It can be a difficult decision for police to engage in a pursuit when a suspect flees. Often, the risks outweigh the benefits. Kensington police and P.E.I. RCMP walk us through the call officers have to make.

Islanders who heat their homes with oil are double checking their insurance policies after learning about the massive bill dealt to one family when their tank leaked. 

Many people in Atlantic Canada are starting the new year just $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills, according to the latest consumer debt index survey. CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin speaks with Tara Silliker, a licensed insolvency trustee with MNP, about what that means for Islanders.

The province has halted plans to purchase more electric school buses due to the financial uncertainty surrounding the company that manufactures most of the vehicles for P.E.I.

Premier Dennis King will leave the trade mission Tuesday night from Boston as he heads to Ottawa for the First Ministers meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau and the other Premiers.   King says that after participating in the trade mission, he hopes to be able to share the message that Team PEI has been hearing – and that is that Americans don’t want or need a tariff on the goods or services that they rely on and need from Canada.  They would like to see our relationship continue unobstructed.

The Team PEI trade mission was moving on to Boston Tuesday afternoon, as the delegation continues meeting with government officials, business and industry stakeholders, and business leaders.

In its meetings in Maine and New Hampshire, the 22-member delegation has been stressing the importance of the trade relationship between Canada and the U-S and how important it is for it to continue unobstructed and uninterrupted.

Premier Dennis King says Team PEI has been received very well, meeting hundreds of people in the New England area, and he has yet to meet one person who wants tariffs.  King says most people in the U-S understand that a 25 percent tariff is essentially a tax on the end user, the consumer — which nobody there wants.  The Premier says that, like Canada, Americans have a big issue when it comes to cost of living and they don’t want to see any unnecessary taxes added to their bottom line.

The RCMP says a PEI man reported missing in New Brunswick has been found deceased.

37-year-old Kirk Beaton of York, PEI was reported missing to Campbellton RCMP on Monday.  Police had said he was last seen at approximately 6 p.m. on Sunday at a camp near Island Lake Club, off Route 180 in Balmoral Parish, New Brunswick. It was believed he was traveling on his snowmobile to Roger’s Lake Lodge near Route 430 and Knoll Spruce Road, in Northesk Parish.

New Brunswick RCMP announced Tuesday morning that he had been found deceased.

A 37-year-old man from York, P.E.I., who was reported missing in New Brunswick yesterday, has been found dead, the New Brunswick RCMP said in a news release.

An historic find in Marshfield — the first-ever meteorite to land on PEI, and it was all caught on video.  Last July, homeowners were curious about a star-shaped pattern of grey dust that appeared on their walkway.  A check of their security camera footage revealed the exact moment a rock came out of nowhere and landed on the path, scattering grey dust and fragments across the walk and grass.  The homeowners recovered some of the shattered rock and contacted Chris Herd, curator of the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Collection.  Samples collected and tested confirmed it was a meteorite, making it the first ever meteorite fall captured in this way, including the sound of its impact.

A Montreal man, arrested by PEI police in a drug bust in early 2018, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.  Andre Pelletier of Montreal was arrested in January 2018 in Edmundston, New Brunswick by PEI RCMP and Serious Organized Crime officers after a traffic stop.  The traffic stop resulted in Police seizing 11.4 pounds of methamphetamine (over 11,000 tablets) and 25 grams of cocaine. The RCMP says the drugs were packaged for wide spread distribution and were destined for the streets of New Brunswick and PEI.  Pelletier was sentenced in a Montreal court last Friday to 30 months in a federal penitentiary and prohibited from possessing weapons for life after being charged with possession of methamphetamine for the purposes of trafficking.  As part of an investigation that began in Fall of 2016, police were looking into organized crime groups supplying methamphetamine to PEI. 

Within the next week, former finance minister Chrystia Freeland will announce her intention to run for the Liberal party leadership.

A source close to her campaign team says the announcement will come just before the U-S presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.

Another source says Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne plans to reveal whether he will run during a talk today at the Canadian Club in Toronto.

Ontario M-P Chandra Arya and former Montreal M-P Frank Baylis are the only two to officially join the contest.  

The Team PEI Trade mission to the United States continues.  It’s a five-day mission with Premier Dennis King leading the 22-person delegation to the northeastern United States, including Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  The delegation will be meeting with industry leaders, business associations and stakeholders to advocate for PEI’s interests, strengthen trade relationships, and promote Island products.  The five-day trip began on Sunday.  United States president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on imports from Canada when he takes office next week. 

