National Business

TORONTO — When former communications agency director Erin Bury considers ads she's seen from governments during the COVID-19 pandemic, a villainous character with an active social life is the first thing that pops into her mind. Mr.

FREDERICTON — Compliance officers are still catching businesses in New Brunswick with inadequate COVID-19 operational plans — or no plan at all, nearly a year after companies were required to create them.

CALGARY — Pan American Silver Corp. says veteran geologist and company founder Ross Beaty intends to retire as chair and a director at its annual general meeting in May.

WASHINGTON — The services sector, where most Americans work, operated in January at the highest level in almost two years. Activity climbed to a reading of 58.

TORONTO — Consultants estimate that car and truck sales last month fell 17.4 per cent compared with January 2020, after COVID-19 lockdowns and inventory shortages hampered sales.

LONDON — Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline said Wednesday it will work with a German biopharmaceutical company to develop new vaccines targeting emerging variants of COVID-19 amid concerns that some mutations are making the virus harder to combat.

BERLIN — Germany's economy minister says the country beat its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% last year compared to 1990 levels.

TORONTO — CIBC says the sale of a large portion of its majority stake in CIBC FirstCaribbean to GNB Financial Group Ltd. will not go ahead after it did not receive approval from regulators.

CAMBRIDGE, Ont. — ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. beat expectations as it reported its third-quarter profit rose compared with a year ago as it reduced costs. The maker of automation systems says it earned $18.

LONDON — Britain’s health chief said Wednesday that a new study suggesting that a single dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine provides a high level of protection for 12 weeks supports the government’s strategy of delaying the second shot s