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Home sales, prices will likely fall in short term but pick up next spring: TD report

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

TORONTO — A new report by TD Economics predicts Canadian home sales and average prices will fall over the coming months but pick up by the second quarter next year. Economist Rishi Sondhi says the impact of higher interest rates continues to be felt, which will likely push sales and prices lower by 10 and five per cent, respectively, by the end of the first quarter of next year, compared with 2023 third-quarter levels.The subsequent recovery forecasted is based on an assumption the Bank of Canada will cut its key interest rate by next spring as unemployment rises and the core inflation rate inches lower toward the central bank’s two per cent target.On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada held its key interest rate steady at five per cent but did not rule out future rate hikes amid projections that show inflation remaining higher in the short term.Sondhi says that would risk adding pressure on overstretched homeowners renewing their mortgages and push supply higher than expected.The T...

Strikers have shut down a vital Great Lakes shipping artery for days, and negotiations are looming

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A strike has shut down all shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway, interrupting exports of grain and other goods from Canada and the United States via the Great Lakes to the rest of the world.Around 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out early Sunday in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. The strike has shut down 13 locks between Lake Erie and Montreal, bottling up ships in the Great Lakes and preventing more ships from coming in.The St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretches more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion U.S. dollars (nearly $17 billion Canadian) worth of cargo last year. Ships that travel it include oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick to the lakes.It’s the first time that a strike ...

Judge says he’ll look at Donald Trump’s comments, reconsider $10,000 fine for gag order violation

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge said Thursday he would take a fuller look at Donald Trump’s out-of-court comments and reconsider a $10,000 fine he imposed on the former president a day earlier at his civil fraud trial.The development came after Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Arthur Engoron to rethink the penalty. The judge fined Trump on Wednesday after finding that his comments to TV cameras outside the courtroom violated a gag order that bars participants in the trial from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.Outside court Wednesday, the Republican presidential front-runner complained that Engoron, a Democrat, is “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.” The comment came weeks after Engoron imposed the gag order in the wake of a Trump social media post that disparaged the judge’s principal law clerk. She sits next to Engoron, and Trump’s lawyers had groused a bit earlier about the clerk’s facia...

Half of Canadian restaurants only breaking even or losing money: report

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

Despite COVID-19 restrictions being lifted more than 18 months ago, the Canadian restaurant industry is still struggling to recoup losses and things appear to be as grim as ever.A new report from Restaurants Canada finds half of all eateries are currently operating at a loss or are just breaking even. It blames things like the high cost of food, insurance, rent and labour, pandemic-related debt, and ongoing labour shortages.Matthew Senecal Junkeer owns two restaurants in Vancouver, one in Gastown, and the other in Chinatown. He says his sales are up, but his bottom line is down.“To give you a sense, our margins pre-pandemic were about eight to nine per cent and our margins are about one to two per cent, which is better than half of our colleagues in this sector,” he told CityNews.Despite COVID-19 restrictions being lifted more than 18 months ago, the Canadian restaurant industry is still struggling to recoup losses and things appear to be as grim as ever. (Courtesy Resta...

Aecon shares sink more than 15% as it faces troubles with legacy projects

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

TORONTO — Shares of Aecon Group Inc. fell more than 15 per cent Thursday morning after the company said it faced challenges with four large fixed-price legacy projects being carried out by joint ventures in which it is a partner.In reporting its third-quarter results, the company says it took an operating loss related to the legacy projects amounting to $91.1 million, compared with an operating loss of $30.1 million related to the projects in the same quarter a year earlier.Aecon shares were down $1.68 at $8.84 in early trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.Overall, Aecon reported its third-quarter profit rose to $133.4 million or $1.63 per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, boosted by the sale in September of a 49.9 per cent stake in Bermuda Skyport Corp. Ltd. The result compared with net income of $34.5 million or 45 cents per diluted share a year earlier.Third-quarter revenue totalled $1.24 billion compared with $1.32 billion in the same period in 2022.Aecon closed the...

