Victoria Police Chief Del Manak says he's disappointed Esquimalt council has rejected the portion of his department's 2022 budget that would have funded 10 new positions. Esquimalt and the City of Victoria share policing costs for the capital and although Victoria council has approved the department's entire 63.4-million dollar budget, Esquimalt rejected the portion that would have funded the 10 new jobs. Manak says the new hires, including two plainclothes co-responder officers who work as a team with a psychiatric nurse, are ``an essential component of the department's overall core budget r

Vancouver police say an assault charge has been approved after a man was allegedly shoved down a flight of stairs at a Vancouver SkyTrain station. Police say 53 year old Bradley King faces a single count of assault related to the March 1st incident where video appears to show a 61 year old man being pushed and then kicked as he lay at the bottom of the stairway. Investigators say there was a verbal confrontation between the victim and another man in the moments before the 61 year old was shoved. Court documents show King has been released from custody and is scheduled to return to court on Ap

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have decided against reopening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a promise and opting to appease their hard-line base, at the expense of further alienating the international community. The surprise decision is bound to disrupt Taliban efforts to win recognition from potential donors abroad at a time when Afghanistan is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. U.S. Special Representative Thomas West tweeted his ``shock and deep disappointment'' about the decision, calling it ``a betrayal of public commitments to the Afghan people and the internat

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making a plea to European leaders to come together as democracies in the face of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Trudeau is addressing the European Parliament for the first time since 2017. He says Putin's attack on Ukraine is an attack on the values that form the pillars of all democracies. Trudeau says Western countries must provide more humanitarian aid, send military equipment and lethal aid to Ukraine, and further tighten economic sanctions on Putin. Trudeau says democracies face a new threat from Russian President Valdimir Putin. Trudeau will joi

Police in Delta say the suspect in an arson case that caused an estimated 100,000 dollars in damage is a minor. Police say the youth was arrested on Friday but has been released, and is expected to appear in court at a later date. They say information is being prepared for a submission to Crown for approval of a charge against the individual. The possible charge is tied to a fire earlier this month at a playground at Chalmers Park in North Delta. Delta police on Twitter: On March 5, 2022 Delta Police responded to a report of a fire at the playground area of Chalmers Park. On March 18, 2022 a

A senior NATO military official is estimating as many as 15-thousand Russian soldiers have died in fighting in Ukraine.Separately, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has announced the alliance is deploying new multinational battlegroups to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.Today marks four full weeks of fighting, with Russia bogged down in a grinding military campaign and its economy crippled by Western sanctions.U-S President Joe Biden, who's on his way to Brussels for tomorrow's meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other NATO leaders, warns there is a ``real threat`` Russia c

An Alberta legislature member under RCMP investigation for hacking into a government website says he had a professional responsibility to do it. And Thomas Dang says while he used some of Premier Jason Kenney's personal information to commit the breach, it wasn't identity theft because the information was already public. Dang is the Independent member for Edmonton-South. He has released a report he wrote titled ``How I Did It,'' which explains his cyber-breach last fall on the government's COVID-19 vaccine passport verification website. Dang says he does not believe he did anything wrong and

A man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the death of a 49-year-old woman in her home last year in New Westminster, B.C. Carlo Tobias, who is 22, was originally charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to one count each of manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact in the death of Ma Cecilia Loreto. The defence and Crown counsel submitted a joint recommendation of a 10-year sentence, minus 18 months for time served, which Judge Peter La Prairie of the B.C. provincial court agreed to. An agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown counsel Jay Fogel

The Health Ministry says there have been no more deaths related to COVID-19 in British Columbia. B.C. reported 254 hospitalizations on Tuesday, a slight drop from Monday when there were 271 people in hospital. It says 48 people were in intensive care. No new outbreaks have been declared in health-care facilities since Monday, and three others have ended. That leaves five facilities with ongoing outbreaks across the health-care system. The government says 91 per cent of eligible people aged 12 and up have had their second dose of a vaccine and 57.1 per cent of those have had a third dose.