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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that there is no deal yet on a new coronavirus relief package as Democrats wait to see whether the Trump administration will agree to terms, the Washington Post reported. Pelosi spoke a day after President Trump, hospitalized with covid-19, tweeted his support for more stimulus legislation, writing, “WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE.” Pelosi was asked if the president’s comment suggested that a deal was in hand or close. “No, it means that we want to see that they will agree on what we need to do to crush the virus so that we can open the economy and open our schools safely,” Pelosi said. She did not elaborate, but had said on Friday that agreeing on language on how to spend new testing and tracing money remained a sticking point. Democrats have pushed for months for a national testing strategy that the administration never produced. Pelosi also suggested Friday that Trump’s positive diagnosis could change the dynamic and help speed an agreement in the new round of economic relief talks that restarted about a week ago between her and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Negotiations continued over the weekend, but there was little sign a breakthrough would be imminent. Pelosi asked airlines on Friday to hold off on impending furloughs of tens of thousands of workers pending a deal. United and American, the major carriers that have threatened furloughs, have said they can reverse them if there is a deal to extend payroll support for the industry that just expired, but Congress must act fast.

Bankrupt shale fracker Sable Permian Resources LLC has agreed to sell itself to bank lenders, all but wiping out more than $700 million of debt held by secured bondholders, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The bid from lenders, led by agent JPMorgan Chase & Co., was the only qualified offer that Sable Permian received for its assets, according to a filing on Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. Under the bank’s offer, the lenders would take 100 percent ownership of the Houston-based company, plus their share of a $315 million exit loan that would help fund Sable Permian’s way out of bankruptcy. The lenders were owed $650 million in bankruptcy loans and reserve-based loans they had extended, court papers said. If approved in bankruptcy court, the proposal would mark the latest instance in which, when the borrower went bankrupt, the oil reserves that banks lent against turned out to be worth less than the loans made. Other examples have included shale driller Alta Mesa Resources Inc. and Gulf of Mexico operator Arena Energy LP. Even before the pandemic, Sable Permian had struggled for years, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy in 2019 through an out-of-court restructuring deal. But JPMorgan reined in the company’s financial lifeline in April as banks reassessed the size of credit lines backed by oil and gas underground.

Cinema chain Cineworld announced today that it will close all of its movie theaters in the United States this week after the postponement of the new James Bond film left a big hole in schedules, USA Today reported. The closures, which affect all 536 U.S.-based Regal Cinemas and 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse venues in the U.K., will go into effect on Thursday, according to a Regal news release. Some 45,000 employees are affected. Cineworld did not share any plans for a reopening date, though the company stressed it would "continue to monitor the situation closely." Many U.S. theaters have reopened after being shuttered by the coronavirus in March, but so far audiences have been slow to return as the country has continued to struggle with spikes and hot zones. Christopher Nolan's thriller "Tenet," which had been expected to be a hit before COVID-19 hit, has only made $45 million domestically compared to $262 million overseas. Last week, A-list Hollywood filmmakers including Spielberg, Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Patty Jenkins, Jordan Peele, Barry Jenkins, Sofia Coppola and James Cameron, along with the National Association of Owners, the Motion Picture Association and the Directors Guild of America, urged Congress to bail out struggling cinemas, noting that movie theaters "may not survive the impact of the pandemic."

Many small-town downtowns experienced something of a revival in recent years, thanks in part to specialty shops and small businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported. They brought much-needed growth to spots that for decades had lost ground to larger cities, shopping malls, big-box stores and, most recently, the internet. How their owners respond to the Covid-19 pandemic will shape the future of Main Streets across the U.S.—and will ultimately help determine how well these towns come out of the resulting economic downturn. “The worry is that what we saw with Covid could set us back at least a generation,” said Patrice Frey, chief executive of the National Main Street Center, a subsidiary of the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation. Between 2015 and 2019, U.S. towns with populations of 25,000 or less invested more than $20 billion in public and private funds in their downtown cores and created more than 28,000 new businesses, according to data collected by the National Main Street Center from roughly 1,000 communities. Over that period the businesses created roughly 106,000 net new full-time and about 25,000 net new part-time jobs.

