Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump's company lost more than US$70 million on his Washington, D.C., hotel during his four years in office despite taking in millions from foreign governments, according to documents released Friday by a congressional committee investigating his business.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said the luxury hotel just a few blocks from the White House was struggling so badly that the Trump Organization had to inject $27 million from other parts of its business and got preferential treatment from a major lender to delay payments on a $170 million loan.
The committee said the losses came despite an estimated $3.7 million in revenue from foreign governments, business that ethics experts say Trump should have refused because it posed conflicts of interest with his role as president.
The Trump Organization said in a statement that the findings of the Democrat-led committee were misleading and false, and it did not receive any special treatment from a lender.
"This report is nothing more than continued political harassment in a desperate attempt to mislead the American public and defame Trump in pursuit of their own agenda," the company said.
The documents from the committee, the first public disclosure of audited financial statements from the hotel, show steep losses despite a brisk business from lobbyists, businesses and Republican groups while Trump was in office.
The alleged loan delay by Deutsche Bank to the president was an "undisclosed preferential treatment" that should have been reported by the president because the bank has substantial business in the U.S., the committee said in a letter to the General Services Administration, the federal agency overseeing the hotel. The hotel is leased by the federal government to the Trump Organization.
"The documents ... raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump's lease with GSA and the agency's ability to manage the former president's conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant," the committee's Democratic co-chairs, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, wrote in their letter.
The GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For its part, Deutsche Bank said in a statement that the committee made "several inaccurate statements" about the loan agreement but declined to elaborate, citing loan privacy concerns.
The committee's letter to the GSA said the hotel losses contradict the "exaggerated image of financial success" that the president was portraying in the personal financial disclosure reports he sent to a federal ethics agency each year. But those reports require only revenue to be disclosed, not profits, an apples-to-oranges comparison that one of Trump's sons seized upon in a tweet blasting the committee.
"Please learn the difference between Gross Revenue and Net Profit before writing us long letters," Eric Trump wrote, calling the committee "incompetent."
Trump's company has been trying to sell the 263-room hotel since the fall of 2019 but has struggled to find buyers during the coronavirus pandemic at a reported initial asking price of more than $500 million.
The head of government ethics watchdog CREW said the losses shed new light on Trump's refusal to ban foreign governments from patronizing his business.
"The only lifeline was the corrupt business coming from people and organizations and governments seeking to influence him," said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "His use of the presidency to get business was absolutely essential to stemming the flow of losses."
To allay concerns about conflict of interest, Trump promised to send payments to the U.S. Treasury on foreign government earnings from his business annually. The committee said the Washington hotel payments under this deal totaled more than $350,000 in the first three years of his presidency. Critics of the voluntary deal say Trump's definition of earnings is unclear and gave the president plenty of room to lowball the figure.
Though the Washington hotel was hurt badly by pandemic-related shutdowns last year, the audited financial statements released by the committee show it was suffering every year it was open before that, too. It lost a nearly $50 million in the first three years of his presidency, then $22 million last year.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar – as authorities continue investigating potential connections to the Indian government.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
RCMP say human remains found in a rural area in central Saskatchewan may have been there for a decade or more.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.