B-C provincial health officer Doctor Bonnie Henry is scheduled to provide an update this afternoon on the province's respiratory illness season.
It's Henry's first update of 2024 and she'll be joined by Health Minister Adrian Dix.
The most recent information from the province's centre for disease control says that in late December Influenza A and R-S-V cases were on the rise.
The centre said at the time that COVID-19 numbers were remaining stable or decreasing since early November.
Police in Oliver, B.C., say they're investigating a "prominent member" of the province's wine industry for an alleged sexual assault on a Mexican migrant worker. South Okanagan RCMP say the unnamed suspect employed the worker, and they believe there are other victims or witnesses who have yet to speak to investigators.
New York State Police are reporting that one person is dead and 11 people are injured after a bus coming from Montreal crashed on Interstate Highway 87 in Lake George, N.Y. Police say that in addition to the death, one passenger suffered serious injuries and 10 people were left with minor injuries after a Skyway Coach Line tour bus crashed at around 12:50 p.m. today.
A major shift in United States pharmaceutical policy allowing for the importation of drugs from Canada is creating fears about future drug shortages in this country. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced plans Friday to allow Florida to import millions of dollars worth of pharmaceuticals from Canadian wholesalers as a way to avoid the high cost of drugs in that country.
In early December 2023, police in Abbotsford, B.C., revealed that extortion letters had been circulating among businesses in the city and that its major crime unit was looking into them. Abbotsford police said at the time that social media posts depicting an extortion letter were consistent with what they'd been seeing.
Police in Vancouver say a man posing as a parent tried to take a five-year-old girl from a home daycare, in what they call a "troubling" case. They say the incident happened on Dec. 13, when a man showed up at the East Vancouver after-school daycare at about 3:30 p.m. and asked for the girl by name.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has stepped into a missing person case involving a B.C. man whose disappearance police now say is suspicious. The team says in a news release that foul play is suspected in the disappearance of 41-year-old Jamie Bristol of Chilliwack, B.C.