Police in Nova Scotia have charged a 31-year-old man with first-degree murder in the 2023 death of his intimate partner.

RCMP in Colchester County say officers responded to a report of a sudden death in Bible Hill, N.S., on Sept. 17, 2023.

The victim was a 32-year-old woman, and police considered her death suspicious.

Vince Calderhead says it is a 'borderline human rights violation' for the provincial government not to do more to help lift income assistance recipients out of poverty.

It’s only March and there’s even snow on the ground still in some parts of Nova Scotia, but an official with the province’s Department of Natural Resources says its not too early for wildfires.

“Spring is when the risk can change the most dramatically,” said Scott Tingley, forest protection manager with DNR. “The Spring fire hazard is a lot of grass and the smaller fuels, grass and twigs and things that dry out quickly, on a warm, windy, dry afternoon it can only take a few hours for that grass to dry out.”

Tingley says while the woods might not be “receptive” to fires yet, those early-season grass fires can ignite easily and spread quickly. Tingley said DNR tends to see the most fire between now and early May.

“We definitely want to get the message out to folks to be cautious, and follow those burn restrictions,” Tingley said.

Wildfire risk season in Nova Scotia runs from March 15 to October 15 and during the season no burning of any kind is between 8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. The provincial burn restriction map is updated daily to then show if people can burn starting at 2 p.m., 7 p.m. or not at all, depending on the fire risk determined that day by officials.

Tingley says DNR has done a lot of work in the time since the Summer 2023 wildfires that impacted Tantallon and Hammonds Plains, as well as the Shelburne area on the south shore.

“We had a formal after-action review, there was a consultants report with recommendations and the department has implemented those,” Tingley said. “We’ve acquired a lot of new equipment, trained people on new equipment, and a lot of recommendations were around internal communications and training, so we’ve certainly made adjustments.”

Much of Nova Scotia is experiencing dry conditions

CityNews weather specialist Allister Aalders says, the federal government’s drought monitor reports Halifax and much of HRM has been “abnormally dry” since June 2024, and during the fall and early winter season a moderate drought was reported.

“As of the end of February the situation had improved somewhat with abnormally dry conditions observed once again in Halifax after being in that moderate drought, but several inland locations were still experiencing moderate drought conditions at the end of February,” Aalders explained.

Aalders says precipitation has been below average since last Spring. Recently, January was below average precipitation, while February saw levels closer to normal levels. So far, March is below average as well.

“Certainly if the dry conditions don’t improve over the next several weeks, we could be looking at more long-term issues, not just with the growing season,” Aalders said. “Some people have already been trucking in water since the fall and even during this past winter to maintain their well water levels.”

Similarly, low levels at Lake Major in the fall led to a mandatory period of water restrictions in Dartmouth. Aalders says if conditions remain dry there’s a greater risk of a wildfire igniting, and can impact the rate at which a wildfire can spread.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services is in the process of implementing a new health information system.

Steve Greene, the Chief Information Officer with NLHS, says the new system will be called Core Care, and they are hoping to go live with it in the spring of 2026.

Over the course of 10 years, Greene says the new system will cost the health authority about $620-million, with a third of that being spent in the first two-and-a-half years of implementation.

Ultimately, he believes Core Care will result in a “better health care experience for everyone.”

He says for health care providers, it will mean fewer systems to log into and have more information available in real-time.

For patients, the system will build upon the “digital front door” that they have been rolling out over the last year.

He says it will give people greater access to their medical charts and improve things such as appointment scheduling.

After an MLA called for NWT nurses to have a separate bargaining unit, their union called the proposal "problematic" but said it was not opposed in principle.

A 16-year-old is in custody after allegedly stabbing a taxi driver in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Tuesday, according to police. The driver was treated in hospital for a non-life threatening injury.

A Department of Defense webpage describing baseball and civil rights icon Jackie Robinson’s military service was missing Wednesday morning.

That development comes after pages honoring a Black Medal of Honor winner and Japanese American service members were taken down — the Pentagon said that was a mistake — amid the department’s campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers “DEI.”

According to Internet Archive, the page on Robinson previously included biographical information about his Army service during World War II, which occurred prior to his famously breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. When that page’s address was entered Wednesday, a message showed up saying it “might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.” The letters “dei” were also automatically added to the URL.

The page included an anecdote about Robinson refusing to move to the back of an Army bus in 1944, prompting the driver to call military police. Robinson was court martialed but acquitted.

Thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups have been taken down in efforts to delete material promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell defended the practice at a briefing Monday.

A Defense Department webpage honoring Black Medal of Honor recipient Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers was taken down last week but was back online by Monday night.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb

The Associated Press

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says it will release a preliminary report Thursday on a crash landing at Toronto's Pearson airport that sent 21 people to hospital last month.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's call with U.S. President Donald Trump is being viewed as a triumph in Moscow and an opportunity for more economic collaboration with Washington.

