Virus review: Senate Republicans preparing $500B relief proposal; more universities go remote
Senate Republican leaders are preparing a slimmed-down virus relief package of roughly $500 billion that will include extended payments for unemployed people and smaller businesses, a GOP senator said Tuesday.
The package will also include $10 billion for the embattled Postal Service, said one top GOP aide. The agency has become the focus of a campaign-season battle over whether it will have enough resources to handle an expected flood of mail-in ballots for this November’s presidential and congressional elections.
The fight between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats has become a critical political battle that weaves together Trump’s troubled handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the deeply wounded economy.
Negotiations over a far larger coronavirus relief bill are expected to resume after Labor Day between the White House and top congressional Democrats. With Democrats demanding that bargainers piece together a wide-ranging measure, the trimmer package emerging from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other top Republicans seems to be an effort to show voters what the GOP would favor enacting quickly.
In other developments:
- The virus that closed down North Carolina’s flagship public university is making its mark on colleges — and college towns — around the United States. Some universities are reconsidering plans to hold in-person classes or implementing new testing regimes. Others are threatening crackdowns on students who get too close with others, in violation of social distancing rules.
- The University of Notre Dame on Tuesday canceled in-person undergraduate classes for two weeks after a spike of coronavirus cases that occurred since the semester began Aug. 10. Michigan State University also canceled all in-person instruction for the fall semester.
- Facing mounting public pressure and a crush of state lawsuits, President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general announced Tuesday he is halting some operational changes to mail delivery that critics blamed for widespread delays and warned could disrupt the November election.
- With the Trump administration openly trying to undermine mail-in voting this fall, some election officials around the country are hoping to bypass the Postal Service by installing lots of ballot drop boxes in libraries, community centers and other public places.
- More than a half-dozen cities, counties and civil right groups have sued the Trump administration, saying there was no justification for its decision to cut the 2020 census short by a month during a pandemic.
- Wall Street clawed back the last of the historic, frenzied losses unleashed by the new coronavirus, as the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high Tuesday.
- The pandemic has accelerated a power shift in the fashion and advertising world, with models and influencers by necessity wielding more control over their own images during remote photo and video shoots.
- Whether college football players play a lot in the fall, a little in the spring or not at all over the next 10 months, some athletic administrators want to give them all a mulligan on the 2020-21 season in terms of eligibility.
- Americans turned to Walmart and Home Depot for supplies and do-it-yourself projects as they stayed close to home at a time when new cases of virus surged, resulting in soaring sales for their fiscal second quarter.
- Rates of depression appear to have almost doubled in Britain since the country was put into lockdown in late March as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the country’s official statistics agency.
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