National Business

TORONTO — Surging global COVID-19 infections and lagging U.S. stimulus talks sent North American stock markets lower to start the week with Canada's main index facing a broad-based decline led by energy.

FREDERICTON — A Fredericton-based company has filed a patent for a technology it says can help provide rapid, early detection of COVID-19 in a community by testing its sewage.

Analysts said Monday that Stellarton, N.S., based grocer Sobeys Inc.

CALGARY — The all-share deal by Cenovus Energy Inc. to buy Husky Energy Inc. for about $3.8 billion will likely spark more mega-mergers among Canadian oil and gas majors, according to a veteran oilsands analyst.

HALIFAX — After the pandemic prompted the cancellation of most of his concerts for 2020, Dave Gunning decided to raise laying hens on his rural Nova Scotia property. He immediately ran into a problem: Chicken wire was nowhere to be found.

HOUSTON — In car lines that can stretch half a mile (0.8 kilometres ), workers who lost jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic and other needy people receive staggering amounts of food distributed by the Houston Food Bank.

HONG KONG — The world’s largest fintech company, China's Ant Group, will try to raise nearly $35 billion in a massive public offering of stock that would shatter records.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Sales of new homes fell by 3.5% in September to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 959,000 million units, the Commerce Department said Monday, as the housing market's hot summer buying season cooled.

MONTREAL — Bombardier Inc. will receive less cash than it originally had agreed to in the sale of its aerostructures business to Spirit AeroSystems Holding Inc.

TORONTO — Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. says it has signed a deal to buy Simply Self Storage from a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund for approximately US$1.2 billion.