Canadian home price and sales growth will moderate in the coming years from recent pandemic-era highs but stay elevated in 2022 as higher employment and immigration drive demand, the national housing agency said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Sales and price growth will continue to moderate more in line with historical averages by late 2023 or early 2024 amid higher mortgage rates but elevated price levels will persist, putting greater pressure on affordability for new homebuyers, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said in its 2022-2024 market outlook.

Mexico’s state-owned oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos will resume paying its debt maturities this year, ending a government policy of covering its amortizations to help the beleaguered driller shore up its finances, according to a Finance Ministry official, Bloomberg News reported. The Finance Ministry no longer needs to make debt payments because of the extra revenue Pemex is getting from higher oil prices, according to the official, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter.

The U.S. rolled out new sanctions on Wednesday against more than 40 individuals and entities accused of evading the ongoing wave of penalties imposed on Russia as punishment for invading Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. The sanctions include the first set of penalties against cryptocurrency mining firms in relation to the war. The Treasury Department’s sanctions arm designated the commercial bank Transkapitalbank, which has operations in China and the Middle East. Transkapitalbank is a Russian privately owned commercial bank which the U.S.

Laurentian University president Robert Haché is sticking to his guns, saying that the university did what it could to advocate to government for financial support, and only turned to filing for creditor protection as a last resort, Sudbury.com reported. This in the wake of the release of a scathing preliminary report examining Laurentian’s financial crisis, which was released by Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk on April 13. Lysyk said she believes the data shows Laurentian University did not have to file for creditor protection under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act (CCAA).

Mexico’s congress dealt a major setback to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador late Sunday in his bid for state control over the country’s energy sector, a priority of his nationalist agenda, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mexico’s lower house rejected constitutional amendments proposed by Mr. López Obrador to give the country’s state-owned power company control over the electricity industry in a 275-223 vote, short of the two-thirds majority needed to change Mexico’s constitution. All opposition parties voted against the bill, while Mr.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) says it has charged 16 defendants with participating in multiyear penny stock schemes that generated more than $194 million in illicit proceeds, Reuters reported. The defendants, which include 15 individuals and one company, are located in the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Monaco, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom, the SEC said in a statement.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has lifted its objection to Limerick-based aircraft lessor Nordic Aviation Capital’s bankruptcy plan, the Independent reported. Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC) has been seeking to get out from under $6.3bn (€5.8bn) of debt by handing it to lenders. The IRS said in a filing on April 15 that it was withdrawing its objection to the bankruptcy plan on the condition that the lenders pay any administrative claims without the IRS having to file a request for them. The IRS had raised a last-minute objection to the plan last week on technical grounds.

In a scathing report, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said she believes the data shows Laurentian University did not have to file for creditor protection under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act (CCAA), Sudbury.com reported.

Texas will halt some vehicle inspections at the U.S.-Mexico border after Governor Greg Abbott’s crackdown provoked protests that halted some crucial food and equipment shipments, Bloomberg News reported. Abbott said Wednesday that the state government of Nuevo Leon in northern Mexico agreed to conduct safety inspections before U.S.-bound trucks reach the border. The inspections will continue in other sectors of the U.S.-Mexico line. Abbott said he acted in response to what he called U.S. President Joe Biden’s failure to repel undocumented migration and drug smuggling.

Canada's biggest banks said on Wednesday they will raise their prime lending rate by 50 basis points to 3.2%, a two-year high, following the Bank of Canada's benchmark rate hike, moves that could rein in the country's red-hot housing markets, Reuters reported. The country's four biggest banks - Royal Bank of Canada , Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal - said the higher prime rate, which variable-rate mortgages are tied to, will come into effect on Thursday.