JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Treasury is seeking to recoup COVID-19 pandemic relief funds from hundreds of local governments that received millions of dollars but never complied with requirements to report how they used the money.
The federal government distributed $350 billion to state, local, territorial and tribal governments as part of the American Rescue Plan approved by Congress and President Joe Biden in 2021. More than 30,000 governments, from the largest state to the tiniest town, were to get a share.
Governments had until the end of 2024 to obligate the money for specific projects and were supposed to file either quarterly or annual progress reports, depending on their population and how much money they received. Most complied. But as of January, about 1,000 mostly smaller governments had failed to file any reports with the Treasury detailing how they used a total of $139 million, according to an analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
A GAO report released last week said the Treasury sent notices to the local governments seeking to recoup the money.
As of June 24, a total of 740 local governments subsequently filed reports and will no longer be subject to repaying their funds, the Treasury said in a letter attached to the GAO report. Thirteen governments returned their funds to the Treasury. But that still left 235 local governments that had never filed a report nor returned their pandemic relief funds.
The GAO told The Associated Press it does not have list of the specific governments that haven't complied with the reporting requirements. The Treasury has not responded to an AP request for a list of the 13 governments that returned their funds and those that still haven't reported how they used it.
This is not the first time concerns have been raised about governments failing to disclose how they used their pandemic relief funds.
The GAO reported in October 2023 that the Treasury had sent noncompliance notices to more than 3,500 local governments that hadn't filed progress reports on their pandemic relief funds. The Treasury at that time declined to provide the noncompliance letters to the AP. So the AP in January 2024 submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the noncompliance notices and related correspondence. The Treasury still has not fulfilled that request.
In its most recent report, the GAO said the failure of local governments to file regular progress reports is limiting the Treasury’s ability to determine whether they are spending the funds on allowable uses.
FILE - The Treasury Building is viewed in Washington, May 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court Justice on Thursday ordered the transfer of former President Jair Bolsonaro from the federal police headquarters in Brasilia to a much bigger cell with an outside area in the Papuda Penitentiary Complex, also in the capital.
The transfer was described as a move to a facility with “more favorable conditions” for high-profile detainees.
Since November, Bolsonaro has been carrying out a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup despite his 2022 electoral defeat. His lawyers have been pushing for a transfer to house arrest on medical grounds.
Michelle Bolsonaro, his wife, and his sons have regularly said that Bolsonaro is being mistreated and not getting adequate medical attention.
In the court decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes denied the accusations. “Regrettably and falsely, there has been a systematic attempt to delegitimize the regular and lawful execution of the custodial sentence of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, which has been carried out with full respect for human dignity."
Bolsonaro had been in a 12-square-meter room with a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a TV set and a desk, and Moraes ordered Bolsonaro's transfer to an even more comfortable situation. He determined that Bolsonaro be transferred to a 54-square-meter room with a 10-square-meter outside area that he can access at will.
Following the transfer, Bolsonaro will also have increased time for family visits and physiotherapy equipment such as a treadmill and bicycle will be installed. The new area resembles an apartment, with a double bed, a kitchen, a laundry, a living room and an outdoor area.
The Supreme Court’s press office said the transfer had already happened.
Since starting his sentence, Bolsonaro has made several trips to a nearby hospital, most recently after falling out of bed and hitting his head.
Moraes decided that Bolsonaro can have “full assistance, 24 (twenty-four) hours a day, from previously registered private doctors, without the need for prior notification.”
Moraes also ordered a medical examination to assess Bolsonaro's health and determine whether he needs to be transferred to a penitentiary hospital.
Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election.
The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democracy following his 2022 election defeat.
The plot included plans to kill President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Justice de Moraes. The plan also involved encouraging an insurrection in early 2023.
The former president was also found guilty of charges including leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.
Bolsonaro has always denied wrongdoing.
In Thursday’s court order, Moraes said that Bolsonaro was convicted of extremely serious crimes and that his custodial sentence was not a “hotel stay or a vacation colony” as statements from Bolsonaro’s sons’ cited in the decision “mistakenly seem to demand.”
FILE - Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro stands at the entrance of his home while he is under house arrest in Brasilia, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Luis Nova, File)
