Remember Donald Trump’s response in the 2016 presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton blasted him for paying virtually no federal taxes? “That makes me smart,” Trump said. By that logic, Trump is looking smarter than ever now. On Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to drop all pending probes of Trump over whether he’s paid his fair share of taxes, to settle a lawsuit brought by the president over a leak of his tax returns. That could include, assuming it was ongoing, a long-standing audit into a technique Trump reportedly used to avoid paying taxes years ago that could have hit him with an estimated US$100 million bill if the IRS found wrongdoing. Trump has repeatedly denied he did anything wrong and has blasted the IRS investigation as politically motivated, without providing proof.

Slate Grocery REIT says it has set up a special committee of independent trustees which is soliciting proposals from third parties after receiving an offer. The Toronto-based real estate investment trust, which owns and operates U.S. grocery-anchored real estate, says it received an unsolicited proposal from affiliates of Slate Asset Management, the company’s external manager. The committee has been granted a “broad mandate” to consider and evaluate a range of strategic alternatives, which includes a possible sale of the company. Committee chair Marc Rouleau says the value of the REIT’s underlying portfolio may not be fully reflected in the public markets “and as such, we are evaluating various alternatives ranging from initiatives under the status quo, to a whole company sale.”

Mexico and the European Union are set to sign a long-stalled free trade agreement on ‌Friday as they seek to decrease dependence on the U.S. and partially insulate themselves from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs. The accord, which they reached broad agreement on in 2025 but have delayed signing, expands a Mexico-EU trade accord from 2000, which covered ​only industrial goods. The new pact adds services, government procurement, digital trade, investment and farm produce. Mexico’s President ​Claudia Sheinbaum, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio ⁠Costa are to sign the deal in Mexico City in their first summit in over a decade.

The World Health Organization has raised the risk of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a ​national outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo to "very high". The ‌strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency of international concern by the WHO on Sunday. "We are now revising our risk ​assessment to very high at the national level, high at ​the regional level, and low at global level," WHO Chief ⁠Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

Some shareholder groups are increasingly concerned about the liability risks that come with the unfettered development of artificial intelligence and are pushing companies to adopt more stringent oversight measures. Vancity Investment Management in Vancouver is requesting that Google-parent Alphabet Inc. do a better job of preventing AI chatbots from spreading misinformation, while other investors including the Pension Plan of the United Church of Canada want Shopify Inc. to put in place a policy governing responsible AI use. The investors filed shareholder proposals with Alphabet and Shopify ahead of each company’s annual meeting in June. Both companies have advised shareholders to vote against the proposals. Alphabet and Shopify declined to comment.

CVC Capital Partners and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert said they teamed up to launch an offer to take Recordati private with a bid that values the Italian drugmaker at 10.73 billion euros ($12.47 billion). The bid follows a takeover approach from buyout group CVC, the biggest investor in Recordati, earlier this year. An acquisition could rank among the biggest healthcare deals in Europe in recent years. CVC is forming a consortium with Belgian investor GBL to make the offer, which aims to delist Recordati from Euronext Milan and run it as a private company through a phase of increased research investment and dealmaking activity, CVC and GBL said Friday.

Airbus and ‌Air France were found guilty on Thursday of corporate manslaughter by a Paris appeals court over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew, three years after being acquitted in a lower court. "Justice has absolutely been done," Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims' association, who lost her ​son in the accident, said outside the courtroom. Relatives of some of those who died when the Airbus A330 vanished ​in darkness and plunged into the Atlantic during a storm listened to the verdict in silence after ⁠a 17-year legal battle over responsibility for France's worst air disaster.

Canada needs to quickly improve the efficiency at its ports to achieve the goal of rebuilding economic resilience and reducing reliance on U.S.-bound exports to drive growth, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney. “We have fallen way behind in terms of the productivity of our ports and our trade corridors,” said Carney, during a question-and-answer session Wednesday at an event in Vancouver, British Columbia, home to Canada’s biggest port. At present, the prime minister said, it takes much too long for goods that land at the country’s ports to make their way to other parts of the country.

The Trump administration has secured an indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s aging patriarch and former president, escalating its pressure campaign as it seeks to force economic and political concessions from the country’s Communist regime. Federal prosecutors charged Castro with murder, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and destruction of aircraft, according to court documents, dealing a blow to a leader of the Cuban revolution who remains the country’s most powerful figure despite his retirement from public life. The charges relate to the Cuban military’s shootdown of civilian planes flown by the humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue in 1996, when Castro was serving as defense minister. Three U.S. citizens and one permanent resident—all members of the Cuban exile community—were killed.

Kontoor Brands agreed to sell its Lee denim and casual apparel business to Authentic Brands in a deal that could eventually be worth $1 billion. The sale is initially for $750 million and includes $250 million in potential future payment based on the performance of Lee. Kontoor said the deal will allow it to focus investment and execution on its higher-growth brands, particularly its Wrangler jean brand and its Helly Hansen outdoor clothing business. “By increasing our focus on Wrangler and Helly Hansen, two iconic brands with significant white space opportunities, we are better positioned to fuel a higher growth profile and create even greater value for our shareholders,” said Kontoor Chief Executive Scott Baxter.

As Albertans brace for a fall vote on whether there should be a referendum on leaving Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney made a point on Friday of stating that Canada is the best country in the world, and his government is committed to work with Alberta to make it even better. “Canada is working. We’re working in a spirit of co-operative federalism to make the country better. We’re renovating the country as we go, and Alberta being at the centre of that is essential,” Carney said. His comments on the looming separation debate in that province were made amid a tour of ongoing renovations on Parliament Hill, in which he alluded to the work underway around him in the Library of Parliament, which he said reminded him of the “huge contributions of Albertans to this country in the past, in the present, in the future.”

