Pelosi, White House near agreement on coronavirus aid bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Trump administration hoped to announce agreement Friday on a coronavirus aid package to reassure anxious Americans by providing sick pay, free testing and other resources in an effort to calm teetering financial markets and the mounting crisis.

Final details were being worked out, but the top House Democrat, who held daylong talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, expected an announcement Friday. The House could then swiftly vote.

“We have — are near — to an agreement,” Pelosi said, emerging from her office at the Capitol shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday. She said a deal was "subject to an exchange of paper and we hope to have an announcement tomorrow.”

The potential deal between Congress and the White House would cap a tumultuous week in which Washington strained for a comprehensive response to the outbreak that is testing the nation's political, financial and health care systems.

President Donald Trump has struggled to show he's on top of the crisis, after delivering conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus. Classes, sports events, concerts and conferences have been canceled across the nation and the financial markets are cratering.

Democrat Joe Biden, Trump's chief 2020 presidential rival, criticized Trump for playing down the threat for weeks and promised if he becomes president to "always tell you the truth.”

The House aid package builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week and is aimed at providing additional health and financial resources to arrest the sudden spread of the pandemic and the kind of economic fallout unseen in a generation. Pelosi promised in a letter to colleagues that a third package was yet to come.

The new sick leave benefit...