Canada’s top ethics watchdog on Wednesday ruled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his officials broke the law by trying to influence a legal case against a major construction company in Quebec. Independent ethics commissioner Mario Dion said Trudeau and his officials attempted to circumvent, undermine and discredit a decision by federal prosecutors that construction giant SNC-Lavalin should face trial on corruption and bribery charges. Dion said Trudeau allegedly used his office “to circumvent, undermine and ultimately attempt to discredit” the country’s head of prosecutions and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Dion said, "The prime minister, directly and through his senior officials, used various means to exert influence over Ms. Wilson-Raybould." Canada's Conflict of Interest Act bars public office holders from “using their position to seek to influence a decision to improperly further the private interests of a third party." The timing of the ruling — just weeks before the start of the federal election — could not be worse for the Liberals, who had been hoping that the SNC-Lavalin controversy that dominated the news at the beginning of the year had finally died down. Instead, the conclusions of the ethics commissioner put the Liberal government under an ethics cloud once again.

A New York woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 14 sued the disgraced financier’s estate and former associates on Wednesday, in the start of an expected wave of lawsuits. 32-year-old Jennifer Araoz said in her complaint that she was starting out in high school when an Epstein associate brought her to the financier’s massive mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, beginning a grooming process that led to months of sexual abuse, including what she called a “brutal rape.” Three other unnamed defendants in Araoz’s lawsuit, are all women who allegedly worked for Epstein in New York, include a maid, a secretary, and a “recruiter” who helped procure underage girls for him. Epstein was arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls between 2002 and 2005. He died at age 66 on Saturday of an apparent suicide. The Justice Department said that the warden at the detention center, where Epstein was being held, has been reassigned, and two correctional officers who were responsible for monitoring Epstein's unit at the time of his apparent suicide have been placed on leave. They were suspected of sleeping on the job, and falsifying records to cover it up.

More than 270 people have died in the southern half of India, and more than 1.2 million people across six states were forced from their homes, taking shelter in government relief camps after two weeks of heavy monsoon rains and severe flooding. Residents in Kerala have been warned of more heavy rainfall in the next few days. That same region experienced the worst floods in nearly a century last year. An estimated 450 people died in flooding in 2018. With the latest deluge, more than 1,000 Kerala homes have been destroyed and more than 11 thousand were damaged by the flood. Authorities are keeping an eye on the Krishna River in the Andhra Pradesh region to see if it goes over its banks. In the Karnataka state, authorities rescued 677 thousand people from flooded areas. The southern states of Kerala and Karnataka, and Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west, were among the hardest hit by floods that washed away thousands of hectares of summer-sown crops and damaged roads and rail lines. India deployed the army, navy and air force to work alongside local emergency personnel on search-and-rescue missions. The monsoon season from June to September delivers some 70% of the country’s rainfall, but the heavy rainfall also causes death and destruction each year.

The German economy, which has struggled to find growth this year, contracted during the second quarter of 2019, fueling more fears of a recession for the world's fourth-largest economy. Government figures released Wednesday show Berlin's gross domestic product shrank in the three-month period ending in July by 0.1 percent. Chancellor Angela Merkel said there's no need right now for a fiscal stimulus, and economic minister Peter Altmaier said the declining GDP is a "warning signal" of the influence of the year-long U.S.-China trade conflict. Experts said the U.S.-China feud hurts German exporters. Declining auto sales and the threat of Britain leaving the European Union without a trade agreement are also factors taxing the German economy. Analysts call it a perfect storm of negative factors dragging down Germany's economy, as exports, demand for automobiles and disposable income are all in a tailspin. Economists define a recession as two consecutive quarterly contractions, which would occur with another contraction in the third quarter.

The Federal Aviation Administration has banned certain models of 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops on flights, citing "recalled batteries" in some models flagged by Apple in June. Apple issued a voluntary recall of selected MacBook Pros sold between September 2015 and February 2017, saying their batteries were susceptible to overheating, posing fire risks. The FAA said it has "alerted airlines about the recall." The European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning earlier this month about the same MacBook pro models. The European agency told airlines to follow 2017 rules against using devices with recalled lithium-ion batteries during flights. This week, four airlines with cargo operations managed by Total Cargo Expertise said the laptops could not be brought onto their planes as cargo.

In Italy, a technical report released Wednesday showed some parts of a bridge that collapsed one year ago in northern Italy had lacked maintenance for 25 years. On Aug. 14 last year, a large section of the 1.2 km-long (1,100-yard) bridge in the city of Genoa collapsed in heavy rain, killing 43 people. A local prosecutor said while the exact cause of the collapse is still under investigation, the ruling blamed Italy’s biggest toll-road operator, infrastructure group Atlantia, for neglecting maintenance on the bridge. Atlantia has denied any wrongdoing. Following a memorial ceremony for the victims on the one year anniversary of the disaster earlier that day, Genoa top prosecutor Francesco Cozzi told reporters,“The investigation will tell whether (the lack of maintenance) was instrumental in causing the collapse.” Shares in Atlantia stock fell 4% on Wednesday after the prosecutor’s comment.

The Los Angeles Opera announced on Tuesday that it would "engage outside counsel" to look into the allegations of sexual harassment by opera star Plácido Domingo. Nine women have come forward to accuse Domingo, who has been the L.A. Opera's general director since 2003. In an article published Tuesday by The Associated Press, several women said Domingo pressured them into sexual rel