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Ready for delivery: first General Motors-Ventec critical care V+Pro ventilators

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Workers build the first production ventilators at the General Motors manufacturing facility in Kokomo, Indiana, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. GM and Ventec Life Systems are partnering to produce VOCSN critical care ventilators in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: AJ Mast for General Motors)

OKOMO, Ind. – General Motors Co. today (April 15) began mass production of the Ventec Life Systems V+Pro critical care ventilator under contract to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Thousands of men and women at GM, Ventec, our suppliers and the Kokomo community have rallied to support their neighbors and the medical professionals on the front lines of this pandemic,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “Everyone wants to help turn the tide and save lives. It is inspiring and humbling to see the passion and commitment people have put into this work.”

White House Assistant to the President Peter Navarro said GM moved swiftly.

“GM’s rapid mobilization of America’s manufacturing might in defense of our country is a proud salute to the ingenuity of its engineers, the true grit of its UAW workers on the line, and America’s doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals fighting for our lives at the front lines,” Navarro said.

“As these lifesaving ventilators roll off GM’s assembly line as fast as tanks once did in an earlier World War, they will be rapidly deployed to the hospitals of Gary, Chicago, and far beyond.”

In less than a month, Ventec, GM’s supply chain and its manufacturing, logistics, legal and talent acquisition teams marshaled support to deliver a 30,000-unit order from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Until there is a vaccine, critical care ventilators give medical professionals the tools they need to fight this pandemic and save lives,” said Ventec Life Systems CEO Chris Kiple.

The effort involved sourcing hundreds of parts and assemblies from suppliers; the design of a new manufacturing process; the transformation of GM’s Kokomo factory; the ongoing hiring of more than 1,000 manufacturing team members; and the implementation of extensive health and safety protocols in the workplace.

GM had strong support from the leadership of the United Auto Workers, including the UAW-GM Department and UAW Local 292, community groups and elected officials in Kokomo, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

More than 600 ventilators will be shipped this month, almost half the order will be filled by the end of June and the full order will be completed by the end of August. GM has the capacity to build more ventilators after August if needed.

A sense of urgency:

  • GM and Ventec executives had their first conference calls on Tuesday, March 17 and Wednesday, March 18 to explore how GM could help Ventec increase ventilator production.
  • The next day, a GM team flew to Seattle to meet with the Ventec team.
  • On Friday, March 20, GM engaged its global supply base. Within 72 hours, they developed plans to source 100 percent of the necessary parts.
  • The UAW’s national and local leadership embraced the project and on Wednesday, March 25, crews began preparing the Kokomo site for production.
  • On Wednesday, April 8, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded GM a contract under the Defense Production Act to build 30,000 Ventec V+Pro critical care ventilators.

(For more information, visit www.VentecGM.com.)

Obama endorses Biden, says former VP has ‘qualities we need’

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by Alexandra Jaffe, Julie Pace and Bill Barrow — 

WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden on Tuesday, giving the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a boost from the party’s biggest fundraiser and one of its most popular figures.

“Joe has the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times, and heal us through a long recovery. And I know he’ll surround himself with good people,” Obama said in a 12-minute video, touting Biden as a “close friend” and lauding him for his perseverance and compassion.

The endorsement marked Obama’s return to presidential politics more than three years after leaving the White House. He didn’t mention his successor, President Donald Trump, by name and instead sought to bridge the ideological divide among Democrats.

Obama spent a sizable portion of the video acknowledging the contributions of Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator was the leading progressive in the Democratic primary and ended his campaign last week before endorsing Biden on Monday.

The former president called Sanders an “American original” and backed his frequent call for “structural change.” But he also acknowledged that while Democrats “may not always agree on every detail,” they must unify to defeat Republicans.

“The Republicans occupying the White House and running the U.S. Senate are not interested in progress,” he said. “They’re interested in power.”

Biden now has the support of all of his former Democratic primary rivals except for Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator is expected to formally throw her support behind Biden soon, according to a person familiar with her plans.

Two other prominent Democrats who have yet to formally endorse Biden are former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee. Hillary Clinton has been in regular touch with Biden, including several times since Sanders dropped out of the race, according to an aide.

