Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

Alleged members of an Indian gang and its leader have been sending shivers down the spines of members of the South Asian diaspora in Canada for years, says a city councillor in Richmond, B.C.

Kash Heed said the Bishnoi gang, led by Lawrence Bishnoi, gained notoriety and instilled fear among Indian Canadians well before the RCMP accused the syndicate this week of orchestrating violent crimes on Canadian soil.

Fedaa Nassar says any time she has heard the phone ring in the last year, she becomes overwhelmed with anxiety.

"I hate phone calls now," says the 34-year-old lab technician at an Ottawa-area hospital.

It's because she worries the person on the other line will tell her that her dad, mom, brother and two sisters have died in the Gaza Strip.

Sleep is fitful, she says.

"I wake up three to four times during the night to check if they're still alive or not."

It's a dinosaur that roamed Alberta's badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.

On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground. 

They call it "Big Sam."

The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

It didn't die alone.

When Alice Foubert entered her home in Jasper, Alta., for the first time since a wildfire roared into the community, the rancid smell from her fridge made it difficult for her to recognize where she was.

"It felt like a shell of home," the 25-year-old said in an interview Monday.

"My heart just sank. I'm used to my cats being in there to greet me but the streets were also pretty empty and it just didn't feel like home."

Foubert was among dozens of residents roaming the town Monday on foot, in cars or on bikes. Some were out walking pets.

Richard Ireland's eyes well up with tears as he gazes in silence towards his home and sees memories of a lifetime burnt to ashes.

The mayor of Jasper then leans over what remains of the small, cosy home he grew up in — a piece of a concrete wall — and says all he can think about is a framed photograph that was taken after his family moved in when he was two years old, lost somewhere in the rubble.

Remi Laboucane says memories of being bullied were finally fading, memories so awful he switched schools.

He was graduating from high school this summer, ready for life’s next chapter, when he opened his yearbook to see that he and other transgender students at Foothills Composite High School in Okotoks, Alta., had been deadnamed.

“It was just a nightmare," the 18-year-old said in an interview.

"I wrote a letter (to our principal) and I said, 'This isn't OK, and this needs to be fixed.'

Thousands of deliriously happy fans of the Edmonton Oilers roared as one Friday as the hometown blue and orange ran over the Florida Panthers to set up a winner-take-all Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final.

“We want the cup! We want the cup!” chanted fans inside Rogers Place, while the Oilers circled at centre ice with sticks skyward saluting all after the 5-1 win.

An Ontario man accused of sending lethal substances to people who later took their own lives has been charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder in addition to his previous 14 charges of counselling and aiding suicide, police said Tuesday.

Police said all 28 charges against Kenneth Law relate to the same 14 alleged victims, who were between the ages of 16 and 36 and died in communities across Ontario, as far north as Thunder Bay and as far southwest as London, Ont. More than one victim was under the age of 18, they said.

Dr. Ehab Bader had travelled from London, Ont., to Gaza for a family visit, to see his aging parents.

Now trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory, he is volunteering at Gaza's largest hospital, which is overwhelmed by people in urgent need of life-saving care as medical supplies run short.

"People are waiting outside, severely injured and sometimes you have to choose unfortunately, who do you serve," the neonatologist told The Canadian Press, speaking from his parents' home in Gaza City.

Matt Berry was driving home after golfing Monday evening when cloudy skies quickly turned into a rare storm that dropped hail the size of softballs, caving in his windshield and leaving about 150 dents in his car.

"I was getting covered in shards of glass," the graphic designer said as he recalled the moment he pulled over on a country road to take cover while driving from Innisfail, Alta., to his home in Red Deer, Alta.

"The noise was quite loud," he said. "It was just crazy. Scary at times, but really it was just shock and awe more than anything."