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Upcoming mortgage renewals part of why BoC held rate at 5%: Macklem

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

OTTAWA — Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says the central bank held its key interest rate at five per cent in part because of the effect a wave of upcoming mortgage renewals is expected to have on the economy.Macklem appeared before a Senate committee alongside senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers following the Bank of Canada’s most recent interest rate decision and monetary policy report.The governor says the central bank maintained its policy rate because it knows the effect of previous rate hikes are still filtering through the economy, including through mortgage renewals. As more people renew their mortgages at higher interest rates, households are expected to feel the squeeze from rate hikes more directly, leading to more softness in the economy. Macklem says the Bank of Canada does not want to see the country enter a recession, but a period of slower growth is necessary to fight inflation. Recent data from Statistics Canada suggests the economy may have teetered in...

Nutrien sees earnings drop in third quarter as lower selling prices take a toll

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

SASKATOON — Nutrien Ltd. says it earned US$82 million in the third quarter, down from US$1.6 billion a year earlier. The Saskatoon-based company, which is the world’s largest fertilizer producer, says sales were US$5.6 billion, down 31 per cent from US8.2 billion. Diluted earnings per share were 15 cents US, down from US$2.94. Nutrien attributed its lower earnings mainly to lower net realized selling prices, as well as lower retail earnings. The company says in its Wednesday release that its earnings are “significantly affected by fertilizer benchmark prices, which have been volatile over the last two years.” President and CEO Ken Seitz says the company delivered record potash sales volumes in the third quarter, and says the company is encouraged by the increased level of demand and market stability in the second half of the yearThis report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:NTR)The Canadian Press

Schumer and other Senate Democrats call for a federal probe of huge oil deals by Exxon and Chevron

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 22 other Democratic senators are urging federal regulators to investigate multibillion-dollar acquisitions by oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron, saying the deals could lead to higher prices at the gas pump.In a letter Wednesday to the Federal Trade Commission, the lawmakers said Exxon’s proposed $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources and Chevron’s proposed $53 billion purchase of Hess Corp. are two of the largest petroleum deals in U.S. history and could violate antitrust law.“These deals are likely to harm competition, risking increased consumer prices and reduced output throughout the United States,” the senators wrote. The deals threaten to harm small operators and suppress wages, they added.The letter is signed by 23 senators, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, and antitrust hawks such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie ...

‘A curse to be a parent in Gaza’: More than 3,600 Palestinian children killed in just 3 weeks of war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 3,600 Palestinian children were killed in the first 25 days of the war between Israel and Hamas, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry. They were hit by airstrikes, smashed by misfired rockets, burned by blasts and crushed by buildings, and among them were newborns and toddlers, avid readers, aspiring journalists and boys who thought they’d be safe in a church.Nearly half of the crowded strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants are under 18, and children account for 40% of those killed so far in the war. An Associated Press analysis of Gaza Health Ministry data released last week showed that as of Oct. 26, 2,001 children ages 12 and under had been killed, including 615 who were 3 or younger.“When houses are destroyed, they collapse on the heads of children,” writer Adam al-Madhoun said Wednesday as he comforted his 4-year-old daughter Kenzi at the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah. She surviv...

Speaker Mike Johnson signals that Ukraine aid, coupled with border security, is next on GOP agenda

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Speaker Mike Johnson told Republican senators Wednesday that a fresh Ukraine aid package linked to U.S. border security will come quickly in the House, as soon as lawmakers wrap up the $14.5 billion Israel aid package that is heading for passage later this week.Johnson, who has been on the job a week, made the trip across the Capitol to speak privately with GOP senators to outline the agenda ahead. He also said the House plans to pass a stopgap bill to fund the government into next year to avoid a federal shutdown on Nov. 17 when current funding runs out.“Look, we all like the new speaker we want him to be successful,” said Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, who opposes more aid to Ukraine, afterward. “And that was the tenor of the conversation.”Johnson was greeted with applause at the start of the lunch meeting, a get-to-know-you session for the new GOP speaker that many senators had never met — or even heard of — until he won a longshot race for House speak...

