The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) said Tuesday that they have launched an effort to mobilize banks and other lenders to distribute small-business loans authorized by the coronavirus relief law President TrumpDonald John TrumpIllinois governor says state has gotten 10 percent of medical equipments it’s requested Biden leads Trump by 6 points in national poll Tesla offers ventilators free of cost to hospitals, Musk says MORE signed last week.

The coronavirus relief package created a nearly $350 billion program under which businesses with 500 or fewer employees can receive loans of up to $10 million. The loans will be forgiven if businesses use the funds to cover payroll costs and other operating expenses in the eight weeks following loan origination.

Treasury and the SBA both have launched webpages with information about the program. The SBA’s webpage includes a link to the application form for borrowers and fact sheets about the program for both lenders and borrowers.

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Tuesday’s announcement comes after Mnuchin said Monday that he hoped documents about the program would become available that day. Mnuchin reiterated on Tuesday that he expects businesses to be able to start to apply for and receive loans on Friday.

“This legislation provides small business job retention loans to provide eight weeks of payroll and certain overhead to keep workers employed,” Mnuchin said in a statement. “Treasury and the Small Business Administration expect to have this program up and running by April 3rd so that businesses can go to a participating SBA 7(a) lender, bank, or credit union, apply for a loan, and be approved on the same day.”

Treasury’s fact sheet for borrowers states that small businesses and sole proprietorships will be able to start applying for loans on Friday through existing SBA lenders, and self-employed people and independent contractors will be able to start applying for loans through existing SBA lenders on April 10. Other lenders will be able to start to make loans through the program once they are approved.

“This unprecedented public-private partnership is going to assist small businesses with accessing capital quickly,” SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said. “Our goal is to position lenders as the single point-of-contact for small businesses – the application, loan processing, and disbursement of funds will all be administered at the community level.”

The small-business loan program is one of several aspects of the new coronavirus relief law that Treasury has been providing information about in recent days. Other areas of the package that Treasury has been working to implement include direct payments to individuals, a new tax credit designed to encourage businesses to retain their workers and aid to the airline industry.

Updated at 3:17 p.m.

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Trump administration officials announced Wednesday that the U.S. military would send naval ships and aircraft to the Caribbean as part of an enhanced counternarcotics operation.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpBiden campaign: Trump and former vice president will have phone call about coronavirus Esper: Military personnel could help treat coronavirus patients ‘if push comes to shove’ Schumer calls for military official to act as medical equipment czar MORE and other top officials discussed the operation at the top of a White House coronavirus briefing Wednesday evening. Trump said it was important not to let drug cartels “exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives.”

Defense Secretary Mark EsperMark EsperEsper: Military personnel could help treat coronavirus patients ‘if push comes to shove’ Overnight Defense: 2,700 sailors evacuating coronavirus-stricken carrier | Military to send ships, aircraft for counter-narcotics effort amid pandemic | Trump alleges Iranian plot for ‘sneak attack’ on US troops in Iraq Trump announces enhanced counternarcotics operation at coronavirus briefing MORE said the Pentagon would deploy additional ships, aircraft and security forces to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility as part of the operation.

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“At a time when the nation and the Department of Defense are focused on protecting the American people from the spread from the coronavirus, we also remain vigilant to the many other threats the country faces,” Esper told reporters.

“Today, at the president’s direction, the Department of Defense, in close cooperation with our interagency partners, began enhanced counternarcotics operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea,” he continued.

The announcement came at the top of a regular White House briefing dedicated to the response to the coronavirus pandemic and provided some counterprogramming to the administration’s usual announcements about efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 throughout the United States.

The Defense secretary described the operation as part of the administration’s “whole-of-government approach to combating the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and protecting the American people from their scourge.”

Later, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley seemed to expand on Trump’s earlier remarks, suggesting that the U.S. military obtained intelligence suggesting that Mexican drug cartels were trying to exploit the domestic focus on the spread of the coronavirus.

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“We came upon some intelligence some time ago that the drug cartels as a result of COIVD-19 were going to try to take advantage of the situation and try to infiltrate additional drugs into our country,” Milley said, without providing further detail. “We’re at war with COVID-19, we’re at war with terrorists, and we’re at war with drug cartels as well.”

