Businesses, residents hurt by May storms can apply for SBA loans

Ohio businesses and residents hurt by severe storms and flooding on May 18-19 now can apply for lowinterest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The disaster declaration covers Franklin and surrounding counties.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the SBA says it won’t set up a field office to assist victims of the storms. Instead, it will help with webinars, Skype calls, phone and other assistance.

The SBA has opened a virtual disaster loan outreach center and an electronic loan application that can be accessed at https:// disasterloanassistance.sba.gov/ and help is available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Applications also can email Focehelp@sba.gov or call 202-803-3307 or 470-363-5936.

American, Southwest add to airline industry’s quarter losses

Major airlines reported huge second-quarter losses Thursday and warned that the recovery in air travel seen in April has stalled as coronavirus cases surge in the U.S.

American posted a loss of more than $2 billion, and Southwest lost $915 million. That pushed the combined loss of the nation’s four biggest airlines to more than $10 billion in just three months.

Between them, American and Southwest carried 15.4 million passengers from April through June. A year earlier, more than 98 million people jammed on to their planes.

Analysts believe the Aprilthrough-june quarter will turn out to be the industry’s low point. The recovery, however, is likely to be slow and uneven.

Twitter gains after reporting record growth in daily users

The global pandemic and U.S. protests are forcing a pullback by advertisers on Twitter, but it’s also led to an unprecedented surge of users.

Average daily user growth spiked 34% in the second quarter, the company said Thursday, the largest jump in users ever recorded by the company.

In an earnings call, CEO Jack Dorsey addressed an embarrassing hacking incident last week that compromised the accounts of high profile users, saying he felt “terrible” about it.

Shares of Twitter bounced 6% higher. But the company took a huge tax hit to earnings, posting a net loss of $1.2 billion, or $1.56 per share, in the April-june period, compared with profit of $1.1 billion, or $1.43 per share, a year earlier.