, tax experts say you need to document everything the moment you realize you’ve been a victim of a scam: File a police report with local officials (though they’re not always familiar with these crimes) and federal ones, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. If you decide to confront your scammers, first take screen shots of any online platforms or apps that you used to communicate with them, as well as online conversations, photos or anything related (such as a snapshot of a company name they used or a web address that you realize isn’t quite right). You should also create a timeline or narrative of the events. “If you don’t have the evidence and the substantiation because it’s 18 months later and you’ve been paralyzed with fear, there isn’t much you can do,” Mr. Creech said. Ms. Strange, the widow who lost nearly $378,000, received the initial call from her scammers last June while her dog was chasing the carpet cleaners in her home, “barking up a storm.” That was the beginning of a seven-week ordeal of transferring money to multiple fake federal agents, using Bitcoin, gold bars and cash, all in an effort to prove her money was indeed hers and not obtained through money laundering. “You think they are taking care of you,” she said, adding they made sure she had enough money to pay for her extensive dental work. “You think they have your interests at heart.” Instead, they took off with her retirement savings, leaving her with $100,000 in an annuity. Ms. Strange is now trying to navigate how to approach her 2024 tax return and liability of $100,000. She said she planned to pay her typical tax amount, and then weigh the options available given her circumstances. One option she is considering is a settlement with the I.R.S. known as an offer in compromise. That allows taxpayers to pay the I.R.S. less than they owe because of an economic hardship, but settlements can be difficult to qualify for, especially for people with any home equity or other assets. “With offers, generally the worse situation a taxpayer is in, the easier it is to get an offer accepted,” said Nancy Rossner, executive director of the Community Tax Law Project, which provides free advice to lower-income taxpayers with complicated tax situations. Lori, whose romantic impostor left her with a $225,000 federal tax bill, decided to pursue a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, where she will pay her creditors, the I.R.S. chief among them, about $5,700 a month for five years. That cleared away the $200,000 in loans she took out to help the impostor with his business, and it allowed her to keep her home and a car — a better outcome than the payment plan the I.R.S. had offered, which was only slightly less but would have left her saddled with the other debts. “I have one choice — and it’s to get through it,” Lori said, adding that she was thankful for her AARP support group. “The real outrage is the protections that were in place through the federal government regarding income tax have been removed. It’s a disgrace.” Ms. Gilmore, the 80-year-old retired nurse, is now living on Social Security benefits and two small annuities, and she has secured affordable housing for $2,100 a month. She was defrauded by an online criminal posing as a priest she had known for 30 years. The scammer reached out to her on Facebook and ultimately made off with all of her liquid retirement savings. That generated a nearly $47,000 tax liability, which includes about $11,000 in state taxes owed to California. The way the states treat these situations can amplify a victims’ losses, tax experts said, generating huge tax liabilities of their own. “I didn’t sleep for seven weeks,” said Ms. Gilmore, who started seeing a therapist and taking a small dose of an antidepressant. She said she was also carrying credit card debt from the scammer. “I’m waiting for a reply from I.R.S. after I sent them papers they requested,” she said. “I reported everything, but I’m sure they can’t do anything about it.” For now, the future of tax relief for victims of online scams is uncertain. The casualty and theft loss deduction is set to spring back in its original form at the end of this year if the sweeping 2017 tax law expires. But Republicans are trying to extend that package. There were efforts in Congress last year to bring attention to these giant tax bills, including the 92-page report from the Senate Special Committee on Aging, led at the time by Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. Other lawmakers drafted legislation to offer more comprehensive and retroactive relief, dating back to 2018 when the deduction was curtailed. But they haven’t made it into law. Even the original casualty loss deduction was limited. It could be claimed only by taxpayers who itemized deductions on their returns, which means the total amount of those deductions had to exceed the standard deduction for it to be worth it. And the deduction applied only to losses that exceeded 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. “It’s really like a triple punch,” said Tina, who, with her spouse, Cindy, lost $1.2 million over six weeks to internet thieves. “We lost all of our retirement, we owe the I.R.S. a lot of money and then we have to go into further debt to hire legal representation.”

