Tag Archives: coronavirus pandemic

House bill extends U.S. highway funding, boosts airport funding

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday proposed spending $14 billion to shore up a trust fund that pays for airport improvements and air traffic control operations, as well as to extend surface transportation programs.

Earlier this year, Congress agreed to suspend taxes on passenger airline tickets, cargo and fuel for the remainder of 2020. Significantly reduced travel demand because of the coronavirus pandemic and the tax suspension has led to a major shortfall in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund.

The bill also proposes extending surface transportation funding for another year. Congress has struggled for years to find a way to fund highway repairs as gasoline tax revenue has lagged spending. The House bill proposes directing $13.6 billion from the general fund to maintain current spending levels on highways and mass transit.

House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman Peter DeFazio said “with this one-year extension in place, we can continue work on a long-term, transformational bill.”

Representative Sam Graves, the top Republican on the panel, said the extension provides “immediate, desperately needed certainty to state DOTs and transportation and construction industry workers.”

On June 15, Reuters and Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration was preparing an infrastructure package of up to $1 trillion focused on transportation projects as part of its push to spur the world’s largest economy back to life.

After weeks of internal debate, the White House opted not to make the plan public ahead of the November presidential election, sources told Reuters.

In July, the House approved a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package to boost spending on roads, bridges, public transit and rail over 10 years – a plan the White House rejected.

Since 2008, Congress has transferred about $141 billion to the Highway Trust Fund, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Congress has not boosted the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax since 1993. That tax is now worth just 10.2 cents after adjusting for inflation.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. Gulf Coast tourism, already stung by pandemic, slammed by Hurricane Sally

By Devika Krishna Kumar

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Hurricane Sally made a direct hit on the U.S. Gulf Coast this week, dealing a blow to a popular tourist destination already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. In the storm’s aftermath, many bar and restaurant owners were breathing a sigh of relief the damage was not worse.

Sally bulled its way through this stretch of beach towns and condos in Alabama and Florida, making landfall on Wednesday as a powerful Category 2 hurricane and bringing extensive floods that destroyed numerous piers and caused two riverboat casinos under construction to break free of their moorings.

Max Murphy, general manager of Crabs, a seafood and steak restaurant in Pensacola Beach, Florida, said the hurricane’s late eastward turn left residents unprepared.

“Everyone in the community expected it to keep going straight west to New Orleans or Gulfport (Miss.), but it took that turn so we weren’t really prepared,” Murphy said. “I didn’t even get the plywood up on my windows, because I wasn’t expecting it to come here.”

The damage from Hurricane Sally could range from $8 billion to $10 billion, well above earlier estimates of $2 billion to $3 billion, said Chuck Watson of Enki Research, which tracks tropical storms and models the costs of their damage. The hit to tourism revenues may not be fully known for months.

The U.S. leisure and hospitality industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. The Gulf region is a popular driving destination for the entire Southeast and Texas, peppered with restaurants, casinos and amusement parks.

Baldwin County, Alabama, where the hurricane made landfall, was the state’s most-visited county in 2019, according to the state tourism bureau, bringing in $1.7 billion in travel-related revenue.

In the Pensacola region, approximately 22,900 people were employed in that industry in August, a 13% drop from March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mike Bose, a manager at the Flora-Bama beach bar in Perdido Key, Florida, which hugs the Alabama state line, said the damage was still being assessed. More than 24 hours after the storm made landfall, parts of the restaurant were still flooded.

“We got quite a bit of water damage throughout, which we’re working on today,” Bose said. “There’s no telling at this point what the cost is to get back on track.”

Some tourists and visitors say the hurricane has scared them away from a return visit. Toni Galloway from Kansas City, Missouri, was visiting the Gulf area when Sally struck.

“This was my first hurricane. I wouldn’t want to weather another one. It’s frightening. I will have to think long and hard about returning to the Gulf Coast,” she said.

Murphy, the Crabs general manager, said the damage from this hurricane was less extensive than others like Hurricane Ivan, which hit 16 years ago at Category 5 strength. “That’s enough damage for the season. We don’t want anymore. We got lucky, we really did.”

