Work is finally underway in Vancouver's English Bay to remove a huge barge that has been washed up on the beach for eight months. A company has begun drilling piles into the shoreline to anchor the barge while it is cut apart and removed.The city of Vancouver has said placement of the pilings is the first step in the removal process estimated to take three to four months to complete.The barge broke free of its moorings during a fierce storm and extremely high tide last November.It washed up high on the sand and rocks near Sunset Beach, defeating all efforts to drag it free earlier this year.Va

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Greece Tuesday on his first trip to a European Union country since the killing in 2018 of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that triggered widespread international condemnation. Bin Salman, who is traveling with a large government and business delegation, met with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and will attend the signing of a series of bilateral investment and defense agreements. Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his body was dismembered with a bone saw, according to Turkish officials. A U

A high-level World Health Organization (WHO) official on Tuesday said the rapidly spreading Monkeypox outbreak can be stopped with the right strategies. "We do at this moment still believe that this outbreak of Monkeypox can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups," said Dr Rosamund Lewis, WHO Technical Lead on Monkeypox at a press briefing in Geneva. However, she added that time was going by and all need to get together to combat the malady. On Saturday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the spread of the virus to be a public health emergency of intern

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwat Mann on Tuesday met Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to discuss the issue of contaminated waters in the state. Mann in a tweet had earlier informed that he will be meeting the minister in Delhi and will discuss in detail purifying the polluted waters of Punjab. Both sides discussed the issue of pollution due to Buddha Nala, a seasonal water stream, which passes through Ludhiana and addressed the problem of contaminated water entering canals off-taking from Harike Barrage. A discussion on the implementation of the project of rejuvenation of polluted riv

Russia will opt out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country's newly appointed space chief said Tuesday. Yuri Borisov, who was appointed earlier this month to lead the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos, said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia will fulfill its obligations to other partners at the International Space Station before it leaves the project. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said. Borisov's statement reaffirmed previous declarations by R

Pope Francis blessed a statue of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous person to be canonized as a saint, when he visited an inner-city Catholic church in Edmonton yesterday. He held the hands of elders while at Church of Sacred Heart, touching some on the head, as he was wheeled out. Earlier in the day, Francis visited Maskwacis (MASS'-kwah-cheez), south of Edmonton, and said he was sorry the church took part in the cultural destruction and forced assimilation of Indigenous people. The Pope is scheduled to lead mass at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton today, and is expected to travel later

Pope Francis gave an address about reconciliation at Edmonton's Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples and received several gifts. Francis said he is happy to visit an Edmonton church that welcomes Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. He issued an apology earlier in the day in Maskwacis, Alberta, for the church's role in residential schools in Canada. Francis said in his apology that memories of the children who never returned from residential schools has left him with a sense of sorrow, indignation and shame.

Two men in the 20s have been charged with first-degree murder in a double homicide in Whistler, B.C. Police say the BC Prosecution Service has approved the charges against 24-year-old Gursimran Sahota and 20-year-old Tanvir Khakh, both from Surrey. RCMP say the suspects were arrested on the Sea-to-Sky highway shortly after the shooting on Sunday, which took place in the Whistler Blackcomb resort's village near Sundial Hotel. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said in an earlier statement that a burning vehicle discovered on a Whistler street was believed to be associated with the shoo

A former Kelowna social worker accused of stealing money from children in provincial care has been sentenced to five years in prison. BC Supreme Court Justice Steven Wilson handed down the sentence more than a year after Robert Riley Saunders pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 and also imposed shorter and concurrent terms for breach of trust and forgery. Saunders misappropriated an estimated $460,000 dollars from the Ministry of Children and Family Development by opening joint accounts with 24 youths in his care, many of them Indigenous, and then taking their benefits. The provincial governm