Here’s a terrible thing that happens: Thieves pretend they’re you, file a tax return in your name very early in the year, claim a fat refund and run away with the money. When you try to file your own return, the Internal Revenue Service rejects it. After all, according to the agency’s system, your taxes have already been filed. Months, and sometimes years, of hellish red tape ensues. The I.R.S. has a tool called an identity protection PIN, or IP PIN, that can prevent this nightmare in most instances. You register and hand over some personal information so the government can verify you. Then you get a six-digit IP PIN to use when filing your taxes each year. Easy enough, right? But my inbox is filled these days with deep wariness. For weeks now, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deployed individuals inside the I.R.S. to poke at its computer systems. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Readers worried about the possibility of those people breaking something and exposing data accidentally to wider numbers of people. Or that they would inadvertently create vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. They also said they were worried that Elon Musk or others on his team could use the I.R.S. data for nefarious purposes. I’ve gone ahead and gotten my IP PIN anyway. So has James E. Lee, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a former cybersecurity executive who is on an I.R.S. advisory panel. In these highly uncertain times, we can’t be sure who will do what to whom next. But we can know what has already happened to data that the federal government stores. In 2015, the White House revealed that hackers had stolen vast troves of sensitive information about 21.5 million people from the federal Office of Personnel Management. Last year, a former I.R.S. contractor was sentenced to five years in jail for leaking data on thousands of wealthy citizens, including President Trump, to The New York Times and ProPublica. “Any place that stores your personal information, whether the U.S. government or the corner grocery store, is at risk — period,” Mr. Lee said. So if DOGE represents added risk, why not add protection? It’s not a rhetorical question to plenty of readers, so let’s start with an explainer on how the I.R.S.’s IP PIN system works. The Road Trips That Changed Their Lives To begin, you’ll need an online account with the agency if you don’t have one already and complete a brief identity verification process. During that process, you’ll hand over information that the federal government most likely already has — and thus, like any such data, is already there for the taking if thieves or bad internal actors want to put it to nefarious uses. Once you’re registered, generating the IP PIN is quick and easy. You don’t need to save or remember it, either; you can log back in to get it when you need it. (This PIN is different from the five-digit PIN that some people use to file their taxes electronically, and you can have both types.) Then you submit the IP PIN when filing your taxes. The IP PIN will change once per year. The I.R.S. has a thorough F.A.Q. about the IP PIN system on its website. Now consider the downside of not protecting yourself. If thieves file a return in your name — and it has happened to hundreds of thousands of people — you won’t get any tax refund owed to you for a good long while. And to get that money, you’ll spend a lot of unquality time with the I.R.S. re-establishing yourself. And then there’s this: My colleague Andrew Duehren recently reported that the I.R.S. is preparing to reduce its work force by as much as 50 percent. Good luck to anyone trying to fix an identity theft problem if that happens. It could easily take a couple of years. I worry more about the risk of tax-refund fraud than I do about DOGE employees’ work inside the I.R.S. Most of my personal data is already out there somewhere on the dark web or hackable in various places anyway. As the former I.R.S. taxpayer advocate Nina E. Olson, now the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights, told me via email this week, there are still laws about disclosure of taxpayer data. That’s why that I.R.S. contractor went to jail. If DOGE employees or Mr. Musk himself breaks those laws, there will be consequences. And if there aren’t, we will be in a great deal more existential trouble as a country. Ms. Olson said she was going to get her own IP PIN. I wondered if Danny Werfel, the last I.R.S. commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., had already done so. He didn’t want to say when we talked this week. He has a longstanding practice of not getting too personal, lest he look like he’s endorsing a piece of tax-filing software, say. “But I’m a very cautious taxpayer,” he said. “I’ll put it that way.”

A “Friday evening matinee?” To quote the Gershwins, it ain’t necessarily so. But that’s how modern artificial intelligence suggested I hit Broadway. When I was asked to see what A.I. gets right and wrong about visiting New York City, I was deeply curious and felt well qualified for the assignment — I’ve been a resident of Manhattan since 1989, a frequent city tour guide for friends and family, and a journalist who has written about technology (including chatbots) since the 1990s. I sampled several A.I.-planner sites with the same vacation request: Create an itinerary for a trip for two people to New York City from April 17 to 20 that suggests an affordable hotel (less than $250 a night) in the middle of the city, several iconic landmarks or museums, a matinee performance of an award-winning Broadway show and a great pizza stop. I asked for directions for accessible ways to get to each place from the hotel, and then made additional requests for suggestions if children were coming along. While most of the sites offered many of the same classic New York spots, like the Museum of Modern Art, the user experience varied. (Note that all the sampled sites use OpenAI’s software in some way and The Times has an active copyright-infringement lawsuit against OpenAI.) If you are new to the world of A.I. travel planners, here are a few that may appeal to certain types of human travel planners. If you want a friendly interface With its energetic home page full of photos and features, Mindtrip (free) felt like the most welcoming A.I. planner for a newcomer. Its initial itinerary hit most of the top tourist stops, like the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park, with links to the sites’ suggested highlights. Mindtrip also suggested the Pod 51 hotel on East 51st Street (about $303 a night), which is a great location, but rooms in the Pod chain aim for “chic minimalist,” which may not be for everyone, particularly families. The Good: Manhattan sights tends to dominate the list, but Mindtrip suggested going over the Brooklyn Bridge for photo ops and Grimaldi’s Pizza — so points for getting to a second borough. The Bad: The schedule for the third day suggested visiting the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in the morning — and then going to the matinee of “Hamilton.” That seemed unrealistic with timed tours and travel across the city, especially since the Saturday matinee starts at 1 p.m. Swapping the suggested stroll around Rockefeller Center and Times Square from another day in the itinerary made