Amazon Canada plans to hire 15-thousand new warehouse and distribution workers across the country and is boosting the starting pay for front-line, hourly employees by 27 per cent to $21.65 an hour.Current employees are getting raises immediately, regardless of how long they've been with the company.Amazon Canada has 25-thousand full and part-time workers in 25 communities across five provinces, and is growing rapidly due to the pandemic-driven explosion in online shopping.

B.C. is reporting 820 new cases of COVID-19, including 11 epi-linked cases, for a total of 173,158 cases in the province.There are 5,850 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and 165,027 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 281 individuals are in hospital and 135 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.In the past 24 hours, nine new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 1,856.The new deaths include:Vancouver Coastal Health: threeInterior Health: threeNorthern Health: twoIsland Health: one From Sept. 2-8, pe

Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation, has issued the following statement on the release of Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey for August 2021:"The Labour Force Survey for August shows that B.C. is making great strides in our economic recovery with another 14,400 jobs gained throughout the province – 13,600 of these jobs are among women. All job gains are full-time."B.C. has one of the lowest unemployment rates and a job recovery rate of 101.1%, leading Canada as the only province with employment above pre-pandemic levels for the third straight month."In areas

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait announced that farmers' protest in Karnal will continue as "talks with administration have failed". "Talk (with Karnal district administration) lasted for 3 hours but failed. The officers are getting directions from Chandigarh. Along with our protests in Delhi, this agitation will also continue until our demands are met. Our demand is that the officer is suspended," he said.

Two unseeded teenagers will face off in Saturday's US Open women's final. 19 year old Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Quebec takes on British 18 year old Emma Raducanu. Fernandez is aiming to be the second Canadian to win women's singles at Flushing Meadows after Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ontario, accomplished the feat in 2019. Raducanu is the youngest Grand Slam finalist since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at age 17 in 2004. Medvedev beats Canadian Aliassime in men's semis Daniil Medvedev is in the U.S. Open final for the second time in three years after beating Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4,

One of Afghanistan's first two female Olympians is urging Canada to help female athletes escape the country. Friba Rezayee who lives in Vancouver, says her phone lit up with messages from women pleading for help after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last month. Rezayee is also the founder of Women Leaders of Tomorrow, an organization that supports Afghan women with athletic and educational opportunities. The federal government says it has received assurances from the Taliban that Afghan citizens with travel authorization from other countries will be allowed to leave the country, but it warns

An emergency room nurse in Kamloops recalls the emotional toll of a verbal attack she recently faced from a woman at a grocery store after another gruelling workday. Jaime Gallaher says she was still red-eyed from crying at work after anti-vaccination protests outside the ER when a woman swore at her, so she left her carton of milk and went home after breaking down in tears. Experts are raising concern over, moral injury, among health-care workers suddenly targeted after several provinces brought in vaccine passports. Roughly 5,000 people gathered a week earlier outside Vancouver General Hospi

The wildfire situation is continually evolving and the information below is current as of 7 p.m. (Pacific time) on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021.Fires:Wildfires currently burning in B.C.: 208Since April 1, 2021:1,585 wildfires868,619 hectares of area burnedActive fires by fire centre:Cariboo: 25Coastal: 13Kamloops: 57Northwest: 5Prince George: 52Southeast: 56Resources:Firefighters and other personnel currently fighting the fires: 1,418Out-of-province firefighters: 61Helicopters and planes supporting ground crews: 43Evacuations:Evacuation orders: 3 (-1)Evacuation alerts: 13 (-1) Properties:Number of

Statistics Canada says the economy added 90-thousand jobs in August in the third consecutive monthly rise.The unemployment rate fell to 7.1 per cent for the month, compared with 7.5 per cent in July, bringing the rate to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year.The agency says overall employment is within 156-thousand jobs, or 0.8 per cent, of the level recorded in February 2020 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.