Just over 200 Afghan refugees are now safe in Vancouver after arriving on a charter plane from Pakistan last night. Federal officials say 209 people were on the flight, most of them workers and their families who assisted the Canadian government in Afghanistan in the months and years before the Taliban took power in August. The group is the largest so far to arrive in B-C and it's expected that all but about 50 will stay in Vancouver, while the rest will join family in other parts of the country. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says more than seven-thousand refugees have now reached safety i

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirms that new Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has met with leaders in Ukraine to assure them Canada stands with its international allies in defending the country. Trudeau calls Russian aggression in the region ``absolutely unacceptable.'' He says he's spoken to cabinet ministers and the chief of the defence staff about Canada's strategy in Ukraine. Joly says Canada has not decided whether it will help arm Ukraine's forces with military hardware after NATO ally Britain said it would supply anti-tank weapons.

Two people have been slightly injured in what police say was an early morning targeted shooting in Surrey. RCMP say it happened just after 3 a.m. inside a warming centre in the Whalley neighbourhood. The police statement says a 24 year old man who is known to them is believed to have been the target but a 57 year old woman was also hurt, and both were treated in hospital and released. Investigators say the attack is not believed to be linked to the Lower Mainland gang conflict.

Two more schools have been added to the handful of elementary and secondary schools affected by functional closures linked to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The Abbotsford School District says in a social media message that WJ Mouat Secondary and Yale Secondary will be closed until Monday due to ``operational limitations'' related to the spread of the virus. Lack of staff forced closure of Mission's Heritage Park Middle School on Friday but it's expected to reopen tomorrow; Armstrong Elementary was shuttered last week and planned to open yesterday but will now stay closed unti

The fifth wave of the pandemic appears to be peaking in hard-hit provinces like Ontario and Quebec, but Saskatchewan is bracing for a wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations and workers off the job until the middle of next month. Alberta's hospitalization rates are rising to levels not seen since mid-October and P-E-I is bringing in restrictions on gathering limits and shutting down gyms and restaurant dining rooms. B-C provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is going to let gyms and other fitness facilities re-open tomorrow -- a move she calls a cautious step in lifting COVID-19 restrictions.

Inflation hit 4.8 per cent in December. The last time it was that high was December, 1991 when the number-one hits on the radio included Michael Bolton's ``When a Man Loves a Woman'' and Michael Jackson's ``Black or White.'' The main drivers for price growth were higher year-over-year prices for food, passenger vehicles and housing. Prices at the gas pumps shot up 33.3 per cent from December 2020, but that was lower than November's 43.6 per cent annual increase.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says this year's floods in B-C helped make 2021 Canada's sixth-highest year in insured losses since 1983. The bureau says insured damage from last year's extreme weather events totalled more than two-billion dollars. B-C floods were the biggest ticket event at 515-million dollars, followed closely by Calgary's 500-million-dollar hailstorm in July. 2016 remains the most expensive year on record at five-point-four billion in insured damage, due in large part to the Fort McMurray wildfires.

B.C. is reporting 1,975 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 301,121 cases in the province. There are 37,167 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and 258,417 people who tested positive have recovered. Of the active cases, 854 COVID-positive individuals are in hospital and 112 are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. The new/active cases include:731 new cases in Fraser HealthTotal active cases: 18,271503 new cases in Vancouver Coastal HealthTotal active cases: 9,727478 new cases in Interior HealthTotal active cases: 5,58088 new cases in Norther

Health officials say BC is expecting to receive four-thousand doses this week of Pfizer's newly approved antiviral treatment to help fight off COVID-19. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says Health Canada is also looking at approving two other COVID-19 vaccines, including one made from tobacco plants. But she has a warning for people holding out for alternatives to MRNA vaccines. Dr. Henry says the new vaccines won't be available for some time while the unvaccinated are at particular risk of serious illness from the quickly spreading Omicron variant.