National Business

MONTREAL — Laurentian Bank Financial Group beat expectations even as it reported its fourth-quarter profit slipped to $36.8 million compared with $41.3 million a year earlier.

EDMONTON — CWB Financial Group reported its fourth-quarter profit edged down from a year ago, but the bank still beat expectations. The bank says it earned net income available to common shareholders of $63.

CALGARY — It seems like a no-brainer to use clean-burning hydrogen to offset the environmental negatives of natural gas for warming homes, but pilot projects to do just that starting next year illustrate nothing is simple about this trendy new energy

NEW DELHI — A chilly breeze whirls through New Delhi in the mornings and the sun is partly obscured by toxic haze, a marker of another winter in the Indian capital. But along the city's borders, this year is visibly and viscerally different.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California is on the brink of a new stay-at-home order that would close businesses and curb travel in regions that could see hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. Gov.

EDMONTON — As Alberta recorded another daily record of COVID-19 cases Thursday, its chief medical officer of health warned that rural areas are feeling the effects.

BEIJING — A Chinese spacecraft lifted off from the moon Thursday night with a load of lunar rocks, the first stage of its return to Earth, the government space agency reported.

REGINA — A union representing workers at a steel plant in Regina says nearly 500 of its members are being laid off. The United Steelworkers says the workers will be off the job starting Dec. 17 and their layoff notices are indefinite.

TORONTO — Just days after the discovery of a large party in one of its rental properties, Airbnb says it has a plan to curb New Year’s Eve parties this year while Canada works to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

TORONTO — RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it is cutting its payouts to unitholders by a third as the COVID-19 pandemic creates an uncertain future for shopping centres.