DALLAS - FedEx Corp.'s fourth-quarter profit fell 45 per cent as international customers traded down to less-expensive delivery options and the company spent heavily on restructuring.
FedEx said 3,600 employees will take voluntary buyouts and nearly half of them have already left. The company is also retiring older airplanes.
WASHINGTON - After secretive talks, key senators express optimism they are closing in on a bipartisan agreement to toughen the border security requirements in immigration legislation that also offers a path to citizenship to millions living in the country illegally.
Officials said Wednesday night that under the emerging agreement, the government would be able to grant legal status to immigrants living in the United States unlawfully while the additional security was being put into place. No green cards — signifying permanent residence status — could be issued to them until the plan was fully implemented.
WASHINGTON - Michael Froman, a senior White House economic adviser and classmate of President Barack Obama at Harvard Law School, on Wednesday won Senate confirmation to be the next U.S. trade representative.
The confirmation vote was 93-4, elevating the 50-year-old Froman to the head of an agency now involved in two of the most significant trade deals in recent history.
RICHMOND, B.C. - Catalyst Paper (TSX:CYT) announced Wednesday that company chairman Leslie Lederer will take over as CEO on an interim basis following the departure of current CEO Kevin Clarke at the end of the month.
Clarke announced his departure from the pulp and paper company in April, saying he was returning home to New York state where his family resides.
TORONTO - Net assets under management by the Canadian mutual funds industry rose month over month to $920.5 billion in May, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada reported Tuesday.
IFIC says net sales last month totalled $3.85 billion, a figure that included net sales of long-term funds of $4.06 billion and net redemptions of money market funds of $207.2 million.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version wrongly cited "net sales" of $3.17 billion.
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Retailer Urban Outfitters Inc. has responded to a multi-state campaign and stopped selling flasks, shot glasses and pint glasses that look like prescription pill bottles, political leaders in drug-plagued Kentucky said Wednesday.
The state's top leaders, including Gov. Steve Beshear and Republican U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, had joined in a push to get the retailer to pull the items, saying they trivialized the pain and suffering of people struggling with addiction.
MINNEAPOLIS - Stratasys, a leading maker of 3-D printers, is buying another 3-D printer manufacturer, MakerBot, for $403 million in stock.
Stratasys Ltd. says the acquisition will enable it to offer affordable desktop 3-D printers.
WASHINGTON - The House has voted to cut food stamps by $2 billion a year.
The chamber rejected 234-188 a Democratic amendment to a wide-ranging farm bill that would have maintained current spending on food stamps and cut farm subsidies instead. The bill cuts the $80 billion-a-year program by about 3 per cent and makes it harder for some people to qualify.
PORTLAND, Maine - The press secretary for Maine Gov. Paul LePage says it was her decision to put three newspapers on notice that she, the governor and other administration officials will no longer speak to them.
Spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said Wednesday that she saw a trend of bias and that no single story caused her to make up her mind. She says it's better to focus her resources on what she calls "objective" news outlets.
BURLINGTON, Ont. - SIR Royalty Income Fund (TSX:SRV.UN) says its operating company, SIR Corp., posted a net loss of $5 million in its fiscal third quarter, compared with a net loss of $4.9 million in the same 2012 period.
The company behind such banners as Jack Astor's, Canyon Creek and Alice Fazooli's, says revenue in the period from corporate restaurant operations increased 11.3 per cent to $56.7 million from $50.9 million.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - Men's Wearhouse doesn't like the way its founder looks anymore.
The men's clothier said Wednesday that it has fired the face of the company and its executive chairman, George Zimmer, 64, who appeared in many of its TV commercials with the slogan "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."
VANCOUVER - Vancouver has become the next stop for real estate tycoon and reality television icon Donald Trump's international hotel chain.
Surrounded by his two sons and daughter, as well as the CEO of Vancouver-based developer Holborn Group, Trump says the $360-million Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver will be an architectural wonder and worth the hefty price.
WASHINGTON - Chairman Ben Bernanke ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying the Federal Reserve will likely slow its bond-buying program later this year and end it next year because the economy is strengthening.
The Fed's purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds have helped keep long-term interest rates at record lows. A pullback in its $85 billion-a-month program would likely mean higher rates on mortgages and other consumer and business loans.
