TORONTO — A proposal to take Indigo Books & Music Inc. private would allow the company to get back on track with less scrutiny and more flexibility than if it remained public, experts say.

The company has spent the bulk of the last year recovering from a major cyberattack, coping with a succession of leadership changes and watching its losses mount. It’s been using a transformation plan to return the company to its former glory but has said little about what the initiative entails, though it laid off an unspecified number of

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Friday described Moscow’s military action in Ukraine as a battle for Russia’s survival as he next month in balloting that he’s all but certain to win.

Speaking at a meeting with arms industries workers in the city of Tula south of Moscow, Putin declared that the vast majority of Russians support his course.

“If the public hadn’t felt that way, nothing would have happened,” he said. “We are doing what people expect us to

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Friday, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the in Jordan last weekend.

The massive barrage of strikes hit more than 85 targets at seven locations, including command and control headquarters, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities that were connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia will seek an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss the escalation of tensions with its former province of and introduce the euro in areas where minority Serbs live, Serbia’s president said Friday.

Kosovo’s government has banned banks and other financial institutions in the Serb-populated areas from using the dinar in local transactions. Kosovo’s Central Bank issued the new rules last summer.

Most of Kosovo uses the euro, even though the country is not part of

Eritrean troops are abducting farmers and stealing hundreds of livestock in border regions of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, 15 months after a cease-fire ended a civil war there and called for their withdrawal, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press.

The memo prepared on Jan. 31 by the Ethiopia Health Cluster is based on an assessment of two districts near the Eritrean border by U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations. It documents several instances of kidnapping and livestock raiding by Eritrean forces. The memo

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a pre-Grammy event, Mariah Carey used the Recording Academy stage to speak about fighting against conforming to certain music industry standards in an effort to create her music that would eventually appeal to the masses.

“I was not encouraged to focus on my love for Black music,” Carey remarked Thursday night at the academy’s Black Music Collective event in Los Angeles, where she and Lenny Kravitz were given the Global Impact Award.

The honorees received the award for their personal and professional

CALGARY — As Canada’s energy sector ramps up for the anticipated start-up of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Imperial Oil Ltd. reported its highest production levels in over 30 years in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The Calgary-based company — which is majority-owned by U.S. giant Exxon Mobil — said its output for the three months ended Dec. 31 averaged 452,000 gross oil-equivalent barrels per day, up from 441

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will resume a long-suspended in the North Pacific island of as the Biden administration continues moves to counter growing Chinese influence in the region.

The Peace Corps said Friday that it would start sending volunteers back to the island in 2025 following an agreement reached between the agency’s director and Palau’s president, whose country is one of the few in the world to have .

“Volunteers will live and work side-by-side with community partners to improve