The Campbellton RCMP in New Brunswick is asking for the public’s help locating a missing 37-year-old PEI man from York.  Police say Kirk Beaton was last seen at approximately 6 p.m. on Sunday at a camp near Island Lake Club, off Route 180 in Balmoral Parish, New Brunswick. He was reported missing to police on Monday.  Police have followed up on several leads to try and locate him, but have so far been unsuccessful. There is concern for his well being.  It is believed he was traveling on his snowmobile to Roger’s Lake Lodge near Route 430 and Knoll Spruce Road, in Northesk Parish.  Anyone with information on his whereabouts is being asked to contact the Campbellton RCMP.

A historical exhibit now on display at the Eptek Art and Culture Centre in Summerside features photos provided by families of Black Islanders. The plan is to take the display across the province. CBC's Nancy Russell went to check it out.

Christopher Griffin is the first-ever artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown. The school says his art is brightening up the hallways and putting a smile on the faces of students.

Darcy’s A.I. Creation of the day:

PEI WEATHER

TEXT YOUR ANSWER TO 902-368-1720

Students at Sherwood Elementary School were already expecting an extra three weeks of summer vacation. Now, they’ll have an extra three days of March Break, too.

A man in Prince Edward Island got doubly lucky last July, recording a meteorite's impact on his home security cameras. The space rock also landed in the exact spot he'd been standing minutes earlier.

On Jan. 13, 2000, a landmark Supreme Court ruling confirmed the rights of French-speaking students to get an education in their first language in their own communities. Two P.E.I. parents brought the case forward in their fight to get a French-language school built in Summerside. Here's how the decision continues to impact the Island 25 years later.

A Chilean man accused of defrauding Islanders in a so-called "grandparent scam" is facing nearly a dozen more charges in New Brunswick.

Canada now has an online job board for people with disabilities. It launches this week at the end of the Untapped Talent Summit held by the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work.

Long emergency room wait times on P.E.I. are a symptom of a health-care system struggling to keep up with population growth and an aging demographic, according to an emergency physician in Saint John.

Summerside Police Services has introduced a Soft Interview Room for Victims & Witnesses.  It’s designed to be a safe, comfortable space designed for victims and witnesses to share their stories without fear.   With calming colours, soft lighting, and comfortable seating, the room helps reduce stress, especially for those impacted by trauma, intimate partner violence, or abuse. It also includes an eagle feather for smudging, fostering a deeper connection with Indigenous communities.

To improve shoreline protection and prevent erosion along the Route 2 Souris Causeway, the provincial government has begun a coastal engineering adaption project.

The initiative will include the installation of two armour stone groynes, a sandstone rock sill, and two sandstone reefs. 

The project is taking place along the south shoreline of the Souris Beach Gateway Park and extends west to the Route 2 causeway. Hauling of the armour stone and sandstone started this past week. Installation of the groynes, rock sill and reefs will begin on January 20th.

The work is expected to be completed by March 2025.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon says the short length of the Liberal leadership race doesn’t give him enough time to mount the kind of campaign he wants to run.  In a social media post Sunday, MacKinnon also says he feels the competition to become the next Liberal leader needs diverse, experienced and pragmatic voices in both English and French. The Gatineau-M-P, who is a Charlottetown native, says he feels he could be that voice but will instead focus on his ministerial responsibilities and will listen closely to help make an informed choice around who should replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A team PEI delegation of more than 20 has left on a PEI trade mission to the United States.  The Team PEI delegation includes elected officials, business leaders, and representatives from some key industries.

They are travelling to the United States to advocate for PEI’s interests, strengthen trade relationships, and promote Island products.  

The mission will include meetings with industry leaders, business associations, and stakeholders.

Several experienced municipal officers have joined the P.E.I. RCMP after the national police service modernized its job posting rules a few years ago.

Premier Dennis King and about two dozen P.E.I. government officials and industry leaders packed onto a bus Sunday for a five-day road trip through the northeastern United States. It's aimed at strengthening business and political partnerships as the looming threat of trade tariffs becomes closer to reality.

Work is getting underway on an initiative to protect the shoreline and prevent erosion along the Route 2 Souris Causeway.  The project will see two armour stone groynes, a sandstone rock sill, and two sandstone reefs installed.  

The work is being done along the south shoreline of the Souris Beach Gateway Park and extends west to the Route 2 causeway. Hauling of the armour stone and sandstone started this past week and the installation work is to begin on January 20th. 

The parking lot and beach will be closed during construction.  The work is expected to be completed by March.

P-E-I’s nursing home association says a shortage of long-term-care beds is filling up the province’s emergency rooms.

Health P-E-I says that as of August 2024, there were 261 Islanders waiting to be placed into long-term care, and many of those people are waiting in hospitals that are already full.

