A Vancouver-based film company and its drone operator have been fined a total of $30,000 for operating a drone too close to northern resident killer whales. A statement from Fisheries and Oceans Canada says the fines follow an investigation by the department's whale protection unit. It says River Road Films pleaded guilty in July to unlawfully capturing footage by operating too close to a pod of whales "beach rubbing" on Vancouver Island. The department says beach rubbing is a "unique quirk" of the northern residents, which enter shallow waters near the shore, then brush against smooth pebbles

Wet weather is helping firefighters in British Columbia tackle some of the wildfires burning in the south of the province. An update from the BC Wildfire Service says the southern half of the province is seeing cooler temperatures with rainy conditions pushing inland from the coast and that the increase in relative humidity is helping ease fire behaviour. The statement says there is the potential for widespread thunderstorm activity across the central Interior, though any lightning strikes are expected to be accompanied by rain. In the north, the statement says warm, dry conditions remain and

The total cost of building the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension in Metro Vancouver has soared by $2 billion and the project has been delayed for a year. The Transportation Ministry says in a statement the budget of the 16-kilometre extension of the SkyTrain into Langley is now estimated at $5.996 billion, up from the original $4 billion projected. The project was to be moving passengers in 2028, but the ministry now says it is expected to be in service in late 2029, with the delays attributed to the "current market climate." The ministry says the project is being built during a time of “sig

Pro-Palestinian protesters who set up an encampment at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C., have been told to pack up within 72 hours. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says a judge in Vancouver granted an injunction ordering the encampment removed on Thursday, and that no further camps be established in the same area for 150 days. The university went to court against the protest following an Ontario court decision that granted the University of Toronto an injunction against an encampment there. The encampments against the Israel-Hamas war began popping up at Canadian universities

Residents can return home now that an evacuation order following a landslide that blocked a British Columbia river for days has been downgraded. The Cariboo Regional District in B.C.'s central Interior issued an evacuation order on July 31 for 34 parcels of land along the Chilcotin River due to a landslide and declared a state of local emergency. The evaluation order covered a stretch of the river about 30 kilometres long and spanning nearly 73 square kilometres. The district says the evacuation order in the Chilcotin River landslide area has been downgraded to an evacuation alert. But it's wa

The BC Wildfire Service says thundershowers are expected to bring some much-needed moisture to areas of the province where hundreds of fires are burning, including a destructive blaze in the Kootenays. It says in an update that the moisture will likely arrive in the Rocky Mountain Trench in the northeast, as well as the Southeast Fire Centre. There were about 415 fires burning in British Columbia Wednesday, down slightly from the day before, with 163 out of control and four classified as wildfires of note, meaning they are highly visible or pose a threat to people or property. About 110 fires

Mounties in Metro Vancouver say five men have been charged following an investigation that resulted in the dismantling of a large and sophisticated synthetic drug lab. RCMP say they began the probe in 2022, leading to the identification of people suspected of being involved in the production and trafficking of the drug MDMA. In August that year, RCMP say their clandestine laboratory enforcement and response team executed four search warrants in Maple Ridge and Coquitlam, B.C. They say officers found a synthetic drug "superlab" capable of producing multiple kilograms of MDMA per cycle, and seiz

Thirteen people have been charged with mischief over accusations they blocked the Vancouver Canadian National Railway line for hours during what police said was an unlawful protest last May. The Vancouver Police Department says in a news release the BC Prosecution Service approved charges on Monday, following the police investigation into the pro-Palestinian protest on May 31. Police said then that they responded to the scene where 100 protesters were blocking rail line and traffic on Grandview Highway in East Vancouver. Police said protesters refused multiple requests to move and some of them

A British Columbia man is facing almost two dozen charges over allegations of online sexual extortion that police say stem from reports by several victims in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario. A statement from RCMP in Burnaby, B.C., says they began an investigation in December 2022 after 19-year-old Anwer Jelassi was identified as the suspect. It says the victims had come forward to report they were being extorted after sharing explicit images with someone they met on social media platforms. The Mounties say the suspect then allegedly demanded money under threat of sending those images to the vi