British Columbia has removed any mention of COVID-19 vaccination deadlines from its order requiring health-care professionals to report their vaccination status. A statement issued late Monday by the Health Ministry says the Office of the Provincial Health Officer has finalized its order covering 18 categories of health-care professionals, from doctors and nurses to massage therapists, pharmacists, dentists, naturopaths and traditional medicine practitioners. The new order says those 18 professional health colleges were told last week that they must give personal information about their regis

The federal and British Columbia governments are spending $830 million to provide access to high-speed internet across the province.In a news release, the province says the plan means many First Nations communities will have high-speed internet access for the first time.B.C. is promising that every home and community will have the service by 2027, which was also promised in the budget announced last month.The funding will be evenly split between the federal and provincial governments, which will cover the cost of infrastructure including low-orbit satellites or fixed and fibre internet connect

Members of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation will gather later this week in Kamloops to share ideas about the upcoming delegation that will meet with the pope at the Vatican. Tk'emlups Chief Rosanne Casimir is among the Indigenous leaders chosen to attend the audience later this month but she has also been granted a one-on-one meeting with Pope Francis. She says band members should meet at 6 p-m Thursday ``with an open mind, suggestions and comments'' as she prepares for the audience. Casimir has said she intends to invite Pope Francis to Kamloops during his visit to Canada later this y

For the first time in history a foreign leader has spoken in the British Parliament. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy channelled wartime prime minister Winston Churchill's ``never surrender'' speech as he told MPs his country would fight Russia to the end in cities, fields and riverbanks. Speaking by video from Ukraine, he urged a packed House of Commons chamber to increase sanctions on Russia and to recognize Russia as a terrorist country. Two-million Ukrainians have now fled their homes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Russian President Vladimir Putin made a mistake thinking Ukraine and NATO were weak and divided. Trudeau told reporters at a military base in Latvia that Putin has been shown how wrong he is.Article Five of the NATO treaty states that if an member is attacked, all members will consider it an act of violence against the collective. Trudeau had been asked whether a Russian attack on a NATO ally such as Latvia or Estonia or would lead Canada to declare war.

The World Health Organization now says an expert panel is strongly supporting booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines.That's a turnaround from the U-N agency's previous insistence that boosters weren't necessary and contributed to vaccine inequity. The expert group concluded that booster shots provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death from the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Over a three-day period, B.C. is reporting 997 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 350,941 cases in the province:March 4-5: 385 new casesMarch 5-6: 327 new casesMarch 6-7: 285 new casesThere are 449 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 and 63 are in intensive care.In the past 72 hours, 11 new deaths have been reported, for an overall total of 2,914. There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks. The outbreaks at Menno Home, Cascade Gardens Seniors Community (Fraser Health) and Sun Pointe Village (Interior Health) have been declared over, for a total of 17 facilities with ongoing ou

RCMP say a 55 year old man has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of an elderly woman on Vancouver Island. The 80 year old victim was found dead inside a home in Courtenay early yesterday morning by paramedics who called police. The Mounties say they arrested the suspect at the scene and he remains in custody. They say the victim and suspect were known to each other.

British Columbia's minister of public safety says the province has no plans to follow Alberta's lead to reduce its tax on gasoline to ease rising prices at the pumps.Mike Farnworth told a news conference Monday gas prices are driven by events outside of provincial control, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has upset energy markets around the world.Alberta has responded by reducing its tax by 13-cents per litre on both gasoline and diesel.Farnworth says there's no simple solution to the rising fuel price situation as the cost rose above $2 a litre in Metro Vancouver.He says econom