Economy

An end may be in sight for the two-year old bankruptcy of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., albeit at a steep price for bondholders.

WASHINGTON — The Senate narrowly approved a proposal to prohibit the use of private-activity bond financing on certain toll roads as they inched toward final passage of a two-year, $109 billion highway reauthorization bill Tuesday.

Faculty at Ohio State University last week voted against the administration’s plan to privatize its parking system.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation released a revised cost estimate of $626 million on building the St. Croix River Crossing bridge project.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approved Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s new $300 million, 1-million square-foot outpatient facility. The hospital hopes to complete the project by 2014. The building at the hospital’s main downtown Chicago campus will also house doctors’ offices.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday announced state funding of $32 million for the construction of a new transportation-related education center at the City Colleges of Chicago’s Olive-Harvey campus.

The New York State Thruway Authority plans to issue $779.3 million of second general highway and bridge trust fund bonds, Series 2012A, on Wednesday by negotiated bid.

DALLAS — The Texas Department of Transportation plans on leveraging up to $2 billion more than expected over the next two years after reassessing federal revenues and construction costs, officials said.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Bank of New York Mellon will distribute the toll revenues of Florida’s Santa Rosa Bay Bridge Authority to holders of the agency's defaulted bonds later this month.

Standard & Poor's changed St. Peter's Hospital’s outlook to positive from stable, citing immediate benefits from the Albany hospital's recent merger.

The board of the recently created Connecticut Airport Authority has hired Bridgeport law firm Pullman & Comley LLC as general counsel for one year.

CHICAGO — Illinois has agreed to the Illinois Medical District Commission's request that a $4.5 million capital grant be diverted to cure a debt-service coverage default and ensure bondholders receive full payment later this year on $40 million of state moral obligation-backed bonds.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The 198-bed Citrus Memorial Hospital, near the west coast of Florida, sank further into non-investment-grade territory Wednesday when Moody's Investors Service downgraded its debt to Ba3 from Ba2.

The California state controller’s office launched a two-month investigation in Riverside on Monday that they characterized as a routine review of a transportation project.

A dispute over the revenue projections for the Dulles Toll Road provides the backdrop for a hearing the Fairfax County, Va., Board of Supervisors is preparing to hold March 20 to decide whether to approve the next phase of construction on an associated rail line.

Following a report that said it pays a lot more to New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority that it gets in service, Rockland County, N.Y., officials have begun to explore a withdrawal from the MTA.

Investors holding term bonds exchanged last year as part of the Connector 2000 Association bankruptcy must exchange them a second time after the bonds they received proved to be untradeable for technical reasons.

A U.S. District Court judge in Chicago has dismissed the final count lodged against former Bear Stearns public finance banker P. Nicholas Hurtgen by federal prosecutors in connection with an extortion scheme involving a Chicago-area hospital seeking regulatory approval for a new hospital.

CHICAGO — The "national explosion of consolidation" across the health care sector differs in key ways from past trends, as providers face new, complex problems and new players have entered the game to craft merger models that include risks and benefits, Moody's Investors Service said in a report released Thursday.

LOS ANGELES — Downey Regional Medical Center emerged from bankruptcy protection Wednesday, marking only the third time in California history a hospital has done so without changing ownership, hospital officials said.