National Business

FORT MILL, S.C. — Domtar Corp. says president and chief executive John Williams has contracted COVID-19 and will take a temporary medical leave of absence.

HALIFAX — Customers at The Tare Shop in Halifax are creative with their containers: Some use classic jars but others reuse yogurt containers, pots and pans or even empty glass liquor bottles.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Michigan's environmental agency said Friday it has approved construction of an underground tunnel to house a replacement for a controversial oil pipeline in a channel linking two of the Great Lakes.

OTTAWA — Canada's economy appears to have suffered its worst year on record as the national statistics agency's preliminary estimate showed a contraction of 5.1 per cent in 2020.

BEIJING — The former head of a Chinese state-owned asset management company was executed Friday on charges of taking bribes in an unusually severe penalty for a recent corruption case. Lai Xiaomin of China Huarong Asset Management Co.

Caterpillar’s fourth-quarter sales dropped 15% as an unchecked pandemic continued to sap demand for big machinery, but the damage was not as bad as most had expected. Sales were $11.24 billion, down significantly from last year's $13.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s pandemic-hit economy shrank 8.5% in 2020, the largest single-year drop since 1932 and the second consecutive year of economic contraction. Mexico’s gross domestic product grew 3.

BERLIN — The head of Germany's financial supervisory authority will leave the job as the agency is reorganized in the aftermath of the accounting scandal at payment systems provider Wirecard, the finance ministry said Friday.

MONTREAL — Bombardier Inc. reported lower-than-expected net proceeds from the sale of its rail business to Alstom, attributing the decline to the division's lower cash generation in the fourth quarter.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes declined slightly for the fourth straight month, but it was still a record high for December. The National Association of Realtors' index of pending home sales dipped 0.