William McGuigan, chairman of the Nursing Home Association of P-E-I, says the shortage of beds is creating a “bottleneck” in the system — which has 13-hundred long-term-care beds split between nine publicly owned homes and 10 privately owned facilities.

Meanwhile, Health P-E-I is planning to seek proposals to create spaces for an additional 175 beds in private, long-term-care facilities, which McGuigan says will have a “a huge impact” on the system.

It's the most common reason P.E.I. students are turning to well-being teams in schools, says a member of the province's support program. 

The food bank on the University of Prince Edward Island's campus now offers an improved experience for students who need extra support.

PEI Premier Dennis King has announced the members of Team PEI who will be traveling with him to the US in an attempt to strengthen trade relationships and promote Island products stateside

A large contingent including several cabinet ministers and representatives from various farming, fishing, industry and business organizations will make up Team PEI. The premier says the mission will include meetings with industry leaders, business associations and stakeholders where the Island team will share information on the importance of tariff-free trade between our regions.

Harvesters from Prince Edward Island’s oyster industry are worried a spreading parasite will destroy their livelihoods.  Industry representatives told a legislature committee hearing the spread in the province is threatening the future of the sector.  The parasite targets both wild and cultured oysters and typically kills about 95 per cent of affected mollusks within two to three years of the initial infection.  One representative says the oyster industry in the U-S is successfully managing the spread of M-S-X, adding there is no reason the province can’t do that, too.

The RCMP is asking for the public’s help in its investigation into the recent theft of a significant amount of copper from a job site in Stratford.  About $10-thousand worth of copper piping was stolen from the construction site of the new high school in Stratford on John Joe Sark Drive.  It happened sometime between January 6 and 8th.  If you have any information about the theft, you’re asked to contact the Queens District RCMP or PEI Crime Stoppers.

Statistics Canada released the December jobs figures on Friday, and they show PEI’s unemployment rate in December was 8.5 percent.  That’s up from 8.0 percent in November.

Meanwhile, the national economy added 91-thousand jobs in December.

That shatters economists’ expectations as Statistics Canada says the bulk of new jobs came in education, transportation, and finance.

Full-time employment rose by 56-thousand.

The unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percentage points to 6.7 per cent. 

The total circulation for all Island libraries was more than 680,000 last year — and books were far from the only choice. P.E.I.'s director of libraries and archives, Grace Dawson, has more on the rise in usership and what's bringing people through the doors.

The proroguing of parliament means that several pieces of proposed legislation may not pass, leaving Canadians affected by those issues angry and frustrated.

As UPEI prepares to launch its new faculty of medicine, the university is making sure everything is ready — from the building and technology to the students and staff. University president Wendy Rodgers spoke to CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin about how those final details are coming together.

'These are people who have earned money, paid taxes and are still struggling,' says the Salvation Army.

While some Islanders are facing unprecedented wait times at emergency rooms, others are waiting to get out of the hospital and into a nursing home.

P.E.I.'s Fisheries Department says it is concerned about the potential impacts of the devastating oyster parasite MSX and is developing a 'roadmap' for dealing with it. 

Police say it was reported to them Thursday and the piping was taken sometime between Monday and Wednesday. Now they're looking for the person who took it and where it went.

The Public Schools Branch is looking for public opinion on a draft policy outlining how Island schools should memorialize staff and students who have died.

All but two people have returned home to the seniors' apartment complex St. John's House in Stratford after last week's fire.

Environment Canada says large waves, pounding surf and elevated sea levels are expected along P.E.I.'s north shore, potentially rising above normal high tide levels.

There is a Special Weather Statement in effect for north facing shorelines across PEI advising of large waves, pounding surf and elevated sea water levels that are expected Friday. 

Storm surge and minor coastal flooding is possible along shorelines exposed to the north, especially around high tide with a time period of about 2pm to 6pm Friday.

Water levels will begin to subside Friday evening, but high waves will persist through the night before easing by Saturday morning.

Darcy’s Artificial Art:  I call this one: Sliding into the Weekend like a Fox on a Skidoo.

*all photos are created by Artificial Intelligence using prompts that Darcy dreams up.

PEI WEATHER

TODAY:  Chance of flurries then a mix of sun and cloud. North gusting 80. High 2°

TONIGHT:  Clouding over near midnight. Winds gusting North 50. Low -1°

TOMORROW:  Sunny breaks. High 1°

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Const. Mallory Metallic of Summerside Police Services was chosen by Crime Stoppers as Municipal Police Officer of the Year for Prince Edward Island. Originally from Listuguj First Nation, she shares her culture with her colleagues and the community. She's also a competitive bodybuilder.

The personal data of past and present Prince Edward Island school staff and students may have been stolen in a cyberattack that affected educational institutions across the country.