more logistical sense. The Unexpected: When asked for a “hidden gem” to visit, it proposed the Tenement Museum, which reveals a century of New York City history through the experiences of its immigrants. If you require details up front Vacay, (free; $10 a month, for premium plan) another web-based chatbot and planner, had a more text-heavy but clean interface and suggested several of the same city landmarks with relevant links. For those unsure about how to ask for information, the site has a helpful best practices guide for writing A.I. prompts to get the best results. Vacay’s premium plan, designed for frequent travelers, offers more enhanced A.I. models for more specific recommendations, tech support and advice on planning themed vacations. The Good: While it lacked its own maps in the chat window, Vacay’s itinerary planner had more precise advice, not just suggesting Central Park, but recommending Bethesda Terrace and Strawberry Fields within it. And it also named specific bus and subway lines to get to the destinations without requiring a separate request, based on the location of its suggested Pod 39 hotel on East 39th Street (about $290 a night). You can download your chat transcripts, even in the free plan. The Bad: The Vacay bot suggested a “Friday evening matinee” of a Broadway show. The Unexpected: The site advised visiting Top of the Rock for city views, which allows you to include the Empire State Building in your photos, so points for considering the skyline-selfie experience. If ChatGPT is used for everything The popular and pioneering ChatGPT (free; paid plans start at $20 a month for advanced features, like the new Deep Research tool) also recommended staying at the Pod 51 hotel; the Pod people have clearly had an influence on the Bot people. The Good: ChatGPT made sensible plans for multiple activities in the same part of the city, like grouping a morning visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with an afternoon stop at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. The Bad: ChatGPT also suggested a Friday matinee for several Broadway shows, despite the fact that Friday is not a matinee day for any of them. Some predicted walking times were impractical — hoofing it from the theater district to Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street takes much longer than seven minutes; perhaps it really meant the Joe’s near Broadway and 40th Street. The Unexpected: A stroll on the High Line and a visit to Chelsea Market popped up as a suggestion. Which come to think of it, would be very nice on a spring day. If a trusted travel site is vital If you’d prefer to stick with a familiar brand, 25-year-old Tripadvisor is among those offering A.I.-planning help. To build a trip, you just answer a few questions about what you want to do and Tripadvisor presents a screen full of menu choices. Click the desirable options and the site builds a trip schedule. Among the hotel suggestions: the Pod Times Square on West 42nd Street (around $259 a night), leading me to believe if you have “affordable hotel” in your N.Y.C. request, travelbots will suggest a Pod. The Good: Tripadvisor had the best ideas for children, including a stop at the Hayden Planetarium and the Wonderland-inspired Alice’s Tea Cup restaurant. The Bad: The site suggested the Alice’s location on the east side of Central Park instead of the one near the planetarium on the west side. The Unexpected: Tripadvisor, which has a huge repository of user-generated reviews, switched up some of the pizza recommendations to include Don Antonio and Capizzi along with the usual John’s and Joe’s stops. Tripadvisor also had the most cheerful disclaimer: “A.I. isn’t perfect, but it’ll help you hit the ground running.” Every A.I. travel-planner tested here (along with others out there, including Layla, Wonderplan and the mobile-friendly GuideGeek) warn you that the information you get from them may not be correct. Take this to heart and double-check all of it. Another tip: If you’ve never used an A.I. travel planner before, keep in mind that asking for everything in one big query can lead to some muddled responses. Start with the basic outline of the trip, like finding a hotel in a certain area for specific dates, and then ask about local attractions, transit directions, restaurant recommendations and other information in subsequent requests to build out your itinerary. While A.I. planners are still mostly used for research and planning, autonomous A.I. agents like OpenAI’s Operator could soon be booking your trips as well, and you’ll really want to make sure that itinerary is correct.

House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their prepandemic level. Now, with the spring home buying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled. Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the home buying process, consumer advocates say home buyers need to be their own watchdogs. “Now, when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled,” said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away.” Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT What role has the consumer bureau played in home buying? The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-8 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders. In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to “wrongful” foreclosures. On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender’s lawyers said Draper and Kramer “considers the matter closed and denies” the bureau’s claims, but chose to settle in part to avoid “protracted legal costs.” What has changed under the Trump administration? Since President Trump took office on Jan. 20, the consumer bureau has taken a hands-off approach. Last month, it dropped legal action against Rocket Homes Real Estate, which had been accused in December of illegally steering prospective borrowers to an affiliate, Rocket Mortgage. In an emailed statement, Rocket Homes said it “has always connected buyers with top-performing agents based only on objective criteria like how well they helped home buyers achieve their dream of homeownership.” The bureau also dropped a suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, for making loans to buyers of manufactured homes who it knew could not afford to repay them. A rule requiring mortgage lenders to verify that borrowers are able to pay was a key aspect of changes put in place after the financial crisis, when many people lost their homes because they couldn’t make their loan payments. In a prior statement, Vanderbilt said the lawsuit was “unfounded and untrue, and is the latest example of politically motivated, regulatory overreach.” Vanderbilt also said it exceeds legal requirements for assessing a borrower’s ability to pay. Alys Cohen, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said the bureau had effectively stopped overseeing if lenders were complying with consumer protection laws. Other federal regulators oversee banks, she said, but their main focus is an institution’s overall safety and soundness, rather than its treatment of consumers. States also regulate banks and other lenders. “People may be exposed to high prices and hidden relationships they may not know about,” she said. (The center has joined a lawsuit opposing the administration’s efforts to dismantle the consumer bureau.) The consumer bureau didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on its activities. The relaxed oversight comes as buyers navigate what has been a challenging housing market. Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement that “it’s evident that elevated home prices and higher mortgage rates strained affordability” in January, when pending home sales fell almost 5 percent. Mortgage rates have dipped recently, with the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan falling to 6.63 percent as of Thursday, down from 6.76 percent a week earlier, the mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac reported. How can home buyers manage costs and reduce risks? Research by the consumer bureau found that only about half of borrowers shop for better terms and interest rates when taking out a new home loan or refinancing a mortgage. That may be because getting quotes takes time, and consumers may get confused when comparing complex choices, leading them to rely on a loan officer they already know or a single referral from a real estate agent or friend. Yet shopping around with different lenders to compare costs can save borrowers thousands of dollars, according to research from Freddie Mac. Getting two rate quotes could save as much as $600 annually, and getting at least four quotes could save more than $1,200 a year, Freddie Mac said. Home buyers use referrals from their real estate agents for providers like title insurers and home inspectors, but borrowers should shop around for these providers as well, housing advocates say. The consumer bureau found last year that home loan closing costs had risen significantly, in part because rising interest rates were leading more borrowers to pay upfront for “discount points,” to reduce the rate on their loans. Ms. Cohen, of the consumer law center, also suggested taking a home buyer education course, particularly if you are a first-time buyer. (Lenders may require the courses in some cases, such as if you seek help with a down payment.) The courses, offered in person or online, help shoppers understand what’s involved in finding, financing and owning a home, including how to select a lender. To find a course approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, check the agency’s website. What if I run into a problem with my mortgage or my home lender? You can file a complaint with the consumer bureau, although it’s unclear if complaints are being processed. “The law stands,” Ms. Cornelissen said. “It’s just harder to enforce” without the bureau. In a court filing this week, the chief of staff for the bureau’s office of consumer response said that many people “are not receiving timely responses to their complaints” and that for those facing urgent situations, like losing their home to an imminent foreclosure, “there is simply no one at the C.F.P.B. to help.” Christopher Peterson, a professor at the University of Utah’s Quinney College of Law and an expert in consumer law, said, “I still think it’s worth complaining.” It’s not yet clear, he said, how legal fights over efforts to “de-staff” the consumer bureau will be resolved, but the law requires the bureau to maintain a complaint process. After showing an error message for weeks, the consumer bureau’s website now opens directly onto its complaint portal. You can also complain to the consumer protection arm of your state attorney general’s consumer office, Mr. Peterson said. State regulators may not always have the same resources and expertise as federal agencies, he said, but they may take on a larger enforcement role if the consumer bureau is diminished. Ms. Cohen also noted that if you had certain types of government-backed mortgages, like one insured by the Federal Housing Administration, you could contact HUD’s national servicing center, which works with borrowers to prevent foreclosure. Cuts to HUD’s budget may curtail the servicing center’s functions, she said, but as of now it remains an option. Can I take my mortgage lender to court? Some consumer loans require private arbitration of disputes outside the courts, but that’s not the case with mortgages, Mr. Peterson said. If you believe you were overcharged or otherwise mistreated, you can bring legal action yourself. Such claims can be complicated, he said, but because a home purchase “can affect your financial destiny for a long period of time,” a lawsuit may be worth it. One way to find a lawyer who specializes in consumer rights law is to search the website of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

Millie Bobby Brown has spoken out against a series of articles criticizing her appearance during her ongoing press tour for the Netflix film, “The Electric State.” On Monday, the “Stranger Things” actor posted a video on Instagram where she called out the media for “bullying” and “tearing young women down,” and addressed each journalist that had scrutinized her looks by name. Over the past week, Brown has been the subject of several articles after she debuted a blonde ‘90s blowout while promoting her new film. While the platinum look, paired with ‘90s and Y2K-inspired ensembles, generated excitement among fans who hoped that it was Brown’s way of hinting at her role in a Britney Spears biopic, other publications criticized the actor for having “aged far beyond her years.” Brown, whose career in the entertainment industry began at 10 years old, fired back at articles that questioned the changes in her appearance as she matured. Among those she called out had headlines such as “What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face?” and “Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone’s mom as she guides younger sister Ava through LA”. “I grew up in front of the world, and for some reason, people can’t seem to grow with me,” said Brown on Instagram. “Instead, they act like I’m supposed to stay frozen in time, like I should look the way I did on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 1. And now because I don’t, I’m a target.” Brown, now 21, pointed out that the focus on her looks was not only cruel but reflected the unrealistic standards directed at young women. “The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, it’s disturbing,” she said. “The fact that some of these articles are written by women? Even worse.” She isn’t the only star who has fought back at judgmental comments made about their appearance in recent years. In 2023, Madonna similarly took to Instagram after photos of her performing at the Grammys went viral — sparking comments that she was “obsessed with plastic surgery” (the singer has never publicly addressed rumors of cosmetic enhancements). The 66-year-old musician wrote that “ageism and misogyny… permeates the world we live in,” adding that the world “refuses to celebrate women past the age of 45.” Brown’s Instagram video — which, at the time of writing, has 1.6 million likes, accumulated in less than 12 hours — has received an outpour of support from A-listers such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Sharon Stone, Matthew Modine and Winnie Harlow. Brown herself ended the post on a defiant note: “I refuse to apologize for growing up,” she said. “Let’s do better. Not just for me, but for every young girl who deserves to grow up without fear of being torn apart for simply existing.”

