Premier John Horgan says he believes the ``vast majority'' of residents across northern B.C. want to resolve a dispute with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs opposed to the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline. Horgan says his government is ready to talk with the chiefs but is challenged by their refusal to meet unless RCMP and pipeline officials withdraw entirely from their traditional territories. The Premier says other Wet'suwet'en people are beginning to speak out about possible benefits of the pipeline. He says his government remains ``at the ready'' to find a way forward.

The World Health Organization is concerned about new cases of COVID-19 with no clear links to travel in China or other confirmed cases. A multiplying caseload in South Korea is showing the ease with which the new coronavirus can spread. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says health officials need to act quickly to contain a further spread of the virus. Globally, more than 76-thousand people have been infected in 27 countries, and more than 22-hundred have died.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it's been two weeks and now it's time for the barricades on rail lines and other major transportation routes to come down. He says in a democracy, people have a right to have their say but the situation is "unacceptable and untenable." The blockades, particularly one on a critical east-west rail line in Ontario, are responses by Indigenous people and supporters of the hereditary chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en Nation who oppose a major natural-gas pipeline project.

Almost eight months after a strike halted Western Forest Products operations across Vancouver Island, workers at the Duke Point sawmill near Nanaimo are preparing to head back to the job. The union representing workers at the sawmill confirms employees have been recalled and have been taking part in safety training, prior to startup at the mill -- which is set for Monday. Western Forest Products and the United Steelworkers Union reached a deal earlier this month resolving the job action that began last July 1st. Steelworkers Local president Brian Butler says the company still hasn't announced

Police in Vancouver are investigating after a float plane was badly damaged in what appears to have been a botched theft. Const. Tanya Visintin says officers were called to the city's waterfront about 3:30 a.m. after a report of a plane.She says a man had begun moving the Harbour Air float plane, but crashed it into a second aircraft.Visintin doesn't say if the first plane ever got into the air, but she says its wing was torn off in the collision. No one was injured and no arrests have been made.Visintin says police are looking for a suspect.

Canadian passengers who spent weeks stuck in their cabins aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship have arrived in Cornwall, Ontario. They were flown out of Japan overnight, then bused to a NAV Canada centre, where they will spend an additional quarantine period. Forty-seven Canadians are still in Japan receiving treatment for the new coronavirus.Also today, the Canadian evacuees from Wuhan, China are being released from quarantine at CFB Trenton, Ontario.Health Minister Patty Hajdu (HY'-doo) says the government is helping them with their travel plans.

Another case of the coronavirus has been diagnosed in British Columbia. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says a woman in her 30s has been diagnosed with COVID-19 after returning from Iran. Henry says the woman's case is relatively mild and a number of her close contacts have already been put in isolation. This brings the number of cases of COVID-19 in B.C. to six. Henry said earlier this week that four of the five people already diagnosed with the virus were symptom free. The fifth person, a woman in her 30s who returned from Shanghai, China, is in isolation at her home in B.C.'s In

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says she wants to make Canada's trade negotiations more "transparent," by agreeing to proposals from the New Democrats to provide more details of future deals. Freeland offers that view in a Wednesday letter to the New Democrats, a promise that secured the party's support for a speedier ratification of the new North American trade deal, which is still before Parliament. In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press, Freeland makes clear she is agreeing to the NDP proposals to get support for ratifying the new continental trade agreem

Chinese health officials are expressing new optimism about a deadly virus, but it continues to bring new threats elsewhere. The latest front in the widening global fight against COVID-19 emerged in Daegu, South Korea, whose 2.5 million residents were urged to stay inside, wearing masks even indoors to stem further infection after 35 new cases were reported in the city and surrounding areas. Across the Yellow Sea at the virus' epicenter, China voiced confidence as a noticeably reduced number of new daily infections was recorded. But that came after the country again changed its method for how