John Perkins, 71, got to Gulf Shores, Alabama, on Sunday night from Tennessee to attend a wedding. Instead, he found himself hunkering down with his wife as the winds blew for hours.

“I told my wife – we can mark this off our bucket list. We rode out a hurricane,” he said.

(Reporting By Devika Krishna Kumar in Pensacola, Florida; additional reporting by Jennifer Hiller in Houston; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Timothy Gardner)

Michigan court rules that late arriving ballots must be counted

By Michael Martina

DETROIT (Reuters) – A Michigan judge ruled on Friday that mailed ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 must be counted in the state as long as they are received within two weeks after the Nov. 3 election, the latest move by a U.S. court to protect voting rights in the pandemic.

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Diane Stephens made the ruling in a case brought by the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans, and argued for by Marc Elias, an elections lawyer working with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign.

The ruling said the ballots must be received “by the clerk’s office no later than 14 days after the election has occurred,” and would apply to this year’s election as a special provision due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Late arriving ballots “are eligible to be counted in the same manner as all provisional ballots” up until the time when the election is certified, Stephens said.

Elias, in a tweet, called the ruling a “major victory for voting rights” in the state, though it is likely to be appealed.

“This helps rectify issues with delays from the USPS, while relieving pressure on voters to make sure their ballot is received in time to be counted,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chairwoman Lavora Barnes. “This is a victory for every voter in Michigan.”

Democrats and Republicans have clashed over the rules for voting by mail ahead of the November election, when there is expected to be a surge in mail voting because of the virus.

That has led to controversy over whether the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will be able to handle the mail rush in time to ensure that voters who mailed their ballots would not be disenfranchised.

The Michigan ruling also cleared the way for anyone to help deliver a person’s ballot to clerks “between 5:01 p.m. on the Friday before the election and the close of polls on Election Day,” a practice normally banned under law unless the delivery is done by a family member, an election official or mail carrier.

The ruling came a day after Pennsylvania’s top court ruled that state officials can accept mail ballots up to three days after the election, as long as they were mailed by Election Day.

But not all courts have moved to expand voting rights.

A federal appeals court last week rejected Texas Democrats’ bid to allow all state residents to vote by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic, ruling that the state’s law extending that right only to those over 65 was not unconstitutional age discrimination.

Another federal appeals court last week said Florida could require felons to pay all fines, restitution and legal fees they face before they can regain their right to vote.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Berkrot and Jonathan Oatis)

White House to announce $11.6 billion aid for Puerto Rico: Fox News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House plans to announce an $11.6 billion aid package for Puerto Rico, focused on the territory’s energy and education systems, to help the island recover from the devastation brought by 2017’s Hurricane Maria, Fox News reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

Puerto Rico was already struggling financially before the deadly hurricane struck three years ago, and filed a form of municipal bankruptcy for the commonwealth in 2017 to restructure about $120 billion of debt and obligations.

Since then, the U.S. commonwealth has been hit by more hurricanes, earthquakes, the coronavirus pandemic and political upheaval, and has been the target of increased federal scrutiny into its use of U.S. aid. A large portion of its financial distress was linked to the territory’s power utility.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; editing by Susan Heavey and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. median income hit record high before coronavirus hit, Census says

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. median household income hit a record high in 2019 and the poverty rate fell, according to a government survey released on Tuesday that offered a snapshot of the economy before millions of American jobs were destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Census Bureau said real median household income jumped 6.8% from $64,324 in 2018 to $68,703 last year – the highest since the agency began tracking the data in 1967.

It also said the nation’s poverty rate fell last year to 10.5%, a 1.3-percentage-point drop. Another measure of poverty that adjusts for government aid programs for low-income Americans showed a drop to 11.7% last year from 12.8% in 2018.

At the same time, however, the number of people without health insurance for at least part of the year hit 29.6 million, up one million from the year before. The number of uninsured children also grew.

The report offered a look back at the state of the economy before the novel coronavirus outbreak hit the United States early this year, shuttering many businesses as the country sought to contain the pandemic.