TORONTO - Some of the most active companies traded Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange:
Toronto Stock Exchange (12,268.29 down 99.17 points):
WASHINGTON - San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, a friend to Barack Obama and a major Democratic financier, is unveiling a social media campaign on Thursday that aims to rally the president's formidable online army of supporters against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Steyer and a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be in the U.S. capital to step up their efforts against Calgary-based TransCanada, a company they accuse of wanting "to reap billions in profits by getting the United States to allow the shipping of dirty tarsands oil across America’s heartland for export to China and beyond while the United States will get very little in return."
WASHINGTON - Already reeling from a pair of scandals, the Internal Revenue Service is drawing new criticism over plans to hand out millions of dollars in employee bonuses.
The Obama administration has ordered agencies to cancel discretionary bonuses because of automatic spending cuts, but the IRS says it's merely following legal obligations under a union contract.
BURLINGTON, Ont. - Newly installed Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz on Wednesday tried to rally business toward the kind of spending he says is needed to bolster the economy, while giving no signal about any change in interest rate policy.
In his first major speech since taking over from former governor Mark Carney earlier this month, Poloz preached the virtues of "stability and patience," saying the central bank's long-standing target of low, stable inflation remains "sacrosanct."
TORONTO - Hudson's Bay Co. says the only way its business will continue to thrive is for it to move away from being seen as just a department store.
"We believe we need to be in more than the business of selling commodity items," chief executive Richard Baker said at the company's annual general meeting Wednesday.
ATHENS, Greece - Greece's governing coalition failed to end a political crisis triggered by the closure of state broadcaster ERT, but said talks would continue Thursday to try to avoid a snap election that could delay vital economic reforms and disrupt the country's bailout program.
Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras held his second meeting in three days Wednesday with his coalition partners — the Socialist Pasok and Democratic Left parties — who oppose his decision to switch off ERT's signal and fire its 2,700 employees.
MONTREAL - After a spring of sleaze, Quebec's Charbonneau inquiry is taking a break for the summer.
While the inquiry will continue to conduct investigations and prepare for the fall session, the public testimony is done until after Labour Day.
OTTAWA - A massive trove of books, maps and manuscripts from the War of 1812 now belong to Canada.
The federal government has paid nearly $700,000 at an auction in England to acquire what's know as the Sherbrooke Collection.
TORONTO - A long-awaited report on a large and possibly still ongoing outbreak of MERS coronavirus in Saudi Arabia reveals the virus spreads easily within hospitals, at one point passing in a person-to-person chain that encompassed at least five generations of spread.
The study, co-written by Toronto SARS expert Dr. Allison McGeer, also hints there may have been a superspreader in this outbreak, with one person infecting at least seven others.
VANCOUVER - A great-grandmother who has waited 56 years to get her high school diploma can finally cross that dream off her bucket list.
Maureen Baker has attended several high school reunions with her classmates from the 1950s but felt like an outsider because she never finished school.
WINNIPEG - Children have been removed from an orthodox Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, where more adults have been charged with assaulting youngsters.
Manitoba Family Services confirms that children from the community have been taken into care and are being placed in "culturally sensitive" locations, but would not say how many or reveal any other details.
VANCOUVER - Vancouver has become the next stop for real estate tycoon and reality television icon Donald Trump's international hotel chain.
Surrounded by his two sons and daughter, as well as the CEO of Vancouver-based developer Holborn Group, Trump says the $360-million Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver will be an architectural wonder and worth the hefty price.
MONTREAL - Montreal will have its next interim mayor — the third mayor in less than a year — by early next week.
The city clerk's office has announced a vote will be held during a special meeting of council next Tuesday.
WASHINGTON - San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, a friend to Barack Obama and a major Democratic financier, is unveiling a social media campaign on Thursday that aims to rally the president's formidable online army of supporters against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Steyer and a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be in the U.S. capital to step up their efforts against Calgary-based TransCanada, a company they accuse of wanting "to reap billions in profits by getting the United States to allow the shipping of dirty tarsands oil across America’s heartland for export to China and beyond while the United States will get very little in return."
BURLINGTON, Ont. - Newly installed Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz on Wednesday tried to rally business toward the kind of spending he says is needed to bolster the economy, while giving no signal about any change in interest rate policy.
In his first major speech since taking over from former governor Mark Carney earlier this month, Poloz preached the virtues of "stability and patience," saying the central bank's long-standing target of low, stable inflation remains "sacrosanct."
OTTAWA - Bob Rae, a fixture on Canada's political scene for more than three decades, is giving up his seat in the House of Commons to devote himself to another of his Canadian passions: working on behalf of First Nations.