Asked to address the announcement, Trump said it was important to the administration to focus on reducing the flow of illicit drugs into the country.

Attorney General William BarrWilliam Pelham BarrTrump announces enhanced counternarcotics operation at coronavirus briefing Trump administration makes push for transitional government in Venezuela Brooklyn man accused of lying about hoarding medical supplies, coughing at officers MORE, who also participated in the announcement, predicted the operation would “radically improve” U.S. interdiction efforts in addition to putting pressure on drug cartels.

Trump, answering questions from reporters later, said it was important to him to focus on drugs and hoped the operation would prevent a “good percentage” of illicit narcotics from coming into the U.S. 

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The Netherlands defender urged supporters to keep themselves safe and continue to follow government advice on the Covid-19 pandemic

Virgil van Dijk says Liverpool’s players are missing the fans and the buzz of a matchday – but that people’s health is the most important thing.

Liverpool’s last game before the coronavirus pandemic halted European football was the 3-2 Champions League defeat to Atletico Madrid on March 11.

Action is unlikely to resume in the immediate future, and matches with fans look set to be a long way off – but the Dutch defender passed on a message to the Anfield faithful through the club’s official website.

The endorsement of Cecilia Malmström and Algirdas Šemeta as members of the next European Commission hit a late hitch this evening because of a row between liberal and centre-right MEPs.

German MEP Manfred Weber, spokesman for the European People’s Party group in Parliament’s civil liberties committee, raised concerns about Malmström’s performance in her hearing, delaying work on the evaluation letter that the committee must submit to Jerzy Buzek, Parliament’s president. Malmström, who is a member of the Swedish liberal party, has been assigned the dossier of commissioner for home affairs.

Parliament’s liberal group responded by preventing the budgetary control committee from adopting its evaluation letter on Šemeta, commissioner-designate for taxation, customs union, audit and anti-fraud.

MEPs did, however, this evening finalise their letters of evaluation of Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner-designate for the digital agenda, and Olli Rehn, the European commissioner-designate for economic and monetary affairs, taking the tally of letters to Buzek to 23.

All the letters sent to Buzek, including those for Kroes and Rehn, recommend that the Parliament should approve the commissioner-designates. In Kroes’ case, approval was secured only after a second round of questioning from MEPs, which took place yesterday. Both Kroes and Rehn were judged to have been disappointing in their hearings.

MEPs have provisionally planned a hearing for Kristalina Georgieva, Bulgaria’s new commissioner-designate, on 3 February. Boyko Borisov, Bulgaria’s prime minister, nominated Georgieva on Tuesday (19 January) as a replacement for Rumiana Jeleva, who withdrew her candidacy on Monday.

The final hearings for other members of the new college were completed on Tuesday.

The Parliament’s political group leaders will meet at 10am tomorrow morning to make an initial evaluation of the hearings.

Buzek said today that Parliament’s vote on whether to approve the new Commission would take place on 9 February. Parliament has to give its approval before commissioners can be sworn into office on 10 February.

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Alors que le mystère planait autour de la mort de Mathieu Montcourt, l’autopsie conclut à une mort naturelle.

Le décès du joueur de tennis français Mathieu Montcourt, dans la nuit de lundi à mardi, serait naturel. L’autopsie a été pratiquée mercredi matin, à l’Institut Médico-Légal de Paris. «D’après ces premiers éléments, nous concluons à une mort naturelle. Il faut toutefois attendre le résultat des analyses toxicologiques, qui devraient être disponibles la semaine prochaine, pour en être totalement certains», a précisé à l’AFP cette source policière.

Classé 119 e joueur mondial au dernier classement ATP publié, Montcourt avait passé sa dernière soirée chez Patrice Dominguez, directeur technique national de la Fédération française de tennis, avec le fils de ce dernier, Mathieu.

Mathieu Dominguez et son père ont été entendus mardi par la police. Patrice Dominguez déclarant n’avoir rien remarqué de spécial. Mathieu Montcourt était apprécié de tous dans le monde du tennis, qui pleure l’ancien espoir de la petite balle jaune.