Since then, more than 6.5 million people in the United States have contracted the highly contagious virus and more than 194,000 have died. Vast swaths of the economy were devastated and 22 million Americans were thrown out of work.

While activity is now rebounding, economists warn that the recovery may be uneven as federal stimulus money runs out with no signs of replenishment from Washington. A potential second wave of COVID-19 infections this autumn and winter as people move back indoors also looms large.

President Donald Trump, who had staked his re-election on economic gains before the outbreak, has downplayed impact of the virus and the risk of another wave, as he has urged states to fully re-open. He has also repeatedly touted gains on Wall Street – a narrow gauge of economic performance – and pledged to rebuild the economy if he wins a second term.

His Democratic rival in the Nov. 3 election, former Vice President Joe Biden, has said the gains since COVID-19 emerged have been uneven and have left many segments of the working population still reeling.

“Those at the top see things going up. But those in the middle and below see things getting worse. And we have leaders who bear false witness, want us to believe that our country isn’t gone off track,” Biden said on Monday.

A Reuters/Ispos poll in late August showed American’s support for Trump’s handling of the economy has slipped.

The income and poverty data for 2019, the last year of the economic expansion following the 2007-2009 Great Recession, “do not reflect the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic or the current recession,” Census’ Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division chief David Waddington told reporters on a conference call.

Census officials and private economists cautioned that the COVID-19 outbreak impacted data collection as the agency suspended in-person interviews earlier this year.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Tim Ahmann; additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy)

Spiking U.S. gun sales deluge FBI’s background check system, cause delays

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – A surge in people buying guns since the coronavirus pandemic began has flooded the FBI’s background check system, causing a spike in the number of delayed checks and allowing gun sales to proceed without them, FBI data disclosed on Tuesday showed.

Gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety obtained FBI data through a Freedom of Information Act request.

There has been a 54% increase in the number of background checks that were delayed past three days in the March through July period, as compared with the same time last year, the data shows.

More than 5% of the 5.86 million background checks conducted during those months this year were delayed past three business days, it showed.

More Americans are trying to buy guns than ever, according to FBI data. The bureau conducted 93% more background checks in that March through July period this year as compared with the same period the previous year, when it conducted 3.03 million checks.

Background checks may have become more difficult to complete as state law enforcement and other government agencies housing records may have been closed or slower in replying to FBI requests because of the pandemic’s impact on staffing, said Rob Wilcox, deputy director of policy at Everytown.

If an FBI background check takes longer than three business days, a gun dealer can sell the firearm to a buyer, under current regulations.

That worries groups like Everytown because it means thousands of people prohibited by law from owning guns – such as most convicted felons – may have obtained them as the FBI background check was delayed.

“They should have allocated the people and resources needed to conduct these background checks,” said Wilcox.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When asked in April about the spike in background checks caused by increased gun sales, the FBI said its system was “operational and will continue to process requests.”

U.S. gun sales have soared this year, sparked by fears of social unrest because of the pandemic, violence seen on the streets of American cities during protests for racial justice, and the turbulence over the presidential election.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Timothy Gardner)

Trump administration rolls back U.S. inspection rules for egg products

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Wednesday it will stop requiring U.S. plants that produce egg products to have full-time government inspectors, in the first update of inspection methods in 50 years.

Under a new rule that takes effect immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow companies like Cargill Inc and Sonstegard Foods to use different food-safety systems and procedures designed for their factories and equipment.

The change marks the Trump administration’s latest move to ease government regulations over the nation’s food system. Some inspectors and public-interest groups have warned food safety may suffer as a result.

The new rule affects 83 plants that USDA has been inspecting, according to the agency. USDA will also assume oversight from the Food and Drug Administration of additional facilities that produce egg substitutes.

Inspectors will visit plants once per shift, instead of being there whenever egg products are being processed.

The change, first proposed in 2018, makes inspections consistent with those for meat and poultry products, said Paul Kiecker, administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Inspectors will operate under a “patrol” system, in which they will cover multiple plants each day, he said.