The Toronto Liberal MP and one-time Ontario premier announced Wednesday he's leaving politics so he can focus on his new role: chief negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council in talks with the province about development of the Ring of Fire mining project in northern Ontario.
TORONTO - Senior managers agreed that intervening every time a teen inmate tied a ligature around her neck was unnecessary because she was not always in immediate danger, an inquest into her death heard Wednesday.
Michelle Bridgen, a middle manager at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., said it was the warden and deputy warden who decided essentially that guards should intervene only if Ashley Smith risked imminent death.
OTTAWA - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is about to launch a 48-hour emergency appeal for Syria.
The goal is to help the four million children affected by the two-year-old civil war that the UN says has killed 93,000 people.
HALIFAX - Mere hours after the Nova Scotia legislature was recalled to deal with his possible expulsion, an Independent member who had pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust in the province's spending scandal changed his mind and abruptly resigned Wednesday.
Trevor Zinck had said he would fight for his job shortly after hearing that the house had been reconvened by Speaker Gordie Gosse for noon on Thursday.
The Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky collectors has netted big bucks for old pucks after an auction of some of his choicest memorabilia closed Wednesday.
Shawn Chaulk, a construction contractor from Fort McMurray, Alta., received more than $500,000 for a collection of jerseys, skates, helmets, gloves and pucks used in action by the Great One.
OTTAWA - For a few minutes last week, all the hope, conflict and spin of this Conservative spring stood in a circle of camera lights and microphones in the foyer of the House of Commons.
As Calgary MP Michelle Rempel gamely handled questions from reporters about allegations of unethical Conservative behaviour, she was clutching a glossy "Caucus Briefing Package" — upbeat talking points designed to help Tory backbenchers put a positive spin on their disastrous spring sitting.
KAMLOOPS, B.C. - Mounties in Kamloops, B.C., are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a teenager at a bush party attended by as many as 1,000 high school graduates.
Police say the 17-year-old girl became separated from her friends, was approached by a male she didn't know and was taken into a wooded area where she was sexually assaulted on Tuesday night.
OTTAWA - The last legislative fight of the spring session in the Commons appears to have been won by the New Democrats.
The decision by the House to adjourn for the summer a few days early nixed Conservative efforts to amend a private member's bill to strip Canadian citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorist acts.
WINNIPEG - It looks like a significant piece of Canadian Metis history will soon be returned to public view after disappearing more than 20 years ago.
But one of the country's top Metis leaders is not excited that the bell of Batoche may finally be brought back to its home in Saskatchewan.
HURON EAST, Ont. - An investigation into missing underwear that spanned a dozen years has wrapped up with an arrest in southwestern Ontario.
Police say a thief partial to women's undergarments is believed responsible for a string of burglaries that occurred in Morris-Turnberry and Huron East.
MONTREAL - Telecom giant VimpelCom has withdrawn its bid to acquire full ownership of Canada's Wind Mobile, leaving the founder of the small wireless company the option of buying it back.
Wind Mobile CEO and chairman Anthony Lacavera said Wednesday that he retains his 35 per cent ownership stake in the company and will go back to the capital markets to raise money to buy the rest of the company.
CALGARY - Max Gartner lists his career highlights as the back-to-back world downhill titles captured by Canadian skiers John Kucera and Erik Guay.
But there's also been drawbacks to being president and CEO of Alpine Canada — with potentially more on the horizon. And on Wednesday, Gartner announced he was leaving Canada's national skiing organization after more than three decades.
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. - State police returned to the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, two days after a body was found about a mile away.
Two troopers knocked on the door of Hernandez's sprawling house in an upscale subdivision Wednesday morning, but no one answered. The night before, police spent hours there as another group of officers searched an industrial park where the body was found Monday. No more details about the body have been released.
From piping Canadian television coverage into the athletes' village to locating soy milk for the lactose-intolerant Olympian, no detail is too small in pursuit of a gold medal.
That's the philosophy of the Canadian Olympic Committee team currently in Sochi, Russia, inspecting the 2014 Winter Olympic sites.
TORONTO - Pat Watkins is back with the Toronto Argonauts.
The all-star cornerback rejoined the defending Grey Cup champions Wednesday and was with his teammates for the first time since the start of training camp. The six-foot-five, 205-pound defensive back needed the time away to take care of unspecified personal matters in Florida.
PADERBORN, Germany - Leonie Maier scored the lone goal of the game to lead Germany's women's soccer team to a 1-0 win over Canada on Wednesday.
