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Wednesday's Mini-Report, 4.22.20

Today's edition of quick hits.

Today's edition of quick hits:

* A dramatic change to the timeline: "Medical officials in California's Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, indicated late Tuesday that the first U.S. death connected to the coronavirus happened weeks earlier than previously believed. Two deaths on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17 were not initially thought to have been COVID-19-related, but further testing has revealed that they were, the county medical examiner said Tuesday."

* Not helpful: "President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he had directed the Navy to 'shoot down' Iranian gunboats that harass U.S. ships, but Pentagon officials said they had received no new directives."

* Hmm: "A coal company based in Indiana received $10 million from a federal loan program intended to rescue faltering small businesses from the economic ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. But Hallador Energy has several hundred more employees than the standard firm awarded money under the $2 trillion stimulus bill. And it has at least two important ties to the Trump administration: Scott Pruitt, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, was hired last year to lobby for the publicly traded firm in Indiana; and the company's former government relations director now works at the Energy Department."

* Not entirely grassroots: "An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus."

* The PPP: "Small businesses have, like much of the U.S. economy, been walloped by the coronavirus. In response, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program to infuse small businesses -- which typically have less access to quick cash and credit -- with hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency loans so they can keep workers employed."

* Intel community: "President Donald Trump's acting intelligence chief, Richard Grenell, has rebuffed a request from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for details about his efforts to reorganize the leadership of the office he is temporarily running. In a Monday letter to Schiff, obtained by POLITICO, Grenell chides Schiff for asking about the leadership changes without acknowledging the appointment of two women as acting leaders of the National Counterterrorism Center."

* The former general manager of the Trump National Golf Club: "Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media who sometimes operates President Trump's Twitter feed, has been promoted to deputy chief of staff for communications, officials said on Tuesday."

* A Trump tweet from October 2014: "All the governors are already backing off of the Ebola quarantines. Bad decision that will lead to more mayhem."

See you tomorrow.