Obama avoided intervening in the Democratic primary, but followed the race closely from the sidelines and is eager to take a more active public role in the campaign. He’s expected to headline fundraisers for Biden and public events in key swing states, if those events can still be held given social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic. An Obama adviser said the former president is taking his cues from Biden’s campaign on how he can be most useful as he eases back into a more overtly political role.

Though Obama stayed out of the primary, Biden frequently pointed to their time together in the White House. Biden often spoke of the “Obama-Biden” administration when talking about various accomplishments and referred to himself as an “Obama-Biden Democrat.”

But he also tried to insist he was running as his own man, telling anyone who asked that he urged Obama not to endorse him out of the gate or even in the thick of the primary.

Obama’s tenure became a sort of punching bag for some presidential hopefuls in a primary fight that early on was defined by a debate over the need for generational and systemic change versus a return to normalcy after the Trump era.

Julian Castro, 45, pushed Biden repeatedly on whether he argued with Obama privately over deportations overseen by that administration. Pete Buttigieg, 38, and Beto O’Rourke, 47, subtly jabbed Biden – and by extension Obama — by suggesting the party shouldn’t “return to the past.” Sanders and Warren said the 2010 Affordable Care Act hadn’t gone far enough.

But Biden was a staunch defender of that legislation and called it “bizarre” for Democrats, even faintly, to attack Obama’s record.

The conversation around Obama’s presidency shifted as the primary wore on. By the time voting began, Buttigieg was almost explicitly comparing his youthful bid to Obama’s 2008 campaign and the progressives were framing their health-care proposals as a way to build on Obama’s legacy. Billionaire candidate Mike Bloomberg, meanwhile, featured Obama in his ubiquitous advertising effort, much to Biden’s chagrin.

“You’d think Mike was Barack’s vice president,” Biden once quipped to donors.

For his part, Biden leaned even more heavily into Obama as primary voting began. Aiming at Sanders, the self-described “democratic socialist,” and billionaire Bloomberg, who’d been elected New York City mayor as a Republican, Biden said in a Feb. 21 interview with The Associated Press that “they’re not bad folks. They’re just not Democrats.”

Campaigning before increasingly diverse audiences in Nevada and South Carolina, Biden ramped up his recollections of when Obama tapped him for the ticket in 2008. Biden recalled Inauguration Day 2009, waiting for the train in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, “for a black man to pick me up … for the two of us to be sworn in as president and vice president of the United States.”

Often drawing nods and vocal affirmation from his audiences, Biden said he had thought of that day as a national victory over institutional racism. Now, in the Trump era, Biden calls that conclusion a mistake.

“I thought we could defeat hate,” he said, but, “it never goes away.“

On Feb. 29, Biden took the stage in South Carolina to celebrate a nearly 30-point victory that would propel him past Sanders and everyone.

He dusted off a line he’d used many times before: “I’m a proud Obama-Biden Democrat,” Biden said.

Obama was watching. His sideline approach nearing its end, he called his former vice president that night to congratulate him on his victory.

Tennessee looking into virus testing for all state inmates

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The Tennessee Department of Corrections website shows four inmates have tested positive, including confirmed cases at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center and Turney Center Industrial Complex.

NASHVILLE — Tennessee corrections officials are looking into whether to test all state inmates for the new coronavirus after positive tests have come back for staffers and inmates, a Department of Correction spokeswoman said Tuesday.

On Friday, the department mass tested 1,145 workers at Northwest Correctional Complex and Bledsoe County Correctional Complex, finding that 13 department staff and six contract workers tested positive, all of them asymptomatic at the time of testing. The widespread testing came in reaction to six workers previously testing positive at the facilities.

The department’s website says four inmates have tested positive, including confirmed cases at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center and Turney Center Industrial Complex.

More than 76,100 people have been tested for COVID-19 in Tennessee so far. There were more than 21,700 state inmates in adult facilities as of February. Tennessee has 14 state prisons, including four run by the private prison company CoreCivic.

“In conjunction with the Department of Health, we are evaluating the process of testing all inmates,” Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said in an email Tuesday.

Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday that the state will look at expanded prison testing “at the right time,” adding that the state will likely first expand testing of the elderly in long-term care facilities.

“We are looking at populations that we should consider expanding that testing into, and prisons will be one we look at,” Lee told reporters. “But the population we’re looking most closely at are the elderly, those in assisted living and nursing homes.”

