Edmonton has amended the Conduct of Transit Passengers bylaw in hopes of making the service safer for commuters and employees. it hopes will make public transit safer for commuters and employees. There have been several attacks at transit centres and hundreds of complaints about intimidating or unpleasant behaviour. The bylaw already banned behaviour that interfered with the safety or comfort of others, but transit peace officers and security contractors say it didn't give them the authority to remove troublemakers. The amendments passed yesterday also ban open drug use and loitering. Council

A sentencing hearing is to begin today for a man who fatally shot a shopper outside a Walmart store in central Alberta. Chase Freed, who is 20, pleaded guilty on Monday to the second-degree murder of Jim Williams in Red Deer in December 2019. RCMP said at the time that a masked man armed with a semi-automatic rifle shot Williams, who was 69, in front of his wife in the store's parking lot during an attempted robbery. Williams died later in hospital.

The province provided some updated numbers yesterday related to the pandemic. Alberta Health officials reported 42 more COVID-19 deaths over the past week, while the number of hospital and intensive care patients continues to decline. It says since the pandemic began, there have been 4,567 COVID-19 deaths in the province. The number of people in Alberta hospitals with the virus has dropped from 931 on May 30th to 816 on June 6th.Public health officials confirmed 1,840 new COVID-19 cases from May 31 to June 6. There were 2,348 cases confirmed in the previous reporting week.

Two Alberta NDP workers say they quit recently because they could no longer stomach a party culture that demeans and ignores volunteers, with the majority of those targeted being women. Sharie Valentine says too often staff are rude, belittling, and condescending to volunteers and potential candidates, adding she is aware of volunteers being shouted at in meetings. Krista Li (LEE) says she quit as the constituency president of Calgary-Bow earlier this year after her board learned off Twitter who their candidate would be. Li says volunteers are not treated as active, engaged members but rather

Alberta's energy minister says anything resembling the U.K.'s so-called ``windfall tax'' on the profits of oil and gas companies must not be implemented in Canada. The U.K. recently imposed additional taxes on oil and gas firms, who are reaping record profits in 2022 due to sky-high commodity prices. The windfall tax is meant to help fund cash payments to help millions of British citizens cope with rapidly rising energy bills. Similar programs are being considered in other countries. Recent news reports quoted a senior White House advisor as saying the Biden administration is actively looking

RCMP have arrested a man and woman in the theft of copper wire at a cell phone tower east of Calgary. Police were called by a Telus employee who was live-monitoring the theft on video. The couple was arrested while attempting to leave the site. Police say officers found a large amount of copper wire, cutting equipment and break-in tools in the suspect vehicle.

Alberta Health Services says a communications mix-up is the reason why it took an ambulance 30 minutes to respond after dogs attacked an 86-year-old woman in Calgary. It says the call for help was initially triaged as non-life-threatening. Police later told emergency medical services that the woman's injuries were serious and she died. Police say the three dogs, which were seized by the city, are believed to be a North American pit bull-terrier mix, a North American Staffordshire mix and an American pit bull.

Alberta Health Services says it is investigating why it took 30 minutes for an ambulance to respond after dogs attacked an 86-year-old woman in Calgary. She was taken to hospital and later died. Alberta Health Services, which runs emergency medical services, says in a statement that staff have contacted the family to share condolences and discuss the EMS response. Spokesman James Wood says the wait was longer than target response times. He says it was extremely busy when the call came in and there were no ambulances immediately available.

A United Conservative backbencher removed from Premier Jason Kenney's cabinet after publicly criticizing him is running to replace him in the party's upcoming leadership race. Leela Aheer, speaking on the Real Talk Ryan Jespersen podcast, says her goal is to rebuild broken trust with Albertans. The two-term legislature member represents the Chestermere-Strathmore constituency east of Calgary. She was named to Kenney's original cabinet in April 2019 as the minister of culture, multiculturalism and the status of women. Kenney booted her last July after she openly criticized Kenney over his handl