Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says his government has made strides in adding capacity to hospitals still straining to cope during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenney says 19 of 50 new intensive care beds promised in the spring budget are available and staffed by new specialists, including nurses and respiratory therapists. He says Alberta will no longer have the lowest number of intensive care beds per capita once the rest of the promised beds open. Kenney says that will leave Alberta about average in Canada. Health Minister Jason Copping says even with the new beds, hospitals remain under severe str

The trial for a Calgary man accused of travelling to Syria to commit terrorism offences will occur exactly one year after it was originally scheduled. Jamal Borhot was charged in 2020 with three counts of participating in terrorist group activity after a seven year investigation by the RCMP. Police allege he committed terrorist activities benefiting the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in 2013 and 2014. A trial was originally scheduled for this October but his lawyer removed himself from the case. The new four-week trial begins Oct. 3, 2023. Borhot's new lawyer said he needs time to

CALGARY - Family and friends are rallying around the children of a Calgary woman who died after a road-rage shooting led to a four-vehicle crash. Angela McKenzie, who was 40, died Tuesday when two vehicles thatwere pursuing each other collided with her van and another car at an intersection in the city's southeast. McKenzie was identified by her church pastor as a mother of five children between the ages of nine and 17. A GoFundMe account has been set up by a church member to help the children and their grandmother, who is currently caring for them. Capt. Ian Scott, pastor of the Salvation Arm

Alberta's health minister says planned changes to funding for insulin pumps are on hold after people with Type 1 diabetes voiced worries about potential financial or medical hardship. Jason Copping says the changes, which were to begin Aug. 1, are being put off pending consultations to make sure no one is forced to choose between a pump and putting food on the table. Copping, speaking in the legislature during question period, apologized to the roughly 4,000 Albertans who use insulin pumps. The government said last week that it would change how it funds the pumps, small programmable machines t

The Vatican says Pope Francis will stop in Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut during his visit to Canada this summer. It says the capital cities of Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit will act as bases for the trip from July 24 to 29. The visit comes after the Pope's historic apology last month for the Roman Catholic Church's role in residential schools in Canada. Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton, general coordinator of the trip for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, says it will be another important step for healing and reconciliation. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said the

The federal government has approved a new, approximately $10-billion loan guarantee for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, a move it says is common practice and does not reflect any additional public funding for the high-profile, over-budget oil pipeline. The Trans Mountain pipeline is Canada's only oil pipeline system from Alberta to the West Coast. It was bought by the federal government in 2018 for $4.5 billion after previous owner Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. threatened to scrap the pipeline's planned expansion project in the face of environmentalist opposition. The statement said Trans

Alberta's Opposition NDP says new data shows a health-care system in crisis due to long wait times.The Alberta Health Services Emergency Medical Services quarterly dashboard from early April shows ambulance response times in urban areas got progressively worse in the past year. NDP Leader Rachel Notley says those numbers are another sign of an ambulance and hospital system under extreme stress. In the past week, there have been reports of ambulances lined up outside hospitals, surgeries being diverted and long wait times at children's hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton. Mike Parker, a paramedic

Calgary police say a woman has died after a road-rage shooting that led to a four-vehicle crash.The police service says in a news release that it received multiple reports last night about two vehicles driving erratically and an exchange of gunfire in the city's northeast. They say at least two homes were struck by stray bullets. Police say the two vehicles pursued one another before colliding with other vehicles at an intersection in the southeast. Officers say people in the two vehicles continued to fire shots at each other at the scene before fleeing on foot. The driver of a silver van, a 4

EDMONTON - The Alberta government is amending its bereavement bill following criticism that it allowed leave for stillbirths and miscarriages but was silent on abortions. Labour Minister Kaycee Madu (KAY'-see MAH'-doo) has introduced a change to the bill that, if passed, would allow for three days unpaid leave in any pregnancy that doesn't end in a live birth. Madu says he has heard concerns from critics and other stakeholders to make the definition as broad as possible. Opposition N-D-P critic Sarah Hoffman says the change doesn't go far enough, and the United Conservative government must s