A Reddit drama shared by a user has drawn multiple outraged comments about what constitutes appropriate behavior, or not, at birthday celebrations involving cake, kids and family etiquette. "I was just at my girlfriend's mom's birthday party," wrote a user on the social media platform. "We'd ordered an expensive cake for her and split the cost three ways with her sisters." The man added that his girlfriend's brother, "who never contributes to any of the shared presents, brought his spoiled 2-year-old kid." While "everyone was singing 'Happy Birthday,' the kid started sticking his hands into the cake and licking them, and picking off the decorations," the man said. The man said he "looked around in horror," but the brother and his wife "were just smiling at this, like it was the absolute cutest thing ever, and everyone else was totally unfazed and said nothing." "People were saying, 'Aww, you poor little thing,' and giving him cake." However, he finally "reached over and moved the cake a few inches out of reach of the kid." The man said the child "started thrashing around and screaming bloody murder. Everyone glared at me like I was the most evil [person] on earth for doing what I did and rushed to placate the kid." "People were saying, 'Aww, you poor little thing,'" the man continued, "and giving him cake." The man said he then told others "calmly and rationally" that "what the kid was doing was incredibly unhygienic, it wasn't his birthday cake and he's old enough to be taught to wait literally one minute until he gets a slice of cake instead of destroying someone else's birthday cake and covering it with his germs." The man said he's now been told that he "ruined the birthday party." And it's "the entire family's reaction," he added. "It's making me start to question whether or not I am just a grumpy a--hole," he went on, and asked others for their input. Some 6,000 people have reacted to the post so far — but not all the insights were in support of the man and his actions. "They are the ones who decide if they are cool with a toddler's behavior or not." One person wrote, "You moved the cake and the toddler had a fit. They appeared to be OK with it. Even if this is nasty." The same person added, "If they are all OK with the toddler doing this, then I would NEVER eat anything from your girlfriend or her family. You don't know what else they think is OK." Another commenter took a different point of view. "At a gathering of someone else's family in their own house, they are the ones who decide if they are cool with a toddler's behavior or not," wrote this person. "You're not [wrong] for moving the cake - tons of people would have moved that cake on instinct," the same individual said. "I would not even fault someone for saying, 'Oh, sorry, I reacted quickly by moving the cake because I didn't know if you were worried about little Ebenezer getting messy' — and then pointedly looking at the mess." But, "you're a bit of an a--hole for explaining to them about germs. Read the room," the person continued. "Obviously they think it's cute and don't care that it's gross (which it is)." Yet another commenter provided more nuance. "Worth remembering that the child is only 2 years old - behavior like sticking their hands in things and throwing tantrums is developmentally normal for that age." "Moving the cake was absolutely in everyone's best interest." The person added, "Of course, no child should be allowed to touch other people's food and moving the cake was absolutely in everyone’s best interest." However, wrote this same individual, "while there are issues with your partner's family, a child should not be the object of your rightful frustration with her family." Said another person, "Is this a family that you want to marry into and raise children around?" A clinical psychologist previously recommended "transparent and honest" conversations about family conflicts — noting that this is the best path toward a clear resolution.

These days, airlines are happy to shower you with sign-up bonuses and juicy earning multipliers to get you to spend on their credit cards. It’s supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship: You get award travel, and the airlines get record profits. Delta Air Lines, for example, earned nearly $2 billion from its American Express partnership in just the last three months of 2024 — up 14 percent from the previous year. The problem, though, is that the points and miles you earn are buying less travel than they used to. Just look at British Airways, which increased some partner award prices by 60 percent in under a year, or Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue, which recently raised the number of points needed for awards between 14 and 25 percent. What’s behind this wave of devaluations, and more important, what can you do about it? The answer lies in understanding how dramatically airline loyalty programs have evolved — and knowing where to look for remaining sweet spots before they vanish. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Airline miles feel inflation, too The fundamental problem is simple: too many points chasing too few seats. “What we’ve seen over time is a lot of miles being printed, and we haven’t seen a concomitant increase in the number of unsold airline seats available for redemption,” said Gary Leff, an airline industry expert who writes about airlines and loyalty programs on his blog, View From the Wing. When frequent-flier programs began, planes averaged only about 65 percent full. Once a flight took off, those empty seats could never be sold, so airlines used points and miles to fill them. Today, planes run closer to 85 percent capacity or higher. Simultaneously, credit card partnerships have airlines issuing more points than ever, and most airlines have switched to dynamic award pricing that fluctuates with demand. “For almost any other business in the world, marketing is an expensive line item. For airlines, it’s a massive profit center,” Mr. Leff said. “They’re able to take the currency they’ve created and lend it to other businesses for a fee because people want it so much,” he added, referring to the way that airlines sell their points to credit card companies and other businesses, which use them as consumer incentives. The result? For most Americans, who hold the bulk of their points in major U.S. airline programs, award prices are soaring. “When you’re booking with domestic airlines — think United, American Airlines or Delta — the points-to-actual-cash value that you find is not that big,” said Tim Qin, co-founder of the award travel search engine Roame. United’s MileagePlus program, for instance, now routinely charges up to one million miles for business-class tickets that once cost 150,000 miles. Why traditional sweet spots are vanishing Even when seats are available, the patterns for booking them have shifted significantly. Airlines used to reliably release award seats at two key times: when schedules first opened (usually 330 to 360 days before departure) and one to two weeks before the flight. The time window is now often even shorter. Airlines are also restricting partner bookings. Airline alliances — including OneWorld (where American is a member), SkyTeam (Delta) and Star Alliance (United) — allow you to use one airline’s miles to book flights on partner carriers. For example, you can use United miles to book flights on Singapore Airlines, or American miles to book on Qantas Airways. Some carriers now restrict their best awards to their own rewards program members, rather than making them available to alliance partners. That forces travelers to navigate an increasingly complex web of programs and rules. “Lufthansa used to release