After two failed launches and a bankruptcy, the XFL is getting set for a third try that even the league’s new owner, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, acknowledges will be a challenge, Bloomberg News reported. “It’s an uphill battle -- but we’re hungry, humble and no one will outwork us,” the entertainer said Thursday on Twitter. The group is working on the next steps for its relaunch and plans to provide more details soon. The potential rival to the National Football League was sold while in bankruptcy in August to a group of investors for $15 million. Johnson, who leads the group, said in his post that play would resume in 2022. His group includes Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners. Last season, the league found a market for viewers even while hemorrhaging cash. TV deals with ESPN and Fox Corp. helped bolster its presence, but when Covid-19 hit, the parent company ran out of time and money.

A unit of British restaurant chain PizzaExpress is seeking chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. PizzaExpress Financing 2 Plc filed for chapter 15 in the Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court, according to the filing. The iconic restaurant chain had been struggling even before the pandemic, as changing dining trends reduced demand for its pizzas, and as Hony’s efforts to expand its business outside the U.K. stretched its balance sheet. Covid-19 lockdown measures forced it to close most of its restaurants earlier this year, making a financial and business restructuring more urgent. The company failed to pay 20 million pounds of bond interest that came due July 31. As part of a restructuring proposal that PizzaExpress announced in August, bondholders agreed to take over most of the business, while current owner Hony Capital will keep the Chinese operations. 

House Democrats passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill Thursday over intense GOP opposition, even as bipartisan talks between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued, the Washington Post, reported. The legislation, which passed 214 to 207, has no chance of advancing in the Republican-led Senate and is opposed by the White House. But it’s been nearly five months since the House passed the $3.4 trillion HEROES Act, which also went nowhere in the Senate. So with the House set to recess Friday through the election, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acceded to demands from moderate Democrats who wanted to take new action to address the toll of the coronavirus pandemic before heading home to campaign for reelection. But even as the highly partisan debate was underway on the House floor, behind the scenes Pelosi was, in fact, working to try to strike a bipartisan deal with Mnuchin. The two spent the day trading phone calls and offers, and although Pelosi said they remained far apart on some issues, the negotiations were continuing and appeared to be getting into some granular details, such as specific language on a coronavirus testing plan, and whether and at what level Republicans could agree to a refundable child tax credit sought by Democrats. Read more. 

In related news, the latest White House coronavirus relief offer, with a $1.6 trillion price tag, received a cool reception yesterday from congressional Republicans, The Hill reported. The new offer from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, which exceeds the original $1.1 trillion Senate GOP package and the $1.5 trillion the White House signaled it could support last month, was made as part of renewed talks this week with Democratic leaders. But Republicans, including influential chairmen and members of leadership, are warning they can't support it, creating another potential obstacle for negotiators trying to strike a deal on emergency COVID-19 aid after nearly two months of stalemate. Asked about the prospect of supporting a $1.6 trillion measure, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was direct: "No." Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, also appeared unsure he could back a bill with that dollar amount by criticizing the inclusion of a $400 per week federal unemployment benefit. Read more.

President Trump revealed today that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus, the New York Times reported. Trump, who for months has played down the seriousness of the virus, will quarantine in the White House for an unspecified period of time, forcing him to withdraw at least temporarily from the campaign trail only 32 days before the election on Nov. 3. The disclosure came in a Twitter message just before 1 a.m. after a suspenseful evening following reports that Trump’s close adviser Hope Hicks had tested positive. In her own tweet about 30 minutes later, Mrs. Trump wrote that the first couple were “feeling good,” but the White House did not say whether they were experiencing symptoms. The president’s physician said he could carry out his duties “without disruption” from the Executive Mansion.

The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration have not yet forgiven any of the 5.2 million emergency coronavirus loans issued to small businesses and need to do more to combat fraud, government watchdogs told Congress yesterday, the Washington Post reported. Small businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program funds, as well as their banks, have been frustrated by the difficulty in applying for loans to be forgiven, despite rules saying that if the funds are spent mostly on payroll they will not need to be paid back. SBA announced last week that it had received only 96,000 loan applications — less than 2 percent of the total number of loans — and has not processed any applications so far. Treasury and SBA officials have said they plan to begin considering applications shortly. SBA officials say they opened the system for forgiveness Aug. 10, two days after the program closed. The agency has 90 days to consider each application after it receives bank approval, according to the CARES Act. The agencies also need to do much more to prevent fraud, according to two watchdogs who testified at a House hearing Thursday. The SBA Inspector General’s office has received tens of thousands of fraud tips, and federal officials have launched hundreds of investigations into allegations of people creating fake businesses and stealing identities to fraudulently obtain SBA funds.