National Business

LONDON — A British judge on Thursday refused to give Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro control of nearly $2 billion in gold sitting in a Bank of England vault because Britain does not recognize the socialist leader as president of the Latin American nation.

TORONTO — Nestle Canada Inc. says it is selling its Pure Life bottled water business to Ice River Springs as Ontario prepares to give its municipalities veto power over new water bottling permits.

OTTAWA — Canada's trade deficit shrank in May as auto industry exports picked up after disastrous performance in April, but exports were still down sharply compared with a year ago.

DETROIT — The Tigers became the first Major League Baseball team to reach a deal with a sports gambling company, announcing a multiyear partnership Thursday with PointsBet.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit rose for the third straight month in May. Both exports and imports fell as the coronavirus outbreak continued to take a toll on world commerce.

TORONTO — Sagicor Financial Co. Ltd. says it will not go ahead with its acquisition of ScotiaLife Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. The company made the decision after it and Scotiabank Trinidad and Tobago Ltd.

FRANKFURT — The unemployment rate in the 19 countries that use the euro currency inched higher to 7.4 % in May from 7.3% in April as governments used active labour market support programs to cushion the impact of the virus outbreak on workers.

CANBERRA, Australia — An Australian court on Thursday rejected a newspaper publisher’s appeal against Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush’s $2.9 million Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that she was closing indoor seating in bars in parts of the state, including a college town where one brewpub has been linked to about 140 infections.

TORONTO — All five of Canada's biggest banks are joining an international boycott of Facebook over concerns that the platform is complicit in promoting racism, violence and misinformation.