Mercredi 8 juillet 2009

Une fin de non-recevoir. Le président vénézuélien Nicolas Maduro a rejeté, dimanche 27 janvier, l’ultimatum lancé par plusieurs pays européens lui donnant huit jours pour convoquer des élections. Son pays n’est “pas lié” à l’Europe, a-t-il déclaré dans une interview à la chaîne CNN Turk.“Ils devraient retirer cet ultimatum. Personne ne peut nous donner d’ultimatum”, a déclaré Nicolas Maduro dans cet entretien. Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Londres, Bruxelles et Lisbonne ont exigé, samedi, la convocation d’élections sous huit jours au Venezuela. Si ce n’est pas fait, ces capitales reconnaîtront le chef du Parlement et président autoproclamé Juan Guaido comme chef de l’Etat.Une élection jugée frauduleuseLa Russie, qui soutient Nicolas Maduro, a qualifié cet ultimatum “d’absurde”, tandis que le ministre vénézuélien des Affaires étrangères l’a jugé “puéril”. Le président turc avait exprimé son soutien à Nicolas Maduro dans un entretien téléphonique jeudi.Les Etats-Unis, le Canada, la plupart des pays d’Amérique latine alignés sur Washington et certains Européens estiment que l’élection présidentielle du mois de mai était frauduleuse. Nicolas Maduro, qui a remporté ce scrutin boycotté par l’opposition, a entamé un second mandat. Pour l’instant, l’armée reste fidèle au chef de l’Etat sortant.Click Here: brisbane lions guernsey 2019

La Cour pénale internationale (CPI) a libéré sous conditions l’ancien président ivoirien Laurent Gbagbo. Une décision prise vendredi 1er février, à la suite de son retentissant acquittement il y a deux semaines de crimes contre l’humanité commis en 2010 et 2011 lors de violences post-électorales en Côte d’Ivoire. “Il est impossible de limiter la liberté d’une personne innocente”, a répété à maintes reprises l’avocat de Laurent Gbagbo.
“La Chambre d’appel a décidé à l’unanimité l’ajout d’un ensemble de conditions qui assortissent la mise en liberté” de Laurent Gbagbo, dont l’obligation de résider dans un Etat membre de la CPI en attendant un éventuel procès en appel, a déclaré le juge président de la CPI. Dans leur décision, dernier épisode en date d’un feuilleton judiciaire qui tient en haleine la Côte d’Ivoire, les juges n’ont pas précisé le nom du pays qui accueillerait Laurent Gbagbo, ni si un retour de l’ancien président dans son pays était envisageable.En détention depuis plus de sept ansLa Côte d’Ivoire est bien un des Etats membres de la Cour. Toutefois, ce pays a refusé de remettre à la CPI Simone Gbagbo, épouse de l’ancien président, malgré un mandat d’arrêt délivré en ce sens. La Cour, qui siège à La Haye (Pays-Bas), pourrait donc refuser le retour de Laurent Gbagbo en Côte d’Ivoire dans l’attente d’un éventuel procès en appel.En détention depuis plus de sept ans à La Haye, Laurent Gbagbo était jugé pour des crimes commis pendant la crise de 2010-2011, née de son refus de céder le pouvoir à son rival, l’actuel président ivoirien Alassane Ouattara. Les violences avaient fait plus de 3 000 morts en cinq mois.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiOvernight Health Care: White House projects grim death toll from coronavirus | Trump warns of ‘painful’ weeks ahead | US surpasses China in official virus deaths | CDC says 25 percent of cases never show symptoms 14 things to know for today about coronavirus Hillicon Valley: Trump, telecom executives talk coronavirus response | Pelosi pushes funding for mail-in voting | New York AG wants probe into firing of Amazon worker | Marriott hit by another massive breach MORE (D-Calif.) and more than 50 state Democratic officials advocated strongly on Tuesday for Congress to give states more funding to support mail-in and absentee voting efforts as part of the next coronavirus stimulus bill. 

“In terms of the elections, I think that we’ll probably be moving to vote by mail,” Pelosi said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. “That’s why we wanted to have more resources in this third bill that just was signed by the president to get those resources to the states to facilitate the reality of life that we are going to have to have more vote by mail.”

The coronavirus stimulus package signed into law by President TrumpDonald John TrumpIllinois governor says state has gotten 10 percent of medical equipments it’s requested Biden leads Trump by 6 points in national poll Tesla offers ventilators free of cost to hospitals, Musk says MORE last week included $400 million to allow states to adapt the upcoming primary and general elections during the coronavirus crisis. 