Carter said the department already has protocols in place to address illnesses in prisons, including isolation or treatment at facility infirmaries or outside hospitals.

Workers who tested positive were told to self-isolate for 14 days. The department says it is tracing who came in contact with those who tested positive, and staff and inmates have received cloth masks.

An inmate at the Turney Center Industrial Complex-Annex, for one, had a low-grade fever last week and was placed in quarantine, taken to the hospital and then tested positive. Three inmates who may have been exposed are in quarantine for 14 days and did not have symptoms as of a Friday update.

Inmates have been quarantined on other occasions when may have been exposed to someone who tested positive.

Last month, a group led by former Davidson County public defender Dawn Deaner asked the state Supreme Court to order the release of a number of prisoners to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

The department’s website says there are “no plans for early release from TDOC prisons at this time because of the coronavirus.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, meanwhile, wrote to the governor early this month requesting regular updates on rates of infection and testing in state prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration’s Tennessee Valley Healthcare System is hiring health care workers to staff its hospitals and clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The system is offering both temporary and permanent assignments, according to a news release. It is also recruiting recent retirees with experience in high-need areas, with the possibility of dual compensation waivers that allow retirees to receive annuities while receiving full compensation.

In addition, Tennessee Valley Healthcare System is seeking nurse practitioners and registered nurses for 120-day appointments with the Travel Nurse Corps, a VA-operated internal pool of nurses available for temporary short-term assignments throughout the country.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in a few weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including life-threatening pneumonia.

(Kimberlee Kruesi in Chattanooga, Tennessee contributed to this report.)

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(Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.)

Virus exposes US inequality. Will it spur lasting remedies?

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As concerns mounted about the coronavirus, businesses such as this beauty supply on Winchester adjusted to keep going as long as possible. (Photo: Gary S. Whitlow/GSW Enterprises/The New Tri-State Defender Archives)

by Paul Wiseman —

WASHINGTON — The sick who still go to work because they have no paid leave.

Families who face ruin from even a temporary layoff.

Front-line workers risking infection as they drive buses, bag takeout meals and mop hospital floors.

For years, financial inequality has widened in the United States and elsewhere as wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated among the most affluent while millions struggle to get by. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has laid bare the human cost of that inequality, making it more visible and potentially worse.

Congress, the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve have mounted the largest financial intervention in history — a full-scale drive that includes mandating sick leave for some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals, allocating rescue aid to employers and expanding unemployment benefits to try to help America survive the crisis.

Yet those measures are only temporary. And for millions of newly unemployed, they may not be enough.

The disaster that is igniting what’s likely to be a deep recession also raises the question of what happens once life begins to edge back to normal. Will the U.S. remain an outlier among wealthy countries in providing limited protections for the financially vulnerable? Or will it expand the social safety net, as it did after the Great Depression of the 1930s but largely did not after the Great Recession that ended in 2009?

“Maybe there will be a cultural shift,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. “I see it as a great opening to try to (provide) those labor protections that low-wage workers didn’t have before.’’

Gould notes that the government’s suddenly expanded role now in distributing relief checks, expanding health benefits and sick leave and supplementing state unemployment aid would make it easier to extend such programs even after a recession has ended. Doing so could have the longer-term effect of reducing financial inequalities.

Whether the government ends up adopting any long-lasting policy reforms will depend in part on which party controls the White House and Congress beginning in January. In the meantime, the topic is sure to drive much of the campaign rhetoric as the presidential race moves toward the November election.

Alone among advanced economies, the United States doesn’t require employers to grant sick leave and paid time off. America’s system for providing unemployment aid, a patchwork of state programs, isn’t as generous or efficient as European government programs that subsidize wages or provide safeguards to limit layoffs.

America’s minimum wages also lag far behind those in most of Europe, though many states have raised their minimums in recent years. In 2018, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that the U.S. national minimum wage paid 33 cents for every $1 earned by workers in the middle of the earnings spectrum. That contrasted with 46 cents in Germany, 54 cents in the United Kingdom and 62 cents in France.

The coronavirus has struck at the most vulnerable. African-Americans account for 42% of the nearly 3,300 COVID-19 deaths that The Associated Press reviewed — twice their share of the population in the areas covered by the analysis. Blacks as a group earn less, endure higher rates of unemployment and have less access to health care than other Americans. They also suffer disproportionately from the underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19: Diabetes, obesity, asthma.

