Tag national business news

Grocery prices continue to be one of the largest contributors to high inflation in Canada. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for June showed an inflation rate of 2.8 per cent year-over-year, following a 3.4 per cent increase in May 2023. While this decrease was positive, Statistics Canada said it was “fairly broad-based.” “Canadians continued to see elevated grocery prices (9.1 per cent) and mortgage interest costs (30.1 per cent) in June, with those indexes contributing the most to the headline CPI increase,” the CPI reads. “The all-items excluding food index rose 1.7 per cent.” Gasoline led to a decrease…

Negotiators trying to end a strike by more than 7,000 port workers in BC failed to reach a deal Sunday as the union representing striking workers warned Ottawa to refrain from interfering. Port workers across BC walked off the job Saturday morning in a wide-ranging job action that could impact worldwide shipping and the Canadian economy. On Sunday afternoon, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) warned Ottawa against contemplating back-to-work legislation or imposing a contract, saying it would shatter “labor peace” in the province. The strike affected about 7,400 terminal cargo loaders and 49 of the province’s waterfront employers…

Meta’s Twitter rival Threads crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday, dethroning ChatGPT as the fastest-growing online platform to hit the milestone. Threads have been setting records for user growth since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers joining the platform seen by analysts as the first serious threat to the Elon Musk-owned social media app. “That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet,” Zuckerberg said in a Threads post announcing the milestone. The app’s sprint to 100 million users was much faster than…

New York – United CEO Scott Kirby is apologizing to customers and his own employees after taking a private jet during a week when his airline was canceling thousands of flights. The airline confirmed Kirby flew from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday, and that the company did not pay for his flight. Teterboro is about 17 miles from Newark, New Jersey, where one of United’s largest hubs is located and which was the center of the airline’s meltdown this week. In a statement, Kirby said he regretted that his actions distracted the professionalism of United…

At first glance, the response of “sold over asking” real estate signs may seem like an encouraging signal for the Canadian economy, especially for highly invested homeowners who have watched prices fall from last year’s highs. But a growing number of economists worry that a recent series of indicators, the latest being Wednesday’s rise in Canadian retail sales, may instead be a red flag for central bankers, leading them to more rate hikes that could ultimately make many Canadians feel miserable. With each new smidgen of optimistic data, money market traders point to a rising chance that central bankers will…

A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and locate protesters in Hong Kong. Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in the United States, says those same people had access to US user data, an allegation that the company denies. Yu, who worked for the company in 2018, made the allegations in a recent filing for a wrongful dismissal case filed in May in the San Francisco Superior Court. In…

Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are betting that primary voters, like the Leonard Cohen song, “want it darker.” For weeks, the frontrunners in the Republican presidential primary have painted current events in increasingly apocalyptic terms, in a fundraising appeal, likening his indictment on Thursday to “watching our Republic DIE.” DeSantis, who had previously suggested the government is imposing a “biomedical security state,” said “the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society.” At a VFW Hall in Laconia, NH earlier this month, the Florida governor asked repeatedly if anyone was “happy” with the state of…

The Toronto Blue Jays may be tied at the bottom of the AL East standings, but that’s not the only reason some fans are upset. After an April email was sent out to season ticket holders on the next phase of the $300-million renovation of Rogers Centre, some longtime Jays fans were dismayed to realize their coveted seats in the lower bowl will no longer exist, and that they face a steep price increases if they want to continue to be season ticket holders and select new seats. Some fans relayed to media outlets that they were told new seats…