“We feel very confident that, based on the once per shift that we have them there, we’ll still be able to verify that they’re producing safe product,” he said.

Environmental group Food & Water Watch said in 2018 the patrol system may make inspections less effective.

The new rule aims to make better use of inspectors and allow companies to develop new food-safety procedures, Kiecker said.

Companies must implement standard operating procedures for sanitation and food-safety management systems known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

“We are giving them more of the responsibility to ensure that they are producing safe products,” Kiecker said.

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted egg product sales this spring, as closures of restaurants, schools and offices reduced demand.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Tom Brown)

McConnell says U.S. needs ‘another boost’ as coronavirus relief talks continue

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said the U.S. economy needs an “additional boost” to cope with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, as his Democratic counterparts and White House officials try to hash out a next wave of relief.

As talks neared the end of their second week, the four principal negotiators – a group that does not include McConnell – appeared to be near agreement on some topics, but still trillions of dollars apart on major issues including the size of a federal benefit for tens of millions of unemployed workers.

McConnell said he agreed with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that agreement is needed on another aid package, even though some of his fellow Republicans in the Senate do not think so.

“I think we need an additional agreement,” the Republican Senate leader told CNBC, adding “the economy does need an additional boost.” Nonpartisan analysts say McConnell’s Republicans face a risk of losing their Senate majority in November’s elections.

McConnell continued to insist that unemployment benefits in any deal should be adjusted downward and that the agreement should include liability protections against lawsuits for reopening businesses during the pandemic.

Mnuchin was due to join fellow Republican Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and the two top congressional Democrats, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, for talks on Capitol Hill at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

Others not in the negotiation room considered their own actions, as Republican senators said they had been told that no deal by Friday would mean no deal at all.

Republican President Donald Trump stood ready to use executive orders to address issues such as unemployment benefits and protections against evictions if talks failed, according to Meadows.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio told reporters that the Senate on Thursday could also take up a new version of the Payroll Protection Program that provides financial assistance to small businesses in the form of forgivable loans.

Congress passed more than $3 trillion in relief legislation early in the pandemic. But lawmakers missed a deadline last week to extend the $600 per week in enhanced unemployment payments that played a key role in propping up the economy.

Pelosi and Schumer have pushed for a comprehensive package of assistance for the unemployed, the poor, hospitals, schools and state and local governments.

“The leader and I are determined that we will come to agreement. But it has to meet the needs of the American people,” Pelosi said.

Mnuchin has warned that the Trump administration would not accept “anything close” to the $3.4 trillion in new aid sought by Democrats. Senate Republicans have proposed a $1 trillion package that many of their own members have rejected.

Stacey Abrams warns not to expect a U.S. presidential winner on Election Night

By Alessandra Galloni

(Reuters) – Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams warned Americans on Tuesday not to expect to learn the winner of the White House on Election Night Nov. 3, as problems delivering and counting an expected flood of mail-in ballots prompted by the coronavirus pandemic could delay the result and draw a flurry of legal challenges.

“The sheer volume of people who will be voting by mail is going to preclude the ability to count those ballots and adjudicate the outcome of the election by 11 p.m. on Election Night,” Abrams, a Democrat and former leader in Georgia’s state legislature, said in a virtual Reuters Newsmaker event.

The public health crisis has drawn litigation in dozens of states from both major parties. Democrats and voting rights groups have pushed voting by mail as a safer option to cast ballots during the pandemic, while President Donald Trump and his allies have proclaimed without evidence that expanded voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud.

Abrams, once considered a possible running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said cuts in Postal Service overtime imposed by Louis DeJoy, a new Trump-appointed postmaster general, may cause delays in service as voting by mail ramps up.

“And so my admonition is that we have to approach Nov. 3 with patience,” Abrams said.

A Postal Service spokesman said last week the agency was taking steps to increase operational efficiency and ensure prompt and reliable service.

Several primaries this year experienced long delays in counting and naming winners because of the mail-in ballots. Ballots from New York’s June 23 primary are still being counted in some undecided races, including a congressional contest.