The financial pain, too, has landed hardest on the neediest as the economy locks down to fight the outbreak. The United States last month lost 713,000 private sector jobs. Jobs in leisure and hospitality (mostly restaurants and hotels) accounted for 64% of the losses. And those workers earn an average of just $16.83 an hour, 41% less than the average American.

They are people like Alexi Ajoste, who worked at a Panera Bread shop for three years before being furloughed late last month. Ajoste, a 20-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, has filed for unemployment benefits.

“I have a savings account and have money backed up for emergencies, but it scares me,” Ajoste said. “I don’t know if my savings account is enough for all of this. I feel like the unemployment checks will be enough for the next couple of months….As long as it doesn’t last four or five months, I think I’ll be good.”

Congress’ rescue plans are intended to ease the pain. They require companies with fewer than 500 workers to offer paid sick leave, although employers with fewer than 50 can seek an exemption. The government is sending $1,200 checks to Americans who earn up to $75,000 and smaller checks to many who earn more.

The rescue plan extended unemployment benefits for the first time to part-time and gig workers such as Uber drivers. And it added $600 a week to existing state unemployment payments. But states have been swamped by claims for jobless benefits — nearly 17 million over the past three weeks — and are struggling to deliver the new federal aid.

Shamira Chism, for example, who was laid off from her job as a line cook at a Nashville restaurant three weeks ago, says she’s getting by on state unemployment benefits of $275 a week. But she’s still waiting for Tennessee to upgrade its systems to deliver the additional $600 a week in federally provided benefits.

Throughout U.S. history, economic catastrophes have sometimes led to lasting programs to benefit ordinary people — and sometimes have not. President Franklin D. Roosevelt drove through a series of lasting changes to the economy after the Depression struck, to provide Social Security pensions, for instance, and to make it easier for workers to form unions and bargain for higher wages and better working conditions.

President Barack Obama countered the Great Recession with a stimulus package and pushed through legislation that provided health insurance coverage to millions of Americans. But a backlash by conservative critics, decrying what they called meddlesome and costly government programs, stymied further action. The government ended up doing less to help the economy recover from the Great Recession than it had after previous downturns.

This time, said Alexandra Cawthorne Gaines of the liberal Center for American Progress, “What we want to see are long-term structural changes,” including expanding access to health care. In light of the crisis, she said, there may be more willingness, from Republicans and Democrats alike, to better protect the neediest.

Gould at the Economic Policy Institute said the country needs to strengthen its social safety so the needy aren’t left so vulnerable in the next public health crisis.

“This is not the last time this is going to happen,” she said.

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(AP writers Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.)

TSD COVID-19 Flash! — The numbers, Kobe and more

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Today, April 14, 2020, there are 1,351 confirmed cases in Shelby County including 30 deaths.

Visit: bit.ly/2TYclYS #ShelbyTNHealth #PublicHealth


Tennessee abortion clinics seek order to keep providing care

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee abortion providers have filed an emergency motion in federal court, asking for an order allowing them to continue serving women despite Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. READ more


AND THIS NOTE:

Vanessa Bryant Reflects on Life Without Kobe, Gianna on Mamba Day: ‘Life Truly Isn’t Fair’

Monday marked the fourth anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s final NBA game. And to commemorate what’s gone on to become Mamba Day, Vanessa Bryant paid tribute to her late husband’s life and legacy with a touching Instagram post. READ more

RNC chair: ‘Pres. Trump is committed to fighting for Black-owned businesses’

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Under President Trump's leadership, small businesses will come roaring back, says Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee.

by Ronna McDaniel

I am from Michigan, and here in my hometown I have seen our community rally to do all we can to support our neighbors and local businesses during this difficult time. Thanks to President Donald Trump, some more help is on the way, especially for Black-owned small businesses.

From the start of this pandemic, the President’s first priority has always been the health and well-being of Americans, especially our most vulnerable. While he and his team are working to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, he is also working to ensure that our economy can bounce back stronger than ever.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw record low unemployment in the Black community, and many stepping out on faith to become entrepreneurs and contribute to what was one of the best economies we had seen in America. There is a lifeline for the millions of Black-owned small business owners across the country that will help make this season easier to manage called the Paycheck Protection Program.

