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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was noncommittal yesterday about bringing a stimulus measure to the House floor for a vote before the Nov. 3, noting that even though a deal with the Trump administration appeared to be coming together, “it takes time” to transform it into legislation, the New York Times reported. At her weekly news conference, Pelosi said that she believed she and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, were “just about there” in their negotiations to reach a compromise, although she said they had yet to agree on the two biggest sticking points. The White House is resisting Democrats’ push for $500 billion for state and local governments, while Democrats have balked at Republicans’ demands for liability protections for schools, hospitals and businesses open during the pandemic. Even if the pair were to reach agreement on those issues, Pelosi said there was no guarantee it could be passed before Election Day. “It’s not just a question of us agreeing in a room,” Ms. Pelosi said, noting that the process of writing any deal into legislative language and having the Congressional Budget Office go through it to determine an official cost could be lengthy. “It takes time.” But she continued to maintain public optimism that an agreement could be reached and signed into law. She brushed aside public warnings from Republican senators, who have said they are unlikely to support a bill anywhere near as costly as the emerging compromise, and have suggested that there aren’t even the minimal 13 Republican votes needed to join all Democrats to advance the legislation.

Investors are dumping bonds tied to the world’s biggest movie theater chain, betting that attendance will remain low despite venues reopening in major markets, the Wall Street Journal reported. The price on AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.’s $1.4 billion bond due June 2026 dropped below 10 cents on the dollar this week, according to MarketAxess, implying creditors believe they aren’t very likely to get paid back. The company’s $500 million bond due April 2025 was quoted around 60.5 cents on the dollar Thursday, down from 91 cents in early September. The declines contrast with the early-week bounce in AMC’s stock. Shares rose more than 16 percent on Monday following the company’s announcement that it would open a dozen locations in New York state at 25 percent capacity. A day later, the company said it would sell $50 million in shares to bolster its balance sheet.

A federal bankruptcy judge cleared the way on Wednesday for Astria Health to sell the vacant Astria Regional Medical Center and the neighboring Medical Office Building to a local investment group, the Yakima (Wash.) Herald reported. Judge Whitman Holt authorized the sale of the hospital and the neighboring Medical Office Building for $20 million. The offer received no objections, including from Astria Health’s creditors. Judge Whitman Holt said Astria Health showed reasonable business reasonable judgment in securing the offer from the investment group, Yakima MOBIC LLC. Holt acknowledged it was unlikely that Astria Health could get a better offer through other means, such as an auction. The local investment group plans to complete the purchase of the buildings on West Chestnut Avenue between South Ninth and Eleventh avenues in Yakima by Dec. 1.

White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) opened the door to passing a coronavirus relief package after the election, a signal that time and political will has likely run out to enact legislation before then, the Wall Street Journal reported. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin yesterday reported more progress on a potential $2 trillion aid agreement. But even if they strike a deal before Nov. 3, legislation would face vanishing prospects of quickly becoming law, thanks to both the tight calendar and hardened opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate. Still, in the waning days of an election season in which both the White House and Senate are up for grabs, neither party wanted to give up on months-long discussions over providing relief for households and businesses still struggling during the pandemic. “I’m optimistic that there will be a bill. It’s a question of, is it in time to pay the November rent, which is my goal, or is it going to be shortly thereafter and retroactive?” Pelosi said yesterday. Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said on CNBC Wednesday that negotiators were “running out of time, at least between now and the election” and that wrapping up work on a relief package in a lame-duck session, after the election but before the next administration begins, “could be a possibility.”

J.C. Penney believes it will emerge from bankruptcy protection before Christmas under a new ownership agreement that would save tens of thousands of jobs, the Associated Press reported. The beleaguered, century-old retailer said yesterday that it has filed a draft asset purchase agreement with the two biggest mall owners in the U.S. Substantially all of J.C. Penney’s retail and operating assets will be acquired by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Simon Property Group through a combination of cash and new term loan debt. Details of the deal that will save roughly 70,000 jobs and avert a total liquidation first emerged last month during a bankruptcy hearing. J.C. Penney, which even before the pandemic had struggled to compete with the likes of Amazon.com, Target and Walmart, became one of the largest retailers to file for chapter 11 protection this year amid a wave of store closures forced by the spread of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. The Plano, Texas, retailer will shed nearly a third of its stores in the next two years as it restructures, leaving just 600 locations open.

Ascena Retail Group Inc., the parent company of apparel retailers Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, has received a new, higher stalking horse offer to buy the intellectual property, e-commerce business and other assets of its tween-oriented chain Justice out of bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The $44 million bid from brand management company Bluestar Alliance LLC trumps a previous $35 million offer from Premier Brands Justice LLC, an acquisition vehicle of apparel maker and distributor IHL Group. Premier’s offer for the Justice chain hadn’t been completed as the stalking-horse bid, meaning Bluestar’s higher bid now is the lead offer. Bluestar won’t charge Ascena a breakup fee if the deal falls through, compared with the $1.05 million breakup fee that Ascena would have had to pay IHL Group, a division of USA Apparel Group Inc. IHL’s portfolio of licensed brands includes Aéropostale, BCBG, Rachel Roy and Daisy Fuentes. Bluestar’s offer, unveiled in court papers Tuesday, includes reimbursing Ascena up to $200,000 in expenses for legal and other fees, less than the $450,000 negotiated with IHL. Founded in 2006, Bluestar manages more than 100 stores and over 300 licensees, including brands such as Brookstone, Tahari and Bebe, according to its website.

Quibi Holdings LLC is shutting down a mere six months after launching its streaming service, a crash landing for a once highly touted startup that attracted some of the biggest names in Hollywood and had looked to revolutionize how people consume entertainment, the Wall Street Journal reported. The streaming service, which served up shows in 5- to 10-minute “chapters” formatted to fit a smartphone screen, has been plagued with problems since its April debut, facing lower-than-expected viewership and a lawsuit from a well-capitalized foe. “Our failure was not for lack of trying,” founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and Chief Executive Meg Whitman said in an open letter to employees and investors. “We’ve considered and exhausted every option available to us.” Katzenberg and Whitman decided to shut down the company in an effort to return as much capital to investors as possible instead of trying to prolong the life of the company and risk losing more money. Employees will be laid off and will be paid a severance, the people said, and Quibi will explore selling the rights to some of its content to other media and technology companies. Quibi, which cost $4.99 a month, also had to compete with a growing number of rivals, with launches of Walt Disney’s Disney+, Apple Inc.’s Apple TV+, AT&T Inc.’s HBO Max and Comcast Corp.’s Peacock all occurring in the past year. In yesterday’s letter, Katzenberg and Whitman said that there were “one or two reasons” for Quibi’s failure: The idea behind Quibi either “wasn’t strong enough to justify a stand-alone streaming service” or the service’s launch in the middle of a pandemic was particularly ill-timed.

The chief executive of Amtrak urged lawmakers on Wednesday to approve over $2 billion in new emergency assistance as the U.S. passenger railroad expects travel and revenue to fall by more than 70 percent from pre-coronavirus levels in 2021, Reuters reported. Amtrak projects just 9 million passenger trips and $598 million in revenue for the budget year that began Oct. 1, down from over 32 million trips and $2.35 billion in the 2019 budget year and $1.24 billion in the 2020 budget year that ended Sept. 30, according to testimony from CEO Bill Flynn. The absence of new government assistance, Flynn warned, would “essentially reduce the company to a very, very precarious state.” “There aren’t any good options” without new assistance,” he added. Ridership and revenue are down more than 80 percent and Flynn told the Senate Commerce Committee the railroad’s budget forecasts assume a vaccine by middle of next year.