their first-class seats to Air Canada Aeroplan within two weeks of departure,” Mr. Qin said. “They first narrowed it down to one week, and now I believe they’re close to three days.” The changes extend beyond timing, too. British Airways, which had long offered some of the best rates for short American Airlines flights within the United States, raised those award prices twice in seven months. A domestic U.S. flight that cost 7,500 Avios (British Airways’ points currency) in late 2023 now requires 12,000 Avios — if you can find space at all. Yet value still exists if you know where to look. “Iberia’s program is lesser known,” Mr. Qin said. “You can fly Iberia from the U.S. to Europe for about 42,000 points in business class.” You can also book on Qatar Airways, a sought-after long-haul carrier, using Iberia’s program, he added. “Most people in the U.S. don’t really think about Iberia. It’s not one of those talked-about programs like Air France or British Airways.” Your 2025 strategy So how can travelers navigate this shifting landscape? Start by focusing on transferable credit card points rather than airline-specific miles. This allows you to redeem your earned points with multiple frequent-flier programs. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Rely less on the airline to just offer you a good deal,” Mr. Leff said. “Often you want two cards: one that earns multiple points in the category where you spend the most, and one that pairs in the same ecosystem from the same bank that earns 1.5 or two points per dollar.” This means using two cards from the same bank — for example, pairing Chase’s Sapphire Preferred with its Freedom Unlimited card to pool their earned points. This flexibility proves crucial as sweet spots move between programs. Virgin Atlantic, for instance, charges just 90,000 miles for ANA first-class flights to Japan. That same seat would cost 220,000 United miles. Even Flying Blue, Air France-KLM’s program, still offers business class to Europe for 60,000 points — notably less than what many U.S. carriers charge. Premium Amex and Chase credit cards allow points transfers to multiple airline programs — meaning cardholders aren’t tethered to one airline’s availability. For families seeking multiple premium seats, timing becomes crucial. “If you’re going to Europe, you may be pleasantly surprised with Flying Blue because they offer multiseat availability even at their saver rates,” Mr. Qin said, referring to the lowest-priced award tickets airlines offer. Some carriers, like Japan Airlines, often release blocks of award seats within two weeks of departure. Mr. Leff recommends booking what’s available on your primary airline, and then watching for better options. Since most programs now waive change fees on award tickets, you can switch if partner space opens up. Just note that once you transfer flexible points to an airline, you can’t transfer them back. Perhaps most important: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good. “Remember, the best points are what’s best for you. If you need to book an economy-fare flight because that makes sense, do it,” Mr. Qin said. “Don’t always shoot for the perfect or the ideal, because you’ll just never use your points and they’re going to devalue.”

With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily. “Everything is on pause right now,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace with Consumer Reports. “So it’s back on consumers to be extra diligent.” Ms. Hand previously spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including overseeing complaints and consumer education, before departing in 2022. In early February, the Trump administration ordered the consumer bureau to mostly cease operations. It closed its Washington headquarters, fired some employees and put most of the rest of the staff on administrative leave, and opted not to seek funding for its activities. Several lawsuits are challenging the administration’s actions. On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered the bureau to halt firing workers and not to delete data, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday. The administration, however, has already dialed back enforcement — dropping, for instance, a suit accusing an online lender of promoting free loans that actually carried high interest rates. On Thursday, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit that it had brought in January accusing Capital One of cheating customers out of some $2 billion in interest. It’s a stark change for an agency that had been energetic in adopting rules and filing lawsuits aimed at aiding consumers. Under the Biden administration, the bureau moved to reduce or eliminate various fees charged by banks and other financial firms and to remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports, and it fined a major credit reporting bureau for misleading consumers about credit freezes. Where does this leave consumers? Jennifer Tescher, chief executive of the Financial Health Network, a nonprofit that helps people make sound financial decisions, said laws protecting consumers remained in place, so people shouldn’t fear that financial firms would immediately start behaving badly. The financial firms, she noted, rely on consumers for their business. Even so, consumers need to be “asking questions and verifying the fine print before opening a new account or taking out a loan,” she said, and they should carefully check their financial statements. Here are some areas to pay attention to, according to consumer experts. (The consumer bureau didn’t respond to emails sent to its press office seeking comment.) In December, the consumer bureau finished a rule that generally limited overdraft fees charged by big banks and credit unions to $5. But banking groups have challenged the rule in court, and Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to overturn it. Banks charge overdraft fees when customers overspend their accounts. The bank covers the shortfall, but charges a fee. The average overdraft fee last year was about $27, but ranged as high as $38, according to Bankrate. Some big banks have already reduced or eliminated overdraft fees, in part because of competition from digital payment start-ups. If you occasionally need the service to cover cash shortages, consider if it may be worth changing to a bank with lower or no fees. Review bank customer satisfaction rankings, like those published by J.D. Power, to see if you can find better treatment elsewhere, Ms. Tescher said. Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, said consumers should double-check to see if they had authorized their bank to cover payments when they overspend. If you don’t want to run the risk of incurring a fee, you should opt out. That way, if you make a purchase with your debit card that would overdraw your balance, the bank will simply decline the purchase. (Banks, however, can still charge a fee if you overspend using a check or recurring electronic payments. You can’t opt out of those fees.) The consumer bureau also moved last year to limit late fees on credit cards to $8. The average late fee is around $30, but can be as high as $41, according to Wallet Hub. That rule is on hold, after banking and business groups sued. You could consider switching to a card with low or no late fees. The Citi Simplicity credit card charges no late fees, and the Discover It Cash Back card allows one fee-free late payment. (It charges up to $41 thereafter.) What about payment apps and other digital tools? Pay particularly close attention when using financial technology, or “fintech,” products, said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, including peer-to-peer payment