In a matter of just a few short weeks, small businesses in so many communities that were bustling with activity, providing jobs, opportunity and hope have now gone empty as they play their part in slowing the spread.

At a time where people’s lives and livelihoods are on the line, the President is ensuring that small businesses have the financial resources they need to help them weather the economic storm this virus has imposed.

Every Black-owned small business should apply for relief under the Paycheck Protection Program today.

This amazing program is a product of the bipartisan relief package President Trump signed into law providing $350 billion of liquidity in the form of forgivable loans to small businesses, churches, and non-profits all across America.

Under this program, small-business owners can apply for up to eight weeks of cash-flow assistance at their local bank or at any one of the Small Business Administration’s approved lenders.

Critically, as long as the loans go toward things like maintaining all employees’ salaries and keeping the lights on and the doors open, they will be forgiven in full, so essentially this is a grant.

In other words, today, Black-owned small businesses; salons, restaurants, boutiques, you name it, there is guaranteed cash with no strings attached waiting for you, but you have to apply.

During this incredibly challenging time, small-business owners need the certainty that the business they have spent years pouring their money, time and energy into building will still be around once we beat this virus. This program does that.

The more small businesses that can keep their employees on payroll, the easier it will be for them to get back up and running once the economy reopens, putting our country in the strongest possible economic position, especially in communities of color.

Small businesses can find these details and more, as well as apply at sba.gov/ppp.

America’s small businesses, and the hardworking men and women they employ, represent more than just our shared faith in the free-enterprise system.

Black-owned small businesses, all over our country are the cornerstone of community life and sources of great pride.

As he has demonstrated throughout this crisis and for nearly four years in office, President Trump is committed to fighting for Black-owned businesses.

Thanks to his leadership, small businesses are going to weather this storm and they, along with our entire economy, are going to recover and come roaring back stronger than ever before.

Ronna McDaniel is chair of the Republican National Committee. Follow her on Twitter @GOPChairwoman.

Moving to funnel more help to small businesses, city fashions micro-loan programs

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“With all these new programs we are hoping to help our local businesses bridge the gap as we try to get through this,” Mayor Jim Strickland said, announcing special help for small businesses. (Screen capture)

The City of Memphis has created a pair of micro-loan programs to assist local businesses negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The loans are intended to serve a wide-range of businesses by providing funding relief for rent, payroll and expenses.

“The impacts of COVID-19 have been felt by everyone, but our small businesses have been hit the hardest by this pandemic,” Mayor Jim Strickland said Monday, during the COVID-19 Joint Task Force press briefing.

“We know business owners firsthand whose life savings are in a business that is teetering right now. So, if we can fill that gap to allow them to pay bills and make payroll, that’s what we are trying to do.”

In March, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced it would offer low-interest federal disaster loans for working capital to Tennessee small businesses that have suffered substantial economic injury as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Some business owners have since been denied assistance.

According to the SBA’s website, eligibility for the Economic Injury Disaster Loans is based on the business’ financial impact related to COVID-19. The interest rate is 3.75 percent for small businesses and 2.75 percent for private nonprofit organizations.

“In general, the federal government has so much more money than we do on a local level to support businesses, and I have no doubt that they will be able to support many of our local businesses,” Strickland said. “But these micro-loans are just to fill the gap of those businesses who have been turned down by the SBA program.”

The first micro-loan is the Small Business Resiliency (SBR) Fund. It is a collaboration between the city’s Office of Business Diversity Compliance and the Division of Housing and Community Development. The fund will offer loans between $5,000 to $35,000, with repayment delayed for 90 days.

To qualify, the business must have been previously denied an SBA loan, be located in a distressed community in the city, and must have been in business for at least three years. Certification with the city’s Office of Business Diversity and Compliance is required.

The second micro-loan, the Economic Hardship Emergency (EHE), will offer loans of $2,000 to $5,000, with no interest for six months. To qualify, businesses and owners must be within Memphis, with less than $1 million in annual revenue and must have been in business for at least three years. Certification with the city’s Office of Business Diversity is also required.

Strickland also announced a joint city-county program. The Neighborhood Emergency Economic Development (NEED) is run by EDGE and subject to the board’s approval. The program offers loans between $5,000 and $10,000 to businesses that remain open, with at least a 25% reduction in revenue, and a plan to stay open for 90 days; and $5,000 for businesses that are temporarily closed due to the impact of COVID-19, but have a plan to reopen within 90 days.

