U.S. Raises Cap on Small-Business Disaster Loans

Companies harmed by the coronavirus pandemic can soon borrow up to $500,000 through the Small Business Administration’s emergency lending program, raising a cap that has frustrated many applicants.

“The pandemic has lasted longer than expected,” Isabella Casillas Guzman, the agency’s administrator, said on Wednesday. “We are here to help our small businesses, and that is why I’m proud to more than triple the amount of funding they can access.”

The change to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program — known as EIDL and pronounced as idle — will take effect the week of April 6. Those who have already received loans but might now qualify for more money will be contacted and offered the opportunity to apply for an increase, the agency said.

The Small Business Administration has approved $200 billion in disaster loans to 3.8 million borrowers since the program began last year. Unlike the forgivable loans made through the larger and higher-profile Paycheck Protection Program, the disaster loans must be paid back. But they carry a low interest rate and a long repayment term.

Normally, the decades-old disaster program makes loans of up to $2 million, and in the early days of the pandemic, the agency gave some applicants as much as $900,000. But it soon capped loans at $150,000 because it feared exhausting the available funding. That limit — which the agency did not tell borrowers about for months — angered applicants who needed more capital to keep their struggling ventures alive.

The agency has $270 billion left to lend through the coronavirus program, James Rivera, the head of the agency’s Office of Disaster Assistance, told senators at a hearing on Wednesday.

Tribune Publishing’s board recommended that shareholders approve a purchase offer from the hedge fund Alden Global Capital over a higher bid from a Maryland hotel executive, according to a securities filing Tuesday.

The filing comes a week after Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a hotel magnate, made an $18.50 per share offer for the whole company. Mr. Bainum initially had agreed with Alden to spin off three of Tribune’s titles — The Baltimore Sun and two smaller Maryland papers — at the price of $65 million. But negotiations between Alden and Mr. Banium stalled over details of operating agreements that would be in effect as the Maryland papers transitioned from one owner to another, prompting Mr. Banium to pursue a bid to buy all of Tribune.

Alden, Tribune’s largest shareholder with a 32 percent stake, agreed last month to buy the rest of the company at $17.25 per share and take it private in a deal that would value the company at $630 million. Alden would buy of all the company’s remaining papers, which include The Chicago Tribune and The Daily News.

Alden has been criticized for laying off journalists and shrinking local news coverage at the roughly 60 newspapers it already owns. The hedge fund says it is keeping local newspapers from going out of business.

Journalists at Stat, the medical and science news website lauded for its pandemic coverage, will join the Boston Newspaper Guild, union representatives said in a statement Wednesday.

Stat, based in Boston, focuses on science, health and biotech journalism and has close to 40 editorial…