apps. Such “nonbank” firms are generally less closely regulated at the federal level than traditional banks, he said. The consumer bureau completed a rule in November allowing it to supervise large payment firms. That rule is being contested in court and is now under review by the bureau. Ms. Hand at Consumer Reports said that while some payment apps had significantly improved their fraud protections, some types of scams remained a concern, particularly a variety where criminals trick someone into transferring money to them. Because the user “authorized” the transaction, she said, it can be difficult to recover the stolen funds. If you’re paying someone new with an app and something doesn’t feel right, hold off and pay with another method, like a credit card, which carries robust fraud protections, she said. Consumer Reports also suggests promptly moving cash balances out of payment apps to a federally insured bank account. Many people accumulate funds in the apps and treat the apps as if they were checking accounts. But it may not always be clear if the money is as protected as in a standard bank account. Penny Lee, chief executive of the Financial Technology Association, which represents fintech companies including payment apps, said in an emailed statement that the industry was regulated “by a variety of consumer protection laws and agencies at the federal and state levels, including but not limited to the C.F.P.B.” Regardless of the change in administrations, she said, “those facts do not change.” Do I have to worry about medical debt hurting my credit score? In January, the consumer bureau completed a rule to remove unpaid medical debts from credit reports, saying such debt doesn’t accurately reflect a person’s creditworthiness and, because of the complexities of medical billing, is often reported incorrectly. (Hospitals and doctors typically don’t report unpaid bills to credit bureaus, but they may send them to collection agencies, which then report to the credit bureaus.) The rule was scheduled to take effect on March 17, but industry groups sued to stop it, and the bureau effectively agreed this month to delay the rule. Some improvements, however, have already occurred. The major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — in 2022 voluntarily agreed to exclude medical debts that had been paid, as well as those that were less than a year old. That allowed consumers more time to clarify what was owed. And as of April 2023, the credit bureaus stopped including any medical debts for amounts under $500. About 5 percent of Americans had unpaid medical debt as of June 2023, down from 14 percent in March 2022, the consumer bureau said. If you are having trouble paying a medical bill, consumer experts recommend first confirming that the amount is accurate and, if it’s not, contesting it with your provider or insurer. If it is valid, see if your doctor or hospital will allow you to negotiate a lower amount by paying in full up front. If not, ask about payment plans or special assistance programs that can help cover the cost. Where can I complain if I have a problem? People “need to speak up about losing money in an unfair way,” said Nadine Chabrier, senior policy and litigation counsel with the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group. Start by complaining directly to the company you are having a problem with, whether online or by phone. You can also still submit a complaint to the consumer bureau. Although the bureau’s homepage displayed an “error” message this week, the online portal for accepting complaints was still available. Ms. Tescher noted, however, that “it’s not exactly clear” if someone is reviewing complaints. You can also complain to the bureau by phone, at 855-411-2372. You can also contact the attorney general’s office in your state, Ms. Tescher said. Most have consumer protection arms.

Federal student loan borrowers are temporarily unable to apply to income-driven repayment plans, a decades-old safety net that ties their monthly loan payment size to household income levels, as the U.S. Education Department reviews a recent federal court ruling. The department closed applications to the repayment plans last week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld and expanded a temporary suspension of the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, known as SAVE. That income-driven program, a centerpiece of the Biden administration’s policy agenda with eight million enrolled borrowers, generated lower payments than previous plans. Given its high cost, SAVE became the target of two separate legal challenges last spring by two groups of Republican-led states, which argued that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority. The SAVE plan has been in legal limbo ever since, and participants’ payments have been on hold since last summer. But last week, applications to the three other income-driven plans were also taken down — older programs that hadn’t been subject to any litigation. That effectively shut the door to more affordable plans for borrowers in financial distress, and eliminated a crucial component needed to participate in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — at least temporarily. “The department is reviewing repayment applications to conform with the Eighth Circuit’s ruling,” a spokesman for the Education Department said Thursday, adding that it updated information for borrowers on StudentAid.gov, including on a page about court actions related to SAVE. Here’s what we know now. The situation is fluid, so we’ll update as circumstances change. What just happened? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a temporary ban on a portion of the SAVE plan issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The appeals court sent the case back to the District Court with instructions to expand the preliminary injunction to the entire SAVE rule (though other legal rulings had already temporarily suspended the program). But the appellate court didn’t stop there: The judges also said the secretary of the Department of Education lacked the explicit authority to grant loan forgiveness in any Income-Contingent Repayment plans, even though it has been done for more than three decades. (Borrowers make monthly payments equal to a percentage of their discretionary income, which varies across income-driven plans. But after a set number of years, usually 20 to 25, any remaining balance is canceled.) “This is a radical departure from how this statute has been interpreted and administered for nearly 30 years,” said Michele Zampini, senior director of college affordability at the Institute for College Access and Success, a research and advocacy group. The Education Department posted a banner on its website that said the injunction prevented it from administering SAVE and parts of other income-driven plans — and, as a result, applications for those plans and online loan consolidations were unavailable. It is important to remember that the decision is not final and that litigation is continuing, said Abby Shafroth, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. “But the decision is very worrying for borrowers who depend on the SAVE plan to manage their payments and work toward being debt free,” she said. What’s likely to happen next? Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, an industry group, said he would expect that applications for at least one of the income-driven plans, known as Income-Based Repayment, would become available again “as soon as practical.” The reasons are complicated: That’s because the Income-Based Repayment plan was created as part of a July 2009 law, which explicitly permits loan cancellation at the end of the repayment term, whereas SAVE was a regulation established by the department using authority established under a 1993 law. The states that initially brought the lawsuit argued that loan cancellation wasn’t explicitly permitted under the 1993 law, and the appellate court sided with that interpretation. But the department has relied on that authority to create three other income-driven programs, all before SAVE, each of which incrementally improved on the plans before it. They were Income-Contingent Repayment, introduced in 1994; Pay as You Earn (PAYE), introduced in 2012; and Revised Pay as You Earn (REPAYE), which became available in 2015 and was replaced by SAVE. Are income-driven loan applications being processed now? No, all applications have been temporarily halted, according to Mr. Buchanan, of the alliance. He said that the servicers had received instructions to stop processing the income-driven and loan consolidation applications for three months, but that he expected they would receive additional guidance in the coming weeks. Monthly payments are still being collected on the other existing income-driven plans (Income-Based Repayment, Pay as You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment) while SAVE borrowers remain in an interest-free forbearance while the litigation continues. Is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program still available? Yes, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is still open to government and nonprofit employees such as public schoolteachers, librarians and public defenders. After 120 qualifying payments are made, any remaining balance is wiped out. But there is currently one major obstruction: Most borrowers need to be enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan to be eligible for loan cancellation, and it’s not possible to apply to any of those plans right now. If you’re already in a qualifying repayment plan, however, and you become newly eligible for the public service program (because of a new job, for example), you can still enroll. But if you’re in the SAVE plan, where payments have been halted because of the ongoing litigation, your qualifying payments have also been put on hold — and you can’t make any progress toward forgiveness. The public service program, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007, is not at risk right now, and student loan experts say there isn’t a broad appetite to dismantle the popular program, which would require Congress to pass a bill. What if I’m close to making all of my payments in the public service program, but I am stuck in the SAVE plan? More than two million people are enrolled in the public service program, and hundreds of thousands of them are approaching the finish line: 21,700 borrowers have made enough payments to qualify for cancellation, while 330,100 had made 97 to 119 qualifying payments as of Dec. 31, according to data from the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office. Borrowers who are enrolled in the SAVE plan and have nearly enough qualifying payments currently have few good options. “Borrowers stuck in SAVE can either wait for the I.D.R. applications to open back up and switch to another I.D.R. plan,” said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a group that provides free guidance to borrowers. “Or ride out the SAVE forbearance and plan on using what’s called ‘buy back’ to get credit for those months once they have certified 120 months of eligible employment.” Using the so-called buy back option, borrowers would need to make payments for the months their payments were paused in forbearance. Given the history of the complex program and the fact that many borrowers had found themselves in nightmarish situations and unable to receive forgiveness, be sure to document and keep copies or snapshots of everything — your work history with your eligible employer, all qualifying payments, recertification applications, all of it. What are my options if I can’t afford payments (because I lost my job or some other reason)? There are other options besides income-driven repayment plans that can generally be requested through your loan servicer or the company that manages your payments. Borrowers can temporarily pause payments through deferments or forbearance, but those programs have different eligibility requirements and consequences, largely because of the way interest is treated. “Borrowers can receive deferments for things such as economic hardship or being unemployed,” said Ms. Mayotte of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors. “Forbearances are generally applied in cases of less specific financial hardship.” There are other repayment plans that can lower your monthly obligation: graduated repayment, where payments start lower and rise over time, and extended repayment, which lowers the monthly payment by lengthening the loan term. Simply consolidating your loans can also lower your monthly payments by extending the repayment period, but there are drawbacks. You may have a higher interest rate on all of your debt, and you’ll end up paying more overall. And Ms. Shafroth, of the law center, said she would be wary of consolidating until it was clear whether the latest legal development would block all income-driven repayment regulations introduced in 2023. Those rules included a provision that protected borrowers from losing all of their payments that counted toward cancellation of income-driven loans. Before the rule, loan consolidation restarted that clock. Will I be penalized if I cannot recertify my loans? Each year, borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans must recertify their income or face negative consequences, including being kicked out of the repayment plan. But those applications are also not available right now. For now, it’s not something you need to worry about, Mr. Buchanan said. The loan servicers have been instructed to push back those deadlines on a month-by-month basis, and will be in touch with borrowers when they receive more clarity from the Education Department. The Trump administration is focused on cutting programs. Won’t it stop defending the SAVE plan in court? It would seem logical. But several student loan experts said the administration might have strategic reasons to keep SAVE alive, at least for a while. Republicans may be able to make changes to the program through the enormous budget package that Congress will attempt to pass using a process known as reconciliation. That may enable Republicans to capture and cut the projected spending from SAVE to fund other initiatives. “There is interplay between this and reconciliation, where I think they are trying to legislate SAVE off the books to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, instead of ending the program through the courts,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group. The Education Department did not immediately comment. If I’m in a plan like SAVE that may close, will I be grandfathered in? It’s hard to know exactly what will happen. When the Biden administration replaced the REPAYE income-driven repayment plan with the SAVE program, REPAYE enrollees were automatically transferred into the new plan. But in that case, they were receiving improved terms. Still, it may be more difficult to take something away. “It’s too soon to say for sure,” said Ms. Shafroth, of the law center. “Existing borrowers may have contractual rights to the key benefits in these programs, regardless of whether they’re currently enrolled in them.” That may be why proposals to streamline income-driven programs have typically grandfathered in existing borrowers, she added, and eliminated the plans only for new borrowers.