National Business

REGINA — Saskatchewan is reporting five new cases of COVID-19, mostly from the far north. Health officials say the provincial total sits at 627, with 521 people having recovered.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's unemployment rate nearly tripled to 15.

“Full House” star Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty Friday to paying half a million dollars to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as part of a college admissions bribery

CALGARY — The owner of the Ekati diamond mine is proposing a transaction that would allow it to exit court protection from creditors, provide operating funds and eventually restart the suspended Northwest Territories mine.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.

BEIJING — China’s No. 2 leader on Friday promised higher spending to revive its pandemic-stricken economy and curb surging job losses but avoided launching a massive stimulus on the scale of the United States or Japan.

OTTAWA — Canadian retail sales collapsed in March as they posted their biggest monthly decline on record and Statistics Canada warned an even bigger drop is expected for April as closures due to pandemic ran the entire month.

TORONTO — Phillip Crawley, publisher of The Globe and Mail, is warning that already diminished print advertising revenues are headed for another shock as the impacts of COVID-19 ravage the newspaper industry.

VICTORIA — There are no plans to defer a June 1 increase in British Columbia's minimum wage because of COVID-19, says the province's labour minister.

CALGARY — WestJet Airlines Ltd. is asking the federal labour minister for an exemption to Canada Labour Code provisions that would facilitate mass layoffs.