To qualify, businesses must also be located in the New Market Tax Credit Zones and have revenue of less than $1 million.

“With all these new programs we are hoping to help our local businesses bridge the gap as we try to get through this,” Strickland said.

Applications for the city’s Economic Hardship Emergency Loan Fund open April 14. The Small Business Resiliency Loan fund will begin accepting applications in early May. Business owners should visit the Office of Diversity and Compliance’s website to apply.

 

Individual stimulus checks begin to arrive, what should you expect?

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The IRS plans to set up a portal on its website where filers can enter direct deposit information if the agency doesn’t already have those details. Those who have provided bank information on their 2018 or 2019 returns don’t have to do anything unless their information has changed. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)

by Stacy M. Brown —

Payments from the $2.3 trillion federal coronavirus stimulus package have begun hitting individual bank accounts.

In a memo, IRS Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the first round of payments were sent on Thursday, April 9, and should arrive in bank accounts beginning no later than Tuesday, April 14.

Most Americans are eligible for and will receive stimulus payments, except for those who owe back child support payments.

Single-filers who make less than $75,000 will receive $1,200, while married couples making less than $150,000 are scheduled to get $2,400. An additional $500 payment will be provided to households for each child under 17.

The IRS will base the payments on the adjusted gross income of taxpayers’ 2019 return. If a 2019 return hasn’t been filed (the deadline has been extended for two months), the IRS will use information from the 2018 return. If the return doesn’t contain direct deposit information, or if the IRS doesn’t have returns from 2018 or 2019, a paper check will be issued later.

Electronic payments also will go out to those receiving Social Security and disability, even if recipients don’t typically file a tax return.

For those who haven’t provided the IRS with bank account information, paper checks are expected to begin reaching households in May, but, in some cases, recipients won’t receive payment until September.

“If we have your bank information, you’ll get it within two weeks,” Mnuchin said. “Social Security, you’ll get it very quickly after that. If we don’t have your information, you’ll have a simple web portal, we’ll upload it. If we don’t have that, we’ll send you checks in the mail.”

Treasury officials said they expect 50 million to 70 million Americans to have received directly deposited payments by April 15, which is one day later than what the IRS said it expects the deposits to become available.

The IRS does plan to set up a portal on its website where filers can enter direct deposit information if the agency doesn’t already have those details. Those who have provided bank information on their 2018 or 2019 returns don’t have to do anything unless their information has changed.

As for paper checks, the Washington Post reported that the IRS plan would distribute those to the lowest-income Americans first, prioritizing payments for individual taxpayers with incomes of $10,000 or less on April 24.

Checks for earners of $20,000 or less would be in the mail May 1, followed by those with incomes of $30,000 on May 8, $40,000 on May 15, and continuing in income increments of $10,000 each week, according to the plan. The IRS plans to issue about 5 million checks each week.

Stimulus checks would be issued on Sept. 4 to joint taxpayers earning $198,000, the maximum allowed under the stimulus. All others would be sent on Sept. 11, in most cases, because the IRS did not have prior tax information for them, and they need to apply for the checks.

(Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire senior correspondent, @StacyBrownMedia.)

COVID-19 could not stop Easter Joy on Jackson Ave.

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TSDMemphis.com videographer Terrisa C. Mark found Easter joy being dispensed in baskets to children, who rolled through a drive-thru lane set up at 2418 Jackson Ave. by Greater Galatian Missionary Baptist Church members determined to keep tradition going, albeit altered.

A Child’s Dream nonprofit fulfills its Easter promise

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The spirit of Easter was delivered Saturday afternoon to needy children in the form of a COVID-19 lifeline by Shauna Jones-Grandberry and her five-year-old son, Carl Grandberry V — operators of the nonprofit A Child’s Dream International. They altered plans for their second annual Easter Basket Giveaway, adjusting for the coronavirus.

GALLERY: Photos by Gary S. Whitlow

Shauna Jones-Grandberry and her son, Carl Grandberry V, run the A Child Dream’s nonprofit. (Photo: Gary S. Whitlow/GSW Enterprises)

Carl Grandberry V locked in on helping needy children over a year ago and the coronavirus did not derail his Easter intentions. (Photo: Gary S. Whitlow/GSW Enterprises)

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