National Business

CALGARY — World oil prices are in free fall after Saudi Arabia slashed its crude sale price Sunday, signalling the start of a price war after OPEC talks with Russia broke down without an agreement on production cuts.

CALGARY — Shares in drilling company Ensign Energy Services Inc. plunged by as much as 40 per cent on Monday amid a worldwide oil price and stock market crash. The company, which reported a loss of $71.6 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec.

DONKIN, N.S. — Nova Scotia's Labour Department says a stop work order has been partially lifted at the Donkin coal mine in Cape Breton. Production was shut down Feb.

OTTAWA — The annual pace of housing starts fell in February compared with January, but still came in stronger than economists had expected. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

WASHINGTON — It was a blunt warning about the dangers of youth vaping: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced late last month that his state had joined 38 others to investigate whether Juul Labs, the nation’s largest electronic cigarette compa

WATERLOO, Ont. — Business software company OpenText has acquired XMedius, a provider of secure file exchange and communication, for $75 million in cash.

ROME — Italy took a page from China’s playbook Sunday, attempting to lock down 16 million people — more than a quarter of its population — for nearly a month to halt the relentless march of the new coronavirus across Europe.

MONTREAL — As a new virus wreaks havoc on the global travel industry, aviation upstarts in Canada have their radar trained on a more entrenched set of challenges.

TORONTO — Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week: Housing starts Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. will release its preliminary housing start data for February on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO — Twenty-one people aboard a mammoth cruise ship off the California coast tested positive for the new coronavirus and 19 of them are crew members, Vice-President Mike Pence announced Friday, amid evidence the vessel was the breeding gro