A report says it would cost Alberta hundreds of millions of dollars more to set up and run a provincial police force, but that it eventually could provide more cost-effective law enforcement.The PricewaterhouseCoopers report says it costs Alberta about 500-million dollars a year right now to pay for the R-C-M-P. The federal government chips in 170-million dollars.The report says if Alberta decided to go it alone, it would cost about 735-million dollars each year on top of startup costs. Premier Jason Kenney's government says it will consult the public on whether to proceed.

Mounties in BC's southern Interior say officers have determined that two deaths in the Osoyoos area this week appear to have been a murder-suicide within a family. The RCMP say officers responded Tuesday to an abandoned vehicle in a rural area northwest of Osoyoos, which was linked with a home in town. They say officers found a body inside the home and a second person was found dead not far from the abandoned vehicle. Police released no further information.

The owner of the smouldering ship that lost 109 of its containers off the coast of Victoria has hired a contractor to try to recover the units loaded with cargo. The MV Zim Kingston lost the containers and caught fire last week. The coast guard says a salvage team is using thermal cameras to find remaining hot spots while firefighting operations continue in containers that hold tires. Five of the lost containers have now been spotted at the very northern tip of Vancouver Island, more than 400 kilometres away.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization has expanded eligibility guidelines for booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines.The committee now recommends mRNA boosters to people who received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, adults over the age of 70, front-line health-care workers with a short interval between their first two doses, and people from First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities.The latest recommendation says the emerging evidence suggests vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic infection and mild COVID-19 disease may decrease over time, and a booster could help resto

B.C. is reporting 758 new cases of COVID-19, including two epi-linked cases, for a total of 204,330 cases in the province.There are 4,961 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 196,858 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 434 individuals are in hospital and 155 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.In the past 24 hours, 10 new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 2,147.The new deaths include:Fraser Health: fourInterior Health: fourNorthern Health: twoFrom Oct. 13-26, they accounted for 74.0% of hospi

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta, an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future. Experts point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a document trove that has revealed how Facebook ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its algorithms wreaked across the world. Zuckerberg insists that the metaverse, what you might think of as the internet rendered in three dimensions, represents the next technological horizon for humanity. And he th

Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to Aryan Khan in the Mumbai cruise drugs seizure case.Bombay High Court also granted bail to Arbaz Merchant and Munmum Dhamecha in the case.At present, Aryan is lodged at the Arthur Road Jail along with another accused Arbaaz Merchant. Whereas, Munmun Dhamecha is at Byculla women prison.Aryan Khan was arrested on October 3. An NCB team busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa at mid-sea on October 2. A total of 20 people, including two Nigerian nationals, have been arrested so far in the case.

A judge has reserved his sentencing decision in the case of Edmonton police Constable Michael Partington, who was found guiltyof assault during an arrest in 2019. Court heard another officer had stopped an Indigenous man for riding a bike without a bell on a sidewalk. Video of the arrest shows the man on the ground in a prone position, and Partington driving his knee into the man's back.The Crown says Partington should serve jail time _ 60 to 90 days _ followed by 12 to 18 months of probation, but his lawyer says jailtime isn't required.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan says he will have biopsy surgery on Friday because of a growth in his throat. Horgan says he's been in and out of the hospital for a number of weeks. He says he noticed a lump and a later test revealed the growth in his throat. The premier says he won't step down and he plans to retain his position as the head of the Council of the Federation. As a precaution, Horgan says Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has been appointed deputy premier to support him. Horgan, who is 62 and had bladder cancer when he was in his 40s, says that he has been in this spot