Governors and state lawmakers are racing to get pandemic relief to small-business owners, the unemployed, renters and others whose livelihoods have been upended by the widening coronavirus outbreak.
Some elected officials are spending the last of a federal relief package passed in the spring as an end-of-year deadline approaches.
New Mexico is giving a one-time check to the unemployed. Colorado is looking to help schools, child care providers and other services, New Jersey is borrowing billions to fight the virus, and Republican lawmakers in several states say they want Congress to provide fresh federal help to small-business owners who are barely staying afloat.
On Friday, the number of reported new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. for the first time topped 200,000 for a single day.
