Nation & World Glance
AP sources: White House aware of
Russian bounties in 2019
Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.
The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-national security adviser John Bolton also told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.
The White House did not respond to questions about Trump or other officials’ awareness of Russia’s provocations in 2019. The White House has said Trump was not — and still has not been — briefed on the intelligence assessments because they have not been fully verified. However, it is rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of a doubt before it is presented to top officials.
Bolton declined to comment Monday when asked by the AP if he had briefed Trump about the matter in 2019. On Sunday, he suggested to NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump was claiming ignorance of Russia’s provocations to justify his administration’s lack of a response.
“He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it,” Bolton said.
Reports: China approves national security
law for Hong Kong
HONG KONG — Hong Kong media are reporting that China has approved a contentious law that would allow authorities to crack down on subversive and secessionist activity in Hong Kong, sparking fears that it would be used to curb opposition voices in the semi-autonomous territory.
The South China Morning Post newspaper and public broadcaster RTHK, both citing unnamed sources, said that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress voted unanimously to approve a national security law for Hong Kong on Tuesday.
There was no official confirmation from the central government in Beijing or Hong Kong officials.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam declined to comment on the law at a weekly meeting with reporters, saying it was inappropriate for her to do so while the Standing Committee was still meeting.
She did say that once the law is passed, “the Hong Kong government will announce it and promulgate it for implementation here, and then I and my senior officials will do our best to respond to everyone’s questions, especially regarding the enforcement of this national law.”
Fed’s program for loaning to Main Street
off to slow start WASHINGTON — Michael Haith, owner and CEO of a Denver-based restaurant chain called Teriyaki Madness, is in an unusual position for people like him: He’s making money through food delivery and pickup and wants to borrow funds so he can expand.
Yet so far, a Federal Reserve lending program set up specifically for small and medium-sized businesses like his hasn’t been much help. He can’t find a bank that’s participating in the program, and he isn’t clear on a lot of the details about how it works. For example, he isn’t sure how much he could borrow.
“We are trying to figure it out, and trying to find a bank that is working with the government on this,” Haith said. “The guidance is pretty convoluted, and the banks seem a little wary.”
Haith’s experience underscores banks’ surprising lack of interest in the Fed’s Main Street Lending program, as well as the challenges potential borrowers are having accessing the program. Fed officials say more than 200 banks have signed up to participate since the program began two weeks ago, but that’s a small slice of the nation’s roughly 5,000 lenders. None have made any loans yet.
The sluggish start is in sharp contrast to the reaction that greeted the Treasury Department’s small business lending efforts, known as the Paycheck Protection Program. That facility, launched in early April, set off a frenzied response from millions of desperate small companies seeking a loan. The first $350 billion in PPP funding ran out in just two weeks before being replenished. Congress agreed to forgive the loans if they were mostly spent paying workers.
Dems push campaign-season health care
bill through House WASHINGTON — Democrats pushed a package expanding “Obamacare” coverage through the House on Monday, a measure that’s doomed to advance no further but spotlights how the coronavirus pandemic and President Donald Trump’s efforts to obliterate that law have fortified health care’s potency as a 2020 campaign issue.
While the legislation had no chance of survival in the Republican-led Senate and faced a White House veto threat for good measure, Democrats plunged ahead anyway. It joins a pile of bills they’ve compiled that highlight their priorities on health care, jobs, ethics and voting rights, issues they intend to wield in this year’s presidential and congressional elections.
The bill cleared the House by a mostly party-line, 234-179 vote over solid GOP opposition. Republicans, who’ve never relented since unanimously opposing former President Barack Obama’s 2010 statue, called the measure a blow to the nation’s health care system during a pandemic and a political stunt.
“This bill attempts to exploit the coronavirus pandemic to resuscitate tired, partisan proposals,” the White House wrote in its statement. It said provisions curbing prescription drug costs would cut pharmaceutical company revenues and “undermine the American innovation the entire globe is depending on” by crimping their research on developing vaccines and treatments.
GOP lawmakers’ votes against the House measure seemed certain to pop up in campaign spots this fall. In a taste of those ads, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday’s vote gave lawmakers a choice between strengthening health care protections or being “complicit” in Trump’s effort to dismantle it.