May, 2020

Today, the U.S. Small Business Administration, in consultation with the U.S. Treasury Department, announced that it is setting aside $10 billion of Round 2 funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to be lent exclusively by Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). CDFIs work to expand economic opportunity in low-income communities by providing access to financial products and services for local residents and businesses.

The members of the bipartisan commission voted 6-0 on Wednesday to advance the plan to send applications to roughly 2.7 million of the state’s nearly 3.4 million registered voters. The unanimous vote came a week after the panel failed to reach agreement on who should receive the ballot applications.

Parents in several states nationwide are "shocked" to find they can't withdraw their children from public school, the largest U.S. legal organization for homeschool families told Fox News... Public school districts receive funding based on the number of students enrolled in their system and thus lose funding when parents opt to homeschool their children. Many school districts are asking for more money after being forced to go virtual.

So remember in April when The NY Times Magazine ran a cover story that was the diary of an ER doctor in NYC—and the piece reported on the death of a 26 year old doctor?

Well, it turns out the doctor didn’t die—or even have covid. pic.twitter.com/3p1iTxZGTm

— Zac Bissonnette (@ZacBissonnette) May 27, 2020

Senate Democrats released a 50-plus page report Wednesday sounding alarm bells over the rate at which Senate Republicans and President Trump have confirmed federal judges during the president's first term as Republicans are working on shepherding along even more lifetime-appointed federal judges.

Without giving details, he also indicated that the Obama White House was fully aware of the investigation on alleged and later dismissed Russian collusion with President Trump’s 2016 campaign. He told Levin, “There is no possible way that it wasn’t known inside the White House and that multiple layers of people knew about this.”

Democrats had already postponed a vote slated for Wednesday because of earlier objections from the president, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer officially pulled the bill from consideration Thursday morning when it became clear that House Republicans would no longer back the bill.

The workers sidelined by the pandemic in the past 10 weeks now outnumber the entire population of California and account for roughly 26 percent of the American workforce.

Mr Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, took to Fox News on Wednesday night to criticise Twitter for fact-checking Mr Trump’s tweets, saying that private technology companies “shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online”. Mr Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, countered with what he called his own “fact check”, defending his company’s actions in for the first time labelling Mr Trump’s Twitter posts as potential misinformation...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the plan with President Trump during a meeting Tuesday, The New York Times reported, citing officials with knowledge of the discussions.

China denounced Taiwan's move, saying its ruling Democratic Progressive Party was seeking to "loot a burning house" and sow discord. "Bringing black, violent forces into Taiwan will bring disaster to Taiwan's people," China's Taiwan Affairs Office said, in language Beijing typically uses to refer to Hong Kong protesters.

The second-hand merchandise market is set to explode...

“We made them mandatory in public settings, public transportation etc., but when we’re talking about reopening stores and places of business, we’re giving the store owners the right to say, ‘if you’re not wearing a mask, you can't come in,” Cuomo said during his daily press briefing.

“I use it as a prophylaxis, President Trump uses it as a prophylaxis, most of the world’s leaders use it as a prophylaxis,” Bukele said.

“The attorney general determined that certain aspects of unmasking needed to be reviewed separately as a support to John Durham’s investigation,” Kupec said, “so he tapped John Bash, one of our U.S. attorneys out of Texas, to do just that.”

Latisha and Timothy Mark Harron worked together to carry out a 'massive fraud' on the North Carolina Medicaid program, according to a press release from the Department of Justice issued on Wednesday. The couple, who were arrested on Wednesday, allegedly did this by billing the government for what the Department described as 'fictitious home services'.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had argued for the state in the case, welcomed the decision and said it was incorrect to include fear of contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as a “disability” on mail-in ballot applications.

It's unclear what caused 2019 LD2 to show "cometary behavior," but the researchers have a few theories, including one suggesting it collided with another asteroid. Further research is needed to determine what is causing the activity, but researchers are excited by the discovery, nonetheless.