Spin Master reports higher third-quarter earnings but lowers full-year guidance

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

TORONTO — Spin Master Corp. says its net income for the third quarter was US$155.4 million, up from US$141.4 million from a year earlier. The Toronto-based toy and entertainmentcompany says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was US$710.2 million, up from US$624 million.Excluding its Paw Patrol movie, which came out at the end of September, the company says revenue was US$694.6 million. Diluted earnings per share were $1.45, up from $1.33. Spin Master chief executive Max Rangel says the company expects pressure on the toy industry in the fourth quarter amid macroeconomic pressure on consumer spending.As a result, the company revised its guidance for sales and revenue lower for the full financial year. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:TOY)The Canadian Press

U.S. prosecutors say two Montreal residents helped ship weapons components to Russia

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

MONTREAL — United States federal prosecutors in New York have charged two Montreal residents with wire fraud conspiracy for allegedly exporting electronic components to Russia for military use.U.S. authorities say some of the electronic components and integrated circuits they are alleged to have exported were found in Russian missile systems, helicopters, drones and battle tanks captured in Ukraine. Nikolay Goltsev, 37, and Kristina Puzyreva, 32, a Russian-Canadian married couple, were arrested Tuesday during a trip to visit alleged co-conspirator Salimdzhon Nasriddinov, 52, who is a Russian and Tajikistan national living in New York City.Prosecutors allege the three — along with co-conspirators in Russia — plotted to evade U.S. sanctions on Russia and controls that limit the export of technologies that have both civilian and military use.They say the alleged conspirators used New York-based front companies to make over 300 shipments valued at over $10 million to Russia,...

Cornell University student accused of posting online threats about Jewish students appears in court

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — A Cornell University junior accused of posting violently threatening statements against Jewish people on campus was held without bail after his first appearance in federal court Wednesday.Patrick Dai, from the Rochester, New York suburb of Pittsford, is charged with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications. The graphic, anonymous messages posted this weekend on a Greek life forum rattled Jewish students on the Ithaca campus in upstate New York. “While we take some measure of relief in knowing that the alleged author of the vile antisemitic posts that threatened our Jewish community is in custody, it was disturbing to learn that he was a Cornell student,” Cornell President Martha E. Pollack said in a message Wednesday to the university community.Pollack said the Ivy League university will not tolerate antisemitism, racism, Islamophobia or any other form of hatred.Investigators traced the threatening messages to Dai through an IP ...

Carbon pricing in Canada: What it is, what it costs and why you get a rebate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada has had a national price on pollution since 2019, but the policy remains a political battleground — and Opposition Conservatives made clear Wednesday they intend to fight the next election over it. Here is a brief overview. 1. What is the carbon price? In 2018, Parliament passed the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which established the legal mechanism under which the federal government requires provinces and territories to either establish a levy on greenhouse gas emissions or adopt the federal system. The legislation was first applied as of April 1, 2019.There are two components to the policy. The first, the “fuel charge,” applies to all purchases of 21 different fuels (including combustible waste like asphalt shingles or tires) that is burned to produce heat or electricity. The distributor of the fuel typically pays the levy, with the cost passed down through the supply chain to consumers when they gas up their car, pay the household gas bill or f...

Confusion, frustration and hope at Gaza’s border with Egypt as first foreign passport-holders depart

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:36:27 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of foreign passport-holders and dozens of other seriously wounded Palestinians desperate to escape Israel’s bombardment of Gaza crowded around the black iron gate on the Egyptian border Wednesday, hoping to pass through the enclave’s only portal to the outside world for the first time since the war began.Restless children pressed their faces against the wire mesh as families with backpacks and carry-on suitcases pushed and jostled. The air was thick with apprehension.Everyone was waiting for the Hamas authorities to call their names over the scratchy loudspeaker. Each name represented another individual with a chance to escape the punishing war that has killed over 8,800 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, and forever altered the enclave they had called home. “We are relying on God and hoping that we get out,” said Rania Hussein, a Jordanian resident of Gaza, as she breathlessly described the horrors she had fle...