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That amount was far lower than the $4 billion proposed by Pelosi as part of the House version of the stimulus bill, which also would have required states to send absentee ballots to every registered voter and expand early voting. The final coronavirus stimulus package did not include any requirements for how states must use the $400 million.

Pelosi said on Monday that she was disappointed the stimulus did not include funding for the U.S. Postal Service to send ballots to Americans, and said she hoped public opinion would help to push Republicans to support more funding for elections in the next coronavirus stimulus bill. 

“The integrity of the election system is central to our democracy, [and] how anyone could oppose our enabling the states to have vote by mail raises so many other questions,” Pelosi said. “But let’s just be hopeful and have public opinion weigh in on that.”

Pelosi’s comments were made the day after Trump rejected the idea of putting requirements on states for how to run elections during the coronavirus pandemic. 

“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you ever agreed to, you would never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of drawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy.”

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But Democrats are not backing down in the fight to get states more funding to allow elections to move forward.

A group of 51 state Democratic Party chairpersons co-signed an open letter on Tuesday strongly urging Congress to “immediately appropriate at least $2 billion” to states to support efforts to expand early voting, vote by mail, voter registration and voter education. 

“Every state is currently unprepared to address the seismic shift in election administration necessary to ensure the 2020 election proceeds during a pandemic and must start implementing these changes by mid-April,” the Democratic officials wrote. “The funding is needed right now to protect the 2020 election.”

The efforts come as several states are postponing their primaries due to concerns around the coronavirus pandemic, and after the few states that went ahead with in-person votes in March saw low turnout. 

Many states have already taken steps to make election adjustments, including in Maryland, where the Board of Elections is considering eliminating in-person voting during the primaries. In Georgia, the state is moving ahead with sending absentee ballot request forms to every voter, and in Iowa, the period to vote by mail ahead of the June primary has been extended. 

“Action to safeguard our electoral system cannot wait,” the Democratic leaders emphasized in their letter. “In a matter of weeks, millions of Americans across several states will be asked to vote in municipal and primary elections, and they deserve better than the impossible choice between preserving their well-being and casting their ballots.”

A Justice Department watchdog has identified additional errors in the FBI’s surveillance warrant application process after reviewing more than two dozen Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications, according to a new publicly released memo. 

Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz informed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday that his office did “not have confidence” the FBI was properly following the Woods Procedures, an FBI policy that requires officials to provide supporting documentation to back up factual assertions made in FISA applications. Such applications seek to wiretap individuals on U.S. soil in national security cases.

This review piggybacks on a damning report released in December that found errors and omissions in a FISA application and its renewals that targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page as part of the government’s investigation into Russian interference.

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“As a result of our audit work to date and as described below, we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” Horowitz wrote in a management advisory memorandum to Wray.

“Specifically, the Woods Procedures mandate compiling supporting documentation for each fact in the FISA application. Adherence to the Woods Procedures should result in such documentation as a means toward achievement of the FBI’s policy that FISA applications be ‘scrupulously accurate.'”

Horowitz discovered these additional problems after visiting eight FBI field offices and reviewing a selected sample of 29 FISA applications that were tied to both counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations between October 2014 and September 2019. 

Out of a selected sample of 29 FISA applications, the FBI was unable to locate Woods Files for four or a reason they weren’t completed. Horowitz and his team found an average of 20 issues per each of the other 25 applications they reviewed.

In other words, he discovered problems with all the applications he studied. 

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“While our review of these issues and follow-up with case agents is still ongoing—and we have not made materiality judgments for these or other errors or concerns we identified—at this time we have identified an average of about 20 issues per application reviewed, with a high of approximately 65 issues in one application and less than 5 issues in another application,” Horowitz found.

He found that FISA requirements related to applications involving a Confidential Human Source (CHS) were “not being consistently followed,” including information about the handling agent or CHS coordinator who must verify that the facts presented in the FISA application regarding the CHS’s reliability and background.

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And the team found the FBI “is not consistently” re-verifying, as required, the original statements of fact when filing FISA renewal applications, in which the case agent must confirm that the facts laid out in the application “remain true” in addition to providing supporting documentation for any new statements that are made.