‘Grounded,’ a new opera about a female fighter pilot turned drone operator, prepares to take off

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 10 years after it was first imagined as an opera, “Grounded” is ready to take flight.With music by Jeanine Tesori and a libretto adapted by George Brant from his own play, “Grounded” tells the story of an F-16 fighter pilot who becomes pregnant and leaves the service. When she re-enlists she is assigned to a trailer in the Nevada desert, directing unmanned drone attacks on terrorists thousands of miles away. Gradually her personality fractures under the stress of the job until she can no longer separate her private from professional life.The opera has its world premiere at the Washington National Opera on Saturday, with performances continuing through Nov. 13. And next fall it will open the season at the Metropolitan Opera, which commissioned the work.That commission sprang from the fact that back in 2014 Paul Cremo, the Met’s dramaturg, happened to see Brant’s one-woman play at a tiny theater in Manhattan.It’s Cremo’s job to shepherd the creation of new wor...

2 workers at Fukushima plant hospitalized after accidentally getting sprayed with radioactive waste

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Two workers at the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were hospitalized after accidentally getting sprayed with liquid laced with radioactive materials, officials said Thursday. The incident occurred on Wednesday when a group of workers was cleaning the piping at the Advanced Liquid Processing System. The ALPS is a wastewater filtering facility that is key to the treatment of the radioactive wastewater that accumulates on the plant and its ongoing discharge into the sea. Four workers were cleaning the piping when a drainage hose suddenly came off. They were splashed with the tainted liquid waste, which was not the wastewater running inside the system.All four were wearing full face masks, and test results showed none of them had ingested radioactive particles. None have shown any health issues, according to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO. A fifth worker, who was also assigned to the cleaning work, was temporarily away w...

Chicago officer struck by vehicle in parking lot on North Side

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

CHICAGO — A Chicago police officer was struck by a vehicle in a parking lot on the city's North Side.The incident happened around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 800 block of West Addison Street. Police said the on-duty officer was walking through a parking lot when they were struck by a vehicle which was occupied by a woman driver.According to police, the officer suffered a minor injury to the elbow and was transported to a local hospital in good condition. Joliet police chief struck in face, bitten during arrest According to the Chicago Sun-Times, police said the incident was not a hit-and-run and no citations were given.

3 Illinois lottery players win $250,000 on crossword scratch-offs

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

CHICAGO (WMBD) -- Three lottery players across Illinois have scored the top prize in the $250,000 crossword game.According to an Illinois Lottery news release, three lottery players won the top prize of the $10 scratch-off tickets, which were purchased from retailers across the state.One of the tickets was purchased at a MotoMart in Cahokia, IL. The store manager, John Fraser, was excited to have sold one of the tickets.“It’s quite thrilling that someone won a big prize right here in Cahokia,” Fraser said. “Our regular customers tend to think the big wins happen in Chicago, so we’re very delighted that someone in our small town won!” Illinois Lottery player wins nearly $1 million playing Fast Play lottery game Another one of the tickets was sold at Kelley’s Market in Cortland, IL. The store's assistant manager, Kailyn Emanuelson, said she believes this is the first time the store sold a ticket with a big prize."I grew up here in Cortland and this store has been a community staple ...

The last new Beatles song, 'Now And Then,' will be released next week

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:32:58 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Sixty years after the onset of Beatlemania and with two of the quartet now dead, artificial intelligence has enabled the release next week of what is promised to be the last “new” Beatles song.The track, called “Now And Then,” will be available Thursday, Nov. 2, as part of a single paired with “Love Me Do,” the very first Beatles single that came out in 1962 in England, it was announced Thursday.“Now And Then” comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by the late John Lennon, which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” released in the mid-1990s.Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison worked on “Now And Then” in the same sessions, but technological limitations stood in the way.With the help of artificial intelligence, director Peter Jackson cleared those problems up by “separating” Lennon's original vocals from a piano used in the late 1970s. The much clearer vocals allo...