News and Information from Bond Buyer

In a post-bankruptcy review, Moody's found that creditors received wide recovery rates in Jefferson County, Ala., and other recent municipal bankruptcies.

Connecticut's $400 million GO bond sale generated $152.4 million in retail orders, which Treasurer Denise Nappier called the highest in more than four years.

A proposed convention center hotel in Salt Lake City wins $75 million in tax incentives under new legislation.

The Kentucky House passed a bill that would ban the use of tolls for the $3.5 billion Brent Spence Bridge project being planned by Kentucky and Ohio, while moving ahead with P3 projects elsewhere in the state.

A pair of bond insurers filed lawsuits this week challenging key aspects of Detroit's bankruptcy debt plan, litigation that could derail the city's goal of exiting by the fall.

Los Angeles CAO Miguel Santana told the mayor and city council that they need to continue to rein in expenses including labor costs, and seek voter-approved tax increases for infrastructure repairs, if they want to eliminate the structural deficit.

Regulatory officials are urging state treasurers to take the lead on helping municipalities understand disclosure compliance, as well as remaining engaged on developing municipal advisor rulemaking and guidance.

Plans for major terminal overhauls are afoot for airports at Kansas City and Des Moines where officials are promoting the need to modernize the air fields to meet current and future aviation demands.

The municipal bond market continued to trudge along at a slow pace Tuesday as a few of the week's larger deals priced. Massachusetts entered its second day of a two-week long retail order period for its MassDirect issuance.

Virginia DOT has stopped work on a $1.4 billion toll road until it obtains final federal environmental clearance.

The Internal Revenue Service rejected requests by bond issuers for two affiliated Iowa nonprofits to enter voluntary closing agreements, saying that certain alleged tax-law violations were unlikely to have occurred.

Newark, N.J. was put on review for a downgrade by Moody's Investors Service.

The Washington State Legislature adjourned last week without passing two large bond sales that would fund school construction projects in the state.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced on Tuesday that they plan to jointly hold a series of free regional compliance outreach programs for broker-dealers in April and June.

Municipal bond buyers continued to hunt for high-yield products in the secondary market Tuesday morning as light issuance kept the market steady.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined OFS Securities, Inc. in San Juan, Puerto Rico $40,570 and ordered it to pay more than $13,278 in restitution for buying the territory's bonds for its own account and then selling them to customers at prices with excessive markups.

The Treasury Department Tuesday auctioned $35 billion of four-week bills at a 0.060% high yield, a price of 99.995333.

Houston expects savings of $207.5 million over 15 years from a $1.3 billion refunding.

Syncora is challenging Detroit's latest attempt to settle with its interest-rate swap counterparties, a day after FGIC filed a challenge to the city's lawsuit attempting to invalidate its pension certificates.

Groundbreaking for new U.S. home construction slipped in February, dipping 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 907,000 units as building permits surged 7.7% to an annual rate of 1.018 million units, according to Commerce Department data released Tuesday.