⁍ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were expected to try again on Thursday to reach a deal.

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⁍ The two sides appeared to be about $600 billion apart on spending, as lawmakers prepared to depart Washington for the final weeks of the 2020 presidential and congressional election campaign.

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⁍ A bipartisan deal has been long delayed by disagreements over Democratic demands for aid to state and local governments and Republican assistance for a provision protecting businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

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⁍ The House was expected to vote on its $2.2 trillion Democratic package, a day after initial plans for action were delayed to give more time for a deal to come together.

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– With the threat of a government shutdown looming, Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are trying to work out a deal to fund the government—but they’re about $600 billion apart. The two sides are trying to hammer out a deal to fund the government through September, reports Reuters. Pelosi, the House speaker, and Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, met for 90 minutes on Wednesday, and they’re expected to meet again on Thursday. A bipartisan deal to fund the government has been hung up over Democratic demands for aid to state and local governments and Republican assistance for a provision protecting businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits. Pelosi and Mnuchin met for 90 minutes in the US Capitol on Wednesday and each emerged pledging to continue discussions. Mnuchin raised hopes of an agreement by telling reporters that the discussions had made ‘a lot of progress in a lot of areas.’ But lawmakers and securities analysts viewed the day’s expected talks as a last-gasp effort to secure relief ahead of the Nov. 3 election for tens of millions of Americans and business including US airlines, which were due to begin furloughing over 32,000 workers. The Trump administration has proposed a $20 billion extension in aid for the battered airline industry, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters late on Wednesday. The extension would run for six months. Mnuchin said separately that a deal would also include direct payments to American individuals and families. Pressure for a deal has been mounting on the White House and Congress, from the devastating effects of a coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 7.2 million people and killed over 207,000 in the United States.