New data suggest that COVID-19 activity in British Columbia is trending downward, while influenza and RSV are on the rise. A weekly update provided Thursday by the BC Centre for Disease Control says COVID-19 cases, new hospitalizations and deaths are all declining from a peak in the first week of October.It says there were 25 deaths of patients with COVID last week, down from 70 three weeks earlier. But the number of people in hospital with COVID-19, including new and previous admissions, has risen to 263 as of Thursday.The CDC says Influenza A is behind a rise in flu activity, accounting for

The RCMP's federal unit, which investigates Canada's serious crime cases, is facing staff shortages.According to RCMP spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton, the federal policing wing is short about 1,000 positions.At present, the wing has 507 fewer police officers than a decade ago and 500 more posts are vacant.Breton said federal policing currently has about 5,000 employees.The RCMP has two main policing units, one that provides local and regional law enforcement officers to the states and the other is a federal policing wing that investigates cases related to national and international crimes such a

International students in Canada will soon be unable to work more than 20 hours a week.In November last year, the then immigration minister Sean Fraser removed this limit, which expires on December 31, 2023.A spokesperson for the Immigration Department said the move was intended to provide more opportunities for eligible international students to gain better work experience in Canada and increase the presence of workers to sustain economic growth after the pandemic.The ban on working hours was lifted from 15 November 2022 to 31 December 2023 to deal with labor shortages.The new policy was for

A Punjabi youth died in a shooting incident in Mississauga on Wednesday.According to the police, when officers and paramedics arrived at the scene, the youth was found seriously injured due to gunshot wounds, he was rushed to the hospital in a critical condition, where he died within a short time.At present, the police has not given any information about the suspect, nor has the identity of the deceased been made public, but the family has confirmed the death of 28-year-old Jagraj Singh in this incident.He was a resident of Nathowal village in Raikot town of Ludhiana and had come to Canada for

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke says the provincial government has orchestrated a policing takeover in the city by suspending the current police board.Solicitor General Mike Farnworth suspended the board Thursday and installed former Abbotsford police chief Mike Serr as temporary administrator to lead the transition.Locke says the move was done without any consultation with the city and removes civilian oversight of policing in Surrey as the plan to replace the RCMP with a municipal force moves forward.Locke says the province is forcing the city to go ahead with the costly transition, while taking o

Canadians in the Gaza Strip, eager to escape the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas, may have to wait a little longer to leave.As of 4 a.m. Eastern, the General Authority for Crossings and Borders had yet to update its daily list of approved foreign passport holders authorized to exit Gaza and enter Egypt.The Canadian government says that as of Wednesday afternoon, it was in touch with 386 people still in the besieged territory.Global Affairs Canada says, so far, 367 Canadians, permanent residents and their relatives have been able to escape via the Rafah border crossing, most recently i

Nathaniel Veltman, who drove a truck into a Muslim family in Ontario in 2021, has been charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.First degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole before 25 years.On 6 June 2021, four members of the Afzaal family were killed by the accused by running down the truck.This family had gone for a walk.46-year-old Afzaal, his 44-year-old wife Madiha Salman, 15-year-old daughter Yumnah Afzaal and 74-year-old mother Talat Afzaal died in this accident.A 9-year-old boy was seriously injured in the incident, but survived.This

Police have arrested a Toronto couple after Canadian Border Guards seized 300 kilograms of methamphetamine drugs from a truck in March.The drugs seized had a market value of more than $13 million.The drugs were seized from a semitruck at the Ambassador Bridge border in Windsor, RCMP said, with border agents arresting the driver at the scene and turning him over to police, who was later released without charge and has since been released.An investigation was launched to find out where the huge drug supply was going and who was behind the shipment.Investigation lead to a 33-year-old man and a 35

A government-commissioned report on the finances of Ontario's universities and colleges says the province should both end its tuition freeze and increase per-student funding to those institutions.The Progressive Conservative government introduced a 10 percent tuition cut in 2019, as it cancelled the former Liberal government's free tuition program for low- and middle-income students, and has frozen fees at that level since then.That has forced post-secondary institutions to increase their dependence on international student tuition, which is considerably higher than for domestic students.Meanw