Abrams said states hurt by the economic collapse lack the resources to handle a deluge of mail-in ballots, and are going to need to determine whose ballot should be questioned and who needs to provide additional information.

“But we also can’t ignore that the president has put in place a postmaster general who is slowing down the essential delivery of mail… We know that’s going to lead to a number of legal challenges,” Abrams said.

Abrams, 46, gained national prominence after narrowly losing her 2018 bid in Georgia to become the country’s first Black female governor. She accused Republican opponent Brian Kemp of voter suppression after he refused to resign as the state’s top elections officer while campaigning for governor.

Abrams, who later formed a voting rights group, Fair Fight, called on Trump and other Republicans to fund more than $3 billion in assistance to state election officials in the coronavirus relief bill being negotiated in the U.S. Senate.

Trump, who trails Biden in opinion polls, has raised a series of questions about the integrity of the election. Last week he suggested delaying the election due to the likelihood of fraud, though he does not have the authority to do so.

‘VOTER SUPPRESSION’ THE ISSUE

Election experts say voter fraud of any kind, including incidents related to mail-in ballots, is extremely rare.

“Voter fraud is not the issue. Voter suppression is the issue,” Abrams said.

She said the election funding would help state officials deal with an expected crush of mail-in ballots, as well as provide adequate polling sites for in-person Election Day voting to resolve some of the problems seen in recent primaries in Wisconsin, Georgia and elsewhere.

“The United States knows how to run elections, we just have to agree to do it properly,” she said. “Our bottom line is we have to have a full toolbox of methods of voting.”

Asked whether she had been interviewed by the Biden campaign as a potential running mate, Abrams declined to comment, referring questions on the process to the campaign. But she said she feels qualified for the job and would serve if Biden asked.

Her chances at the spot have faded in recent months as other candidates emerged as more likely selections, according to conversations with Democratic officials and Biden allies. Biden is expected to announce his running mate next week, ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

Abrams said Black voters were motivated to defeat Trump in November. They became a focus in the campaign after the racial and social justice protests in American streets sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white police officer.

The first dip in Black voter turnout in 20 years contributed to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s upset loss to Trump four years ago.

“Even if people don’t necessarily feel enthusiastic about the person that is Joe Biden, they are enthusiastic about the policies that are Joe Biden, and that’s what I think is going to matter in November,” Abrams said.

(Reporting by Alessandra Galloni, Joseph Ax and Colleen Jenkins; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Howard Goller)

U.S. extends non-essential travel restrictions with Canada, Mexico

By Mica Rosenberg and Frank Jack Daniel

NEW YORK/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Tuesday it would extend existing restrictions on non-essential travel at land ports of entry with Canada and Mexico due to continued risks from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“This extension protects Americans while keeping essential trade and travel flowing as we reopen the American economy,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement, without specifying an end date to the extension.

The travel restrictions had already been extended several times and were set to expire on June 23, according to a related U.S. government notice. A DHS official said the latest extension would run for 30 days.

Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a tweet on Tuesday that the travel restrictions across the country’s border with the United States would continue for 30 days.

The United States said it was in “close contact” with both countries on its northern and southern borders about the restrictions, which were first imposed in mid-March. The Trump administration had already extended indefinitely a separate set of pandemic-related rules that permit rapid deportation of migrants caught at U.S. borders.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday said in a statement it was again postponing hearings for thousands of migrants who have been waiting in Mexico for U.S. immigration court hearings.

The Justice Department, which runs the immigration court system, said the hearings for those in the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols program would be on hold until July 20.

“This will alleviate the need for travel within Mexico to a U.S. port of entry while pandemic conditions in Mexico remain severe,” the Justice Department said. The controversial program has stranded migrants – many of them seeking asylum in the United States – in Mexico for months.

Hundreds have been living in squalid tent camps near the U.S.-Mexico border, which health experts and immigration advocates have said leaves them vulnerable to coronavirus infections.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington D.C.; Editing by Paul Simao and Steve Orlofsky)