National News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising to defend abortion rights in Canada and around the world after what he calls a "devastating setback" in the United States.

He and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly reacted Friday to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn its 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that had guaranteed countrywide access to abortion.

A federal research unit detected what might be a Chinese Communist Party information operation that aimed to discourage Canadians of Chinese heritage from voting for the Conservatives in the last federal election.

The Sept. 13, 2021, analysis by Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, which tracks foreign interference, says researchers observed Communist Party media accounts on Chinese social media platform Douyin widely sharing a narrative that the Conservatives would all but sever diplomatic relations with Beijing.

The lawyer for the former truck driver who caused the deadly Humboldt Broncos bus crash hopes he will get a chance to argue against his client's possible deportation before the Federal Court of Canada.

The Canada Border Services Agency recommended in March that Jaskirat Singh Sidhu be handed over to the Immigration and Refugee Board to decide if he should be deported back to India. 

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 shook Afghanistan today, killing approximately 1,000 people and injuring another 1,500.

The earthquake struck roughly 44 kilometres (27 miles) from the southeastern city of Khost in the early morning, as most people were still sleeping. The impact of the earthquake could be felt in Pakistan and India.

With the death toll expected to rise as search and rescue teams continue looking for people buried under the rubble, this is believed to be the deadliest earthquake to hit Afghanistan in two decades.

Diane Hill had just celebrated her seventh birthday when she first arrived at the Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont., in November 1963.

“The first night there I was crying,” said Hill, a retired Mohawk languages teacher at Six Nations of the Grand River.

“I wanted my mom. I didn’t know where I was. I was crying. Every child will cry for their mom. And I was beaten to a bloody mess by the house mother. I was beaten to a bloody mess on the floor for crying for my mom.”

Introducing young hockey players to bodychecking at an early age doesn't protect them from injury as they move into older, harder-hitting leagues, new research has concluded.

In fact, the opposite may be true, said Paul Eliason of the University of Calgary, lead author of a new paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"More bodychecking experience is not protective against injury and concussions," he said. "The rates of injury and concussion were actually substantially higher among those who had more bodychecking experience."

The federal government is banning companies from importing or making plastic bags and takeout containers by the end of this year, from selling them by the end of next year and from exporting them by the end of 2025.

The move will also affect most single-use plastic straws, as well as all stir sticks, and cutlery. Six-pack rings used to hold cans and bottles together will get slightly more time before the ban affects them, with June 2023 targeted for stopping production and import, and June 2024 to ban their sale.

It could be a character on a Saturday morning kids show, but this rescue robot is anything but fantasy.

"It's not science fiction. It's science and this thing exists," said Alejandro Ramirez-Serrano at the unmanned vehicles robotarium lab at the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary.

The robot is a man's height with a space-age helmet for a head, working arms and legs, and interchangeable hands. It looks like a cross between RoboCop and a Transformer.

Michelle Rempel Garner, a longtime Conservative MP from Calgary, says she's stepping back from the federal Conservative leadership race to consider running for Jason Kenney's job. 

Rempel Garner was serving as co-chair on Patrick Brown's leadership campaign when Kenney stunned many last month by announcing he was resigning as premier of Alberta and leader of the United Conservative Party after narrowly surviving a leadership review. 

Rempel Garner's name soon started to circulate as a potential successor to Kenney.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will embark on a round-the-world tour next week to meet with global leaders for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, G7 and NATO summits. 

The Prime Minister's Office says he will endeavour to strengthen key international partnerships with an eye to defending peace, security, and human rights, and focusing on climate change, the economy and affordability.