Maier launched a shot from the right side in the 53rd minute to beat Canadian 'keeper Erin McLeod.
Forward Danny Briere is preparing to become an unrestricted free agent as part of the Philadelphia Flyers' off-season shakeup of their high-priced roster.
A person familiar with discussions confirmed on Wednesday that Briere has been informed by the Flyers that they intend to buy out the final two years of his contract. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Flyers have not announced their decision.
MONTREAL - Quebec has found a place to play soccer on the international stage, but it is not in a World Cup or any other event with national teams.
A group of 18 players patched together and coached by former Montreal Impact player Patrick Leduc will begin play Sunday in the International Tournament of Peoples and Cultures in Marseille, France.
The Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky collectors has netted big bucks for old pucks after an auction of some of his choicest memorabilia closed Wednesday.
Shawn Chaulk, a construction contractor from Fort McMurray, Alta., received more than $500,000 for a collection of jerseys, skates, helmets, gloves and pucks used in action by the Great One.
In little more than a month, Tiger Woods went from being tough to beat to having a tough time even playing.
Woods said Wednesday that soreness in his left elbow would keep him from defending his title next week in the AT&T National at Congressional, and that he would not compete again until the British Open next month at Muirfield.
Serena Williams says she's reaching out to the family of the victim in the Steubenville rape case after the tennis star was quoted in a Rolling Stone article saying "she shouldn't have put herself in that position."
"I am currently reaching out to the girl's family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article," Williams said in a statement released through her agent Wednesday. "What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame."
DETROIT - The Detroit Red Wings and city officials on Wednesday announced a $650 million plan for a new arena development for the NHL team in Detroit's downtown entertainment and sports district.
Plans for the 18,000-seat arena were announced Wednesday at a meeting of economic development officials to approve the deal. Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch has long said he wanted a replacement for the 32-year-old Joe Louis Arena.
FORTALEZA, Brazil - The historic wave of protests that has swept across Brazil in recent days has gained some important allies — the players of the Brazilian national football team.
Brazil is hosting the Confederations Cup, a tournament of continental champions which serves as a warm-up for next year's World Cup, but the Brazilian players' focus has turned to the demonstrations which have taken over a country fighting for improvements in basic services such as public transportation, schools and hospitals.
TORONTO - Dwane Casey will remain as the Toronto Raptors head coach, holding onto his job amid a major front office overhaul.
There had been some question regarding Casey's future in Toronto following the hiring of new GM Masai Ujiri. But Ujiri said Wednesday that Casey will be back with the Raptors for the upcoming season.
It looks like Georges St-Pierre will defend his UFC welterweight title on Nov. 16 in Las Vegas against No. 1 contender Johny (Bigg Rigg) Hendricks.
The UFC had no official comment on the fight and nothing has been signed yet. But a source confirmed the news, saying: "Seriously it looks like it." UFC president Dana White has said that November was the likely time.
CALGARY - Jonathan Hefney holds no grudges against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The veteran defensive back is now with the Calgary Stampeders after being released by the Bombers following four seasons with the CFL club.
LONDON - The doping case involving Jamaican sprint star Veronica Campbell-Brown appears to involve a "lesser" offence of unintentional use of a banned substance, the sport's world governing body said Wednesday.
The reigning 200-meter world champion and three-time Olympic gold medallist was suspended by Jamaica's national federation on Tuesday pending an investigation into a positive drug test.
BOSTON - The Chicago Blackhawks say Marian Hossa will be back in the lineup for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final and that the line of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Bryan Bickell will likely be reunited.
Hossa was a surprise scratch Monday, sidelined with an upper body injury.
REGINA - It didn't take Daryl Stephenson long to land with another CFL team.
The former Hec Crighton Trophy-winning running back signed Wednesday with the Saskatchewan Roughriders after being released earlier this week by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
EASTBOURNE, England - It wasn't quite the Wimbledon warmup Canadian Milos Raonic was hoping for.
The top seed from Thornhill, Ont., dropped his second-round match Wednesday at the Eastbourne grass-court tournament, falling 6-2, 7-6 (7) decision to Croatian Ivan Dodig.
BOSTON - It's just a game, but maybe this Stanley Cup final can heal as well as entertain.
The Boston Bruins know nothing can take away the pain of the Boston Marathon bombings that ravaged their city. Still they know that stringing together wins in the NHL post-season is bringing a smile to their sports-crazy home town.
