Local Business

CALGARY — WestJet Airlines Ltd. shares plummeted to their lowest levels in more than a year after reporting what it called a challenging first quarter in which it booked higher fuel costs.

SEATTLE — Nestle is paying more than $7 billion to handle global retail sales of Starbucks’s coffee, tea and food outside of its coffee shops.

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin took the oath of office Monday for his fourth term as Russian president, promising to pursue an economic agenda that would boost living standards across the country.

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OTTAWA — Canadian retail sales during the crucial holiday shopping season were far lower than previously projected as consumers appeared to pull back on spending.

TORONTO — P.J. Mastracchio is used to dashing through airports only to arrive at his gate and have a terrible feeling start to sink in: hunger pangs.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s power company said Thursday that it has restored electricity to more than 80 per cent of customers affected by an island-wide blackout that was caused by an excavator hitting a transmission line, but tens of thousands of families still remain without normal service seven months after hurricanes Maria and Irma.

OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada will decide today whether to continue raising interest rates, and will issue its latest predictions for the Canadian economy.

OTTAWA — A federal spending watchdog says it could cost federal coffers more than $76 billion a year to provide a national, guaranteed minimum income similar to the one being tested in Ontario.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is putting taxpayer money where his government’s mouth is, promising to deploy both financial and legislative tools to ensure the disputed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion between Alberta and British Columbia is able to proceed.