Economy

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.

Still recovering from Gov. Pat Quinn's recent call for $2.7 billion in Medicaid cuts, not-for-profit hospitals in Illinois took a second blow when he lifted a six-month moratorium on stripping hospitals of their property tax-exemptions for failing to provide sufficient charity care.

The Senate on Tuesday voted against limiting debate on dozens of amendments lawmakers want to add to a bipartisan transportation bill, setting up more negotiations as Congress moves closer to having to resort to yet another temporary extension to the current law before it expires at the end of this month.

The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board last week approved Naperville-based Edward Hospital’s $64 million expansion plan.

The next phase of the Dulles Rail Project will cost $2.7 billion — much lower than the previous $3.8 billion estimate that included an above-ground station, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority announced Tuesday.

CHICAGO — The governors of Kentucky and Indiana Monday released the first comprehensive financing plan for a massive $2.6 billion bridges project that will rely heavily on tolls.

DALLAS — As George Bush Intercontinental Airport's $1 billion redevelopment gets under way, Houston will issue $520 million of refunding bonds for the facility Tuesday, the largest deal of the year so far in Texas.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will go to market armed with a creative tool: the floating-rate note.

The North Carolina Turnpike Authority has received final federal approval of the route for the Garden Parkway, a 22-mile, limited-access toll road.

Seattle’s Highway 99 tunnel project is now expected to only get half of the expected $400 million to pay for construction costs from tolls, according to the Seattle Times.

WASHINGTON — With high-speed rail projects having trouble getting government and private financing, infrastructure firms and rail advocates are looking to "Plan C" - public-private partnerships.