Désigné par le président américain avant de voir sa candidature validée par le Sénat mi-mai, M. Warsh va prendre ses fonctions alors que la guerre au Moyen-Orient pèse sur l’économie américaine et mondiale et relance l’inflation. Ce sera la première fois depuis Ronald Reagan que le nouveau patron de la Fed prêtera serment à la Maison-Blanche, en présence du président américain, de quoi relancer les critiques sur le manque d’indépendance supposé de Kevin Warsh vis-à-vis de Donald Trump. Car ce dernier ne le cache pas, il souhaite peser sur la politique monétaire, ayant appelé régulièrement la Fed à abaisser ses taux et accusant le président sortant, Jerome Powell, d’agir trop peu et trop tard.

Stellantis on Thursday laid out a 60 billion euro (US$70 billion) strategy that marks a shift under new CEO Antonio Filosa, combining a wave of new partnerships, a sharper focus on core brands and a push to better monetise excess factory capacity. The five-year investment, which includes 60 new models by 2030 - among internal combustion engine, hybrid and fully electric - underscores a break from the approach of former CEO Carlos Tavares, with Filosa more open to external collaboration. “The plan is grounded in reality... And it is designed to create a condition for profitable and sustainable growth,” Filosa told investors at the group’s capital markets day.

EU antitrust regulators will decide by June 26 ​whether to clear oilfield services ‌firm Baker Hughes' $13.6 billion acquisition of Chart Industries, according to a ​European Commission filing. Baker Hughes announced the ​deal in July last year ⁠to boost its presence in ​industrial technology servicing liquefied natural ​gas and data centres and also leverage its industrial and energy technology portfolio. The ​Commission, which acts as ​the EU competition enforcer, can either clear ‌the ⁠deal with or without demanding concessions after the end of its preliminary review or it ​can open ​a ⁠full-scale investigation if it has serious concerns.

Premier Danielle Smith on Thursday said her government will hold a referendum on whether Alberta should remain in Canada, after months of pressure from separatist activists, including some from within her own party, to put independence to a provincewide vote. But her proposed referendum, planned for Oct. 19, will not ask a yes-or-no question. Instead, it will ask voters whether they want Alberta to remain in Canada, or start the legal process to hold a binding, second referendum on separation. Ms. Smith, in a televised address Thursday evening, justified putting independence on the fall referendum ballot by arguing a judge made an error last week in ruling that a citizen-led petition aimed at forcing a separation referendum was unconstitutional. Separatist leaders say roughly 301,000 residents signed that petition.

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters apologised for the upset caused to staff by his remarks about ​artificial intelligence replacing "lower value" human workers, but stopped ‌short of retracting the comments on Friday. Bank bosses in recent weeks have been more forthright about the job cuts they expect to ​make as AI makes routine tasks more efficient, ​having previously avoided a direct link to cuts ⁠to focus on productivity gains. In a post on LinkedIn, ​Winters said he was fielding questions about his choice of ​words, "which I know has caused upset to some colleagues. For that I am sorry."

The pay deal reached between Samsung Electronics and its union is being hailed as a win for ​the company which gained key concessions and averted a massive strike, as well as for its memory chip workers - some of whom will receive $416,000 bonuses. Samsung's ‌shares surged 8.5% to a record high on Thursday after the planned 18-day strike by some 48,000 domestic workers was suspended. Union members will vote on the government-mediated agreement between May 22 and May 27. The union's leader has said he expects it to be ratified. Samsung workers had been furious about the large gap in bonuses with their peers at smaller rival SK Hynix which had beaten Samsung to the punch ​in delivering advanced AI chip units to Nvidia, bolstering its fortunes.

Matt Price established Investors for Paris Compliance in 2021 to test whether the tools of shareholder activism could push corporate Canada to live up to its net-zero pledges. Now, Mr. Price and his team have concluded that the answer is no. At least not to the point of bringing about the systemic change needed to achieve the country’s national climate commitments. That, the advocacy group says, must be led by governments and regulators, with the weight of financial and legal clout. So, after five years of filing climate-related shareholder proposals at a slew of company annual meetings, publishing reports and filing regulatory complaints, Investors for Paris Compliance is shutting down.

The Trump administration‘s decision this week to suspend its participation in the Canada-U.S. Permanent Joint Board on Defence is an event that ushers in the predictable escalation of tensions ahead of the scheduled USMCA review. Given that this body hasn’t convened under Mr. Trump’s presidency, the impact is primarily symbolic. However, it points to a deeper meaning that is shaping the trajectory of Canada-U.S. relations. Key here is Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby’s reference to “gaps between rhetoric and reality” and linking Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech to this decision to pull out of the defence board. That speech laid out the “Carney Doctrine,” a global call to middle powers to band together to resist the weaponization of interdependence by major powers. Mr. Carney has since emerged as a source of global inspiration; a modern-day David standing up to Goliath.

Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a directive that the country's near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening Tehran's stance on one of the ​main U.S. demands at peace talks. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's order could further frustrate U.S. President Donald Trump and complicate talks on ending the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli officials have told Reuters that ‌Trump has assured Israel that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, needed to make an atomic weapon, will be sent out of Iran and that any peace deal must include a clause on this.

SpaceX's IPO filing reveals a board deeply embedded in Elon Musk's broader business network, with directors tied to Tesla, Google, PayPal and venture firms that have financed multiple Musk ventures over two decades. The board structure ​reflects both continuity and concentration of influence around Musk, who remains chairman, CEO and CTO. He ‌also holds compensation awards tied to milestones including a $7.5 trillion market value and the establishment of a permanent Mars colony with one million inhabitants.