COVID-19 has changed a lot of things this holiday season but it hasn't changed the need to keep drinking drivers off the road. The Insurance Corporation of BC, RCMP detachments and municipal police forces around the province launch annual CounterAttack holiday road checks tomorrow night, continuing through December and into the new year. ICBC says an average of 67 people die in BC annually because of impaired driving, with the highest number in the southern Interior where an average of 23 people are killed by drunk drivers. Statistics from ICBC show an average of 17 people are involved in fat

Four men are facing charges after police say they broke up a gambling ring in Metro Vancouver. The illegal gambling team linked to B.C.'s specialized anti-gang unit says it investigated a suspected gaming house earlier this year and served a search warrant in July at Big Shots Cafe in Burnaby. A statement from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit says several people were taking part in what appeared to be illegal gaming. Items such as poker tables, slot machines, cash, poker chips and playing cards were seized during the raid on July 4. Two Burnaby residents, a Delta man and one from

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says she doesn't have any time for those who think wearing a mask makes them ill, or is a limitation of their personal freedom. Dr. Henry told a news conference yesterday that she objects to people who don't want to follow the province's mandatory mask requirements. BC made masks mandatory in indoor public spaces last week. People who refuse to wear a mask face a 230-dollar fine. On Tuesday, BC's solicitor general announced new fines for those who refuse to follow provincial orders on wearing masks in public spaces.

A former BC premier says he expects the provincial cabinet being sworn in later today will be larger than the 22 members before the NDP won re-election. Mike Harcourt says Premier John Horgan has some challenging choices to make in a cabinet that will be focused in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven ministers didn't seek re-election, including finance minister and deputy premier Carole James. Harcourt says James is going to be impossible to replace but Horgan has lots of flexibility and lots of talent to choose from.

Councillors in Vancouver have voted unanimously to ask the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. Mayor Kennedy Stewart put forward the motion earlier this month saying it is time to develop a ``health-focused'' approach to substance use and end the stigma against drug users. In a statement issued late Wednesday after the vote, Stewart thanked groups such as the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, which he says have pursued decriminalization for years. In the same process used to create its first supervised injection clinic almost two decades ago,

Provincial health officials say they are working on British Columbia's plan to handle COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, says Dr. Ross Brown of Vancouver Coastal Health will join the group working to organize the logistics around the distribution of vaccines. B.C. recorded another 13 deaths and 738 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total to 29,086. The province also issued a correction for nine days of case totals in the Fraser Health region, revising Tuesday's COVID-19 case count to 706 instead of 941. Dr. Henry says front-line workers as well

The BC Coroners Service says the number of overdose deaths in each health authority is at or near the highest monthly total ever recorded. Chief coroner Lisa Lapoint says there were 162 overdose deaths in BC last month, more than double the 75 recorded in October last year. Lapoint says the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the supply of street drugs and is urging doctors and nurses to prescribe safer pharmaceutical alternatives. But advocates for drug users say medical personnel still are not prescribing those alternatives to the extent they should be.

Five people have died and 55 patients have tested positive at Burnaby Hospital in an outbreak of COVID-19 that health officials believe was compounded by a recent fire at the facility. Fraser Health chief medical health officer Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin says 40 staff members are also infected, although the health authority is still trying to track the source of all those illnesses. The outbreak began at the hospital on November 9th, but as smoke billowed through hallways during the November 15th fire, patients were quickly moved to common areas and infection control measures could not be stringen

A hotel worker in Nelson, B.C., suffered a heart attack shortly after a confrontation with a patron who refused to wear a mask and wouldn't leave the hotel's coffee shop. Rob Little, manager of The Adventure Hotel, says it happened last Friday when their accountant was called to help deal with a man who was shouting and ignoring new provincial rules to wear a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Little says when the woman intervened, the man spat on her and walked away. Police were called and Little says about 90 minutes later, the accountant, who's in her 50s, collapsed from a heart attack t