Horowitz, who says he is continuing to examine the matter, could also find other deficiencies in his ongoing review. His new audit does not appear to review the hefty case files for fact omissions.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpIllinois governor says state has gotten 10 percent of medical equipments it’s requested Biden leads Trump by 6 points in national poll Tesla offers ventilators free of cost to hospitals, Musk says MORE and his allies have long claimed that top government officials cut corners to seek the wiretap on Page during the 2016 election out of bias against Trump, but Horowitz’s latest memo indicates that the issues may be far more pervasive and systemic. 

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“As a result of these findings, in December 2019, my office initiated an audit to examine more broadly the FBI’s execution of, and compliance with, its Woods Procedures relating to U.S. Persons covering the period from October 2014 to September 2019,” Horowitz wrote.

Horowitz also emphasizes that he did not weigh in on whether these errors had a material effect on the entire surveillance application. 

“During this initial review, we have not made judgments about whether the errors or concerns we identified were material. Also, we do not speculate as to whether the potential errors would have influenced the decision to file the application or the FISC’s decision to approve the FISA application,” he continued.

“Our review was limited to assessing whether the FBI’s Woods Files included documentation to support the factual statements in its FISA applications as required by FBI policy; we did not review case files or other documentation to confirm FISA application accuracy or identify any relevant omissions.”

Still, Horowitz raised concerns about the handling of the FBI FISA applications.

“We believe that the repeated weaknesses in the FBI’s execution of the Woods Procedures in each of the 29 FISA applications we reviewed to date— including the 4 applications for which the FBI could not furnish an original Woods File—raise significant questions about the extent to which the FBI is complying with its own requirement…” Horowitz wrote.

Horowitz said he will continue to examine FISA applications as well as expand the audit to include FISA application accuracy efforts performed within the National Security Division of the FBI. 

He also recommended that the FBI not only make sure each application has a Woods File, but that it also institute regular and systematic examinations of accuracy reviews, which he says will enhance training among agents and improve the process of completing the Woods Procedures for the FISA applications.

The FBI, in a statement issued with the memo, accepted the findings. It also said that it is already in the midst of taking steps to address FISA deficiencies after the 2019 report on the omissions and errors in Page’s wiretap, but it will incorporate the recommendations Horowitz set forth in his latest memo as well.

The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) said Tuesday that they have launched an effort to mobilize banks and other lenders to distribute small-business loans authorized by the coronavirus relief law President TrumpDonald John TrumpIllinois governor says state has gotten 10 percent of medical equipments it’s requested Biden leads Trump by 6 points in national poll Tesla offers ventilators free of cost to hospitals, Musk says MORE signed last week.

The coronavirus relief package created a nearly $350 billion program under which businesses with 500 or fewer employees can receive loans of up to $10 million. The loans will be forgiven if businesses use the funds to cover payroll costs and other operating expenses in the eight weeks following loan origination.

Treasury and the SBA both have launched webpages with information about the program. The SBA’s webpage includes a link to the application form for borrowers and fact sheets about the program for both lenders and borrowers.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tuesday’s announcement comes after Mnuchin said Monday that he hoped documents about the program would become available that day. Mnuchin reiterated on Tuesday that he expects businesses to be able to start to apply for and receive loans on Friday.

“This legislation provides small business job retention loans to provide eight weeks of payroll and certain overhead to keep workers employed,” Mnuchin said in a statement. “Treasury and the Small Business Administration expect to have this program up and running by April 3rd so that businesses can go to a participating SBA 7(a) lender, bank, or credit union, apply for a loan, and be approved on the same day.”

Treasury’s fact sheet for borrowers states that small businesses and sole proprietorships will be able to start applying for loans on Friday through existing SBA lenders, and self-employed people and independent contractors will be able to start applying for loans through existing SBA lenders on April 10. Other lenders will be able to start to make loans through the program once they are approved.

“This unprecedented public-private partnership is going to assist small businesses with accessing capital quickly,” SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said. “Our goal is to position lenders as the single point-of-contact for small businesses – the application, loan processing, and disbursement of funds will all be administered at the community level.”

The small-business loan program is one of several aspects of the new coronavirus relief law that Treasury has been providing information about in recent days. Other areas of the package that Treasury has been working to implement include direct payments to individuals, a new tax credit designed to encourage businesses to retain their workers and aid to the airline industry.

Updated at 3:17 p.m.