THE GREEN LINE
DOCUMENTERS NOTES

A tower in Wellington Place might grow taller — here’s how you can weigh in

City staff held a community consultation on March 13 to share an update on the mixed-use tower development on Spadina Avenue and Adelaide Street. Locals in attendance expressed concerns over its impact on traffic, parking and the neighbouring community.

The intersection of Spadina Avenue and Adelaide Street West where the proposed mixed-used development is set to take place.
: Google Maps Street View.

Karen Chan

A Chinatown-based artist, graduate of University of British Columbia and a bunny mom. She is interested in storytelling to build community.

March 19, 2025

These city meeting notes are part of Documenters Canada. Learn more about our program here. 

City staff held a community consultation in Wellington Place on March 13 to update residents on a planned development in the neighbourhood.

The site on 101-105 Spadina Ave. and 363 Adelaide St. W. currently houses a recording studio and several shops that are permanently closed. In May 2023, the city approved the construction of a 39-storey mixed-use building by the developer Devron.

In January 2025, Devron submitted a proposal to increase the height to 50 storeys, adding 77 residential units for a total of 452 units, and decreasing the size of retail units from 185 sq. metres to 66 sq. metres. 

Shaylyn Costello, community planner with the City of Toronto, moderated the community consultation which was attended by city staff and Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik. Costello said the city plans to take issues and questions voiced in the meeting back to the developer.

Costello said the property is in a designated regeneration area, which means it is a “vacant land and/or buildings…in need of revitalization as a means of fostering growth and physical change. [The goal is] to fill the buildings and bring new life to the streets.” The area is also designated as a priority retail street. 

Peter Pantalone, professional planner and member of the Preservation Board, and David Gafni, senior development manager at Devron, spoke about the development's features. 

• The site will be close to a future subway stop of the Ontario Line at Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue. 
• The units will be supportive of more housing for families and larger households, with a 1000 sq. metres park immediately east of the site. There are also 70 proposed underground parking spaces. 
• The architecture will pay homage to the historic Garment District.
• Pantalone also stated that as part of the development, some funding will go towards community initiatives. 

Several community members had questions and concerns about the proposal. 

• A community member in attendance shared that they are disappointed in the proposal. They asked whether the developers have taken issues like homelessness — citing the encampment in Clarence Square Park nearby — into account. They said that they were upset by “the city shirking responsibility” and saying “our hands are tied by provincial funding.” They stated that Toronto isn’t doing enough to keep residents in the city and “really needs to make a statement to address the needs of children [and] seniors.” They also voiced the need for the area to have a community centre.
• Another community member, who lives nearby on Oxley Street, expressed concern about the increase in traffic in the area.

Costello responded by saying the development is in its early stages and there will be more opportunities for community consultation to build a “safe and desirable” site. Pantalone stated that the developer will pay the city for local community projects. Coun. Malik also stated that the city is anticipating a new YMCA on 505 Richmond St.

What’s next for this project?

Costello said that more community consultations will be held after questions from this meeting are brought to the developer. She encouraged attendees to contact her if they have more questions or opinions at [email protected] or by calling her at 416-392-6061. 

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City of Toronto

101 - 105 SPADINA AVE. & 363 ADELAIDE ST. W.

Devron

Devron Residences

City of Toronto

Toronto Official Plan Office Consultation

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The post A tower in Wellington Place might grow taller — here’s how you can weigh in appeared first on The Green Line.

YWCA NWT says it will take over the Family Connections program, which supports expecting and new parents, from the Yellowknife Women's Society next month.

New Brunswick’s Liberal government is projecting a $549-million deficit in its first budget.

That is despite a campaign promise by Premier Susan Holt to balance the budget in every year of her term.

Finance Minister René Legacy said his government had to make some “tough decisions” as it built this budget.

“We will not sacrifice fixing health and education, and addressing the very real affordability challenges New Brunswickers are facing or shirk our responsibility to tackle the impacts of tariffs head-on in favour of satisfying the bottom line,” Legacy said in his budget speech.

“We were elected to address the challenges that New Brunswickers face, and we intend on meeting our commitments.”

Budget includes $14.3B in spending

The province plans to spend $14.3 billion in the upcoming fiscal year, while revenue is only projected at $13.8 billion.

Legacy said the budget includes $112 million in new spending for its previously-announced tariff response plan. A $50-million contingency is also being introduced to reflect the uncertainty of tariffs.

The Holt government plans to spend around $4.1 billion on health care during the upcoming year, an increase of nearly $293 million.

It includes $30 million to support new collaborative care clinics aimed at improving access for the up to 180,000 New Brunswickers waiting for a primary care provider.

