HONG KONG/BEIJING: China will accept applications early next year from foreign insurers seeking to take control of their local joint ventures and is even weighing giving them full ownership earlier than flagged, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

OTTAWA — The federal government is expected to lay out fresh plans next week to support Canada’s struggling news industry.

The UK stock market has slipped lower amid the political fall-out from Theresa May’s Brexit plan.

A meeting of world leaders in Papua New Guinea highlighted divisions between global powers the U.S. and China and a growing competition for influence in the usually neglected South Pacific.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is fighting back against critics of her Brexit deal, telling her Conservative opponents that their alternative plans for Britain’s departure from the European Union wouldn’t work.

A luxury hotel opening outside Shanghai is offering guests with deep pockets the chance of a very deep sleep.

Three years after it closed its beloved toy store on Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz is making a return to New York.

WestJet Airlines says it has updated its training in response to revelations of a design issue in the Boeing 737 Max, the aircraft at the centre of a deadly crash off the coast of Indonesia last month.

Volkswagen intends to invest 44 billion euros ($50 billion) in the electric and autonomous car technologies expected to reshape the industry — and said it would make battery-powered vehicles more accessible to mass-market auto buyers by selling its new I.D. compact for about what a Golf diesel costs.

A class action lawsuit against McDonald’s Canada arguing that Happy Meals and their accompanying toys illegally advertise to children can go ahead, a judge has ruled.