CP24

WASHINGTON — A prominent Washington watchdog group is suing Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, trying to block him from serving as one of the administration’s top envoys without disclosing his personal finances and potential conflicts of interest.

NEW YORK — U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday urged a New York judge to send two of the nation’s most successful luxury real estate brokers and their brother to prison for life for drugging and raping dozens of women over a two-decade stretch, while defense lawyers recommended 15-year terms. The lengthy written submissions by both sides precede the sentencing later this month of twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 39, and Tal Alexander, 40.

A former Canadian diplomat has dismissed U.S. allegations of Canadian interference in the upcoming midterms elections as “noise.” “I don’t think that it deserves much response,” Colin Robertson, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, told CTV’s Your Morning on Thursday.

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Senate approved a constitutional amendment Wednesday to reduce the country’s maximum workweek from 44 to 40 hours without a salary cut, a move backed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who hopes it will boost his standing against Flávio Bolsonaro in the Oct. 25 presidential runoff. Lula is expected to sign the shorter workweek into law next week after the measure passed the Senate in two rounds of voting with the same result: 75 to 1 out of 81 members.

ROME — Pope Leo XIV’s lung has recovered well from surgery to remove a cancerous nodule, and he resumed working from the hospital on Thursday, his doctors and the Vatican reported.

WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities investigating Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar seized the Democratic lawmaker’s phone and have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, according to a person briefed on the probe.

COLOGNE, Germany -- German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her, police said. Police in the western city of Cologne responded after the incident overnight Saturday to Sunday in which the robot’s suspected 16-year-old owner and a 19-year-old companion were said to have filmed the alleged assault.

WINNIPEG — Canadian health ministers meet in Winnipeg today after the federal government announced it would extend funding for mental health, addictions and home care by one year. Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel made the announcement on social media late Wednesday, saying the extension represents $1.2 billion in funding. The existing funding was set to expire next year.

Tech stocks appeared to be headed for another sell-off before the bell with inflation anxiety hammering that high-growth sector ahead of the U.S. earnings season. Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.2 per cent before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3 per cent. Nasdaq futures tumbled one per cent. Artificial intelligence stocks were down again after taking a beating a day earlier.

AI cloud firm CoreWeave’s shares and bonds slumped further on Thursday despite CEO assurances about its strong deal backlog, in one of the deepest crises of investor confidence yet in an AI build-out increasingly fueled by borrowing. The company’s stock fell six per cent in premarket trading after a more than 15 per cent drop on Wednesday, among the biggest decliners in a global tech stocks rout.