The Liberals committed to creating at least 30 local family health teams over the next four years as one of their campaign promises.

The government is also spending $28 million to improve health-care technology systems and $2 million for health-care recruitment.

More money for teachers, EAs

Legacy said his government has set aside an extra $32 million for educational assistants and behavioural intervention mentors.

There is also an additional $16 million for more teachers to help address growth in student enrolment and $4 million to boost teacher recruitment and retention.

New Brunswick will also spend $10 million to ensure children and youth living with exceptional needs and trauma receive a consistent level of high-quality support.

Legacy said they will spend $22 million on nursing homes and specialized beds to support the province’s aging population and keep waitlists from growing.

The government has also earmarked $10 million to make home care more affordable and help people stay in their homes longer, and $2 million to implement a dementia strategy and action plan.

There is also an additional $19 million for a school lunch program and $200 million over five years as part of a larger program to subsidize more than 17,000 child-care spaces.

Housing support

The Liberal government’s budget also includes an additional $36 million for the New Brunswick Housing Corporation to address significant housing challenges.

It includes an increase of $21 million for the direct-to-tenant rental benefit, supporting an additional 2,500 households per year.

There is also an additional $4.6 million for the Affordable Rental Housing Program and nearly $3.3 million in public housing to support necessary repairs and modernization and improvement projects.

Legacy said they will also spend nearly $4.7 million to help improve wrap-around services for supporting housing for those experiencing homelessness.

RELATED: Read Finance Minister René Legacy’s entire budget speech

The government has also earmarked more than $9 million for transition houses, second-stage housing, domestic violence outreach services and community-based sexual violence services.

On the topic of fiscal reform, Legacy said his government intends to introduce legislation on a fiscal reform funding model that will provide local governments a “much-needed diversification of revenues” to support sustainability and provide greater predictability.

The province will also spend $5 million in technology to help transform the province’s court system and clear backlogs.

Transformation initiative

Legacy said his government will also embark on a “transformation initiative” over the coming year to determine how they can work collaboratively with stakeholders, partners and communities to better deliver for New Brunswickers.

In the short term, they have asked departments to lead the work to identify areas where they could stop doing things that are not delivering results and to better use every dollar available, he said.

Departments have been tasked with creating plans, and a central “transformation team” will work across government to gather those plans, triage ideas and support service transformation.

“This might not be the budget we hoped for back in November, but it is one that we believe balances the needs of New Brunswickers against our fiscal realities – one that does not continue to kick our issues down the road for future generations,” said Legacy.

“We had to make some tough decisions as we built this budget, but we knew if the choice was between presenting a balanced budget or doing what was right for the people of this province, we would choose New Brunswickers and their priorities every single time.”

Official Opposition reacts to budget

The budget will be voted on in the coming weeks, but it already is lacking support from the Official Opposition.

Leader Glen Savoie said he sees “debts, deficits and broken promises” when he looks at the document.

“A budget that gives absolutely no targets, a budget that does not address affordability, a budget that doesn’t demonstrably improve access to health care. No, we can’t support that kind of a budget,” Savoie told our newsroom.

Savoie said the government spending is “unsustainable” and questions whether New Brunswickers will see any benefits from it.

“What we’re expecting is that they’re going to undo all of the work that we did to try to get us into a better financial position,” he said.

“The question has to become whether or not New Brunswickers are going to be better off for the extra money that they’re spending.”

Savoie also added that the budget does not go far enough to support the economy, especially during this time of uncertainty.

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford emerged from a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in Washington last week, he said the “temperature has been lowered” between the two nations in the midst of an economy-damaging trade war.

On Tuesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump cranked up the heat.

Trump continued his inflammatory comments directed at Canada during an interview with Laura Ingraham on her Fox News political show ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ maintaining that Canada has treated the U.S. unfairly and is “meant” to be the 51st state.

“Here’s my problem with Canada,” Trump seethed. “Canada was meant to be the 51st state because we subsidize Canada by $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we have a lot of lumber.

“We don’t need their energy, we don’t need anything, we certainly don’t want their automobiles … millions of automobiles are sent in, I’d rather have them made in Michigan, I’d rather have them made in South Carolina.”

Ingraham pushed back, saying the trade deficit with Canada is actually $60 billion. She also pointed out that Trump is “tougher with Canada than you are with some of our biggest adversaries.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s meant to be our 51st state,” he shot back before directing his anger at the previous Trudeau administration.

“I deal with every country indirectly or directly, one of the nastiest countries to deal with is Canada. Now this was Trudeau … good old Justin, I call him Governor Trudeau, his people were nasty and they weren’t telling the truth, they never tell the truth. They’d say ‘we don’t charge,’ well they do, they charge tremendous.”

Trump cited his oft-repeated claim that Canada has a 250 per cent tariff on dairy products, without mentioning that it is only applied if a considerable quota is exceeded — or that he signed off on that deal himself during his first term as President.

The U.S. also has similar tariff-rate quotas in place on commodities such as sugar, an international trade attorney told the Canadian Press recently.

When Ingraham asked Trump straight up what his end game is, he replied: “My end game is I don’t want to have a big deficit. I don’t want to see the United States of America, and you say $60 billion and I say $200 billion — it doesn’t matter — I don’t want us to pay $60 billion or $200 billion dollars to a country, that if they were a state, it would be our biggest, most beautiful, it would be great.”

“This state it would be cherished, we’d take care of it, the people would pay of what they’re paying now. Canada pays very little for defence,” he added. “They think we’re going to defend them.”

‘I’d rather deal with a Liberal’

Trump also weighed in on Canada’s looming federal election after Ingraham pointed out that his trade stance has helped propel the Liberal Party, run by Prime Minister Mark Carney, into a sudden lead in the polls over former favourite, Conservative Pierre Poilievre.

“I don’t care,” Trump said, brushing it off. “I don’t care. I’d rather deal with a Liberal than a Conservative.

“That Conservative that’s running is stupidly no friend of mine,” he added. “I don’t know him, but he’s said negative things. I think its easier to deal, actually, with a Liberal.”

Poilievre was quick to try and capitalize on Trump’s words, saying in a social media post that they were further evidence that he will be tougher on Trump than Carney and will be the best candidate to put “Canada first.”

Last night, President Donald Trump endorsed Mark Carney.

Why? Because, as Trump said, he’s “easier” to deal with, and knows that I will be a tough negotiator and always put Canada First. Carney is weak and would cave to Trump’s demands, just like he did when he moved his company… pic.twitter.com/Dv6FgyyLYg

— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) March 19, 2025

Carney demands respect

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, meanwhile, has stressed he won’t sit down and talk to Trump on trade until he ceases his “disrespectful” comments about Canada — something Trump clearly didn’t heed during Tuesday night’s Fox appearance.

“We’ve called out those comments. They’re disrespectful, they’re not helpful, and they need to stop,” Carney said earlier this week in London, on the second part of a one-day trip to France and the U.K.

“They will have to stop before we sit down and have a conversation about our broader partnership with the United States.”

“I don’t think one needs to respond to every comment about another country,” he added. “Canada is strong, we can stand up for ourselves.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly shared a similar distaste for Trump’s annexation threats at a closing news conference of the G7 foreign ministers meeting last Friday.

“What I said to the secretary is Canada’s sovereignty is not up to debate, period,” Joly said.

“There’s no argument, there’s no conversation about it, there’s no need to talk about it,” she said. “You’re here, you respect us, you respect our sovereignty, you’re in our country, you respect our people. Period.”

With files from The Canadian Press

Arrest Warrant / New Charges

On March 18th at 8:05AM Police were dispatched to the 1500 block of 1st Street regarding an intoxicated male that was asleep in a business. Upon Police attending the 31-year-old male was informed of his arrest on a previous endorsed Warrant. Upon him standing up he shoved a Police officer against the wall. The male was arrested and no injuries to the officer occurred. The male was found to be in possession of two knives, two small baggies of Methamphetamine and MDMA. The male was on a Probation Order not to possess weapons. He was held in detention cells and will attend court.

Arrest Warrant

On March 18th at 11:48AM a 50-year-old male attended BPS to have fingerprints completed. It was noted that he had an unendorsed Warrant for his arrest. He was arrested, held in detention cells and will attend court in the morning.

RCMP Warrant Executed

On March 18th at the request of the RCMP, BPS members executed an endorsed Warrant (Failure to Comply Release Order X4) on a 29-year-old male inmate at Brandon Correctional Centre. He will attend court in the morning.

Arrest Warrant

On March 18th at approximately 3:48PM police were called to a business in the 3300 block of Victoria Avenue regarding a male who was passed out. Police attended, identified the male and found that he had an endorsed Warrant for Arrest held by the RCMP. He was arrested and held in detention cells until sober. He will be released in the morning once sober on an Appearance Notice with a court date of May 20th, 2025, in Minnedosa.

Possession of Weapon X2 / Assault with a Weapon

On March 18th at 7:37PM Police received a call of a male on a street in the 400 block of 21st Street wearing a ski mask, dressed all in black, with a machete in his hand. The suspect fled the area, was followed, and was taken into custody by Police at 23rd and Rosser Avenue. Upon arrest, the accused was found to be in possession of an open extendable baton, a long-handled spade modified to be a weapon (what was reported to be a machete), and a can of bear spray.  The 19-year-old male was returned to BPS, processed, and released to his mother on an Undertaking with a court date of May 27th, 2025. The male was also charged for Possessing a Weapon from a previous incident on March 15th, 2025.