National News

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.

The federal government unveiled some details Monday of a long-awaited plan to help uninsured Canadians afford dental care — a rollout industry professionals say they'll be watching closely for its impact on staff shortages and private coverage.

Seniors over the age of 87 will be the first cohort invited to apply to join the federally subsidized dental plan as Ottawa gradually enrols eligible participants over the course of the coming 12 months. 

Christi Friesen remembers her husband saying he knew that the cloud of depression over her was finally lifting when he saw her smile at the end of the gruelling 2016 harvest season.

That October had been brutal, with three storms dumping about 20 centimetres of snow on the couple's Peace River, Alta., grain farm. On the morning of the third snowstorm, Friesen felt the wind knocked out of her when she looked out the window to see a blanket of white covering crops she had hoped they would harvest that day.

The new federal dental insurance plan will be phased in gradually over 2024, with the first claims likely to be processed in May, government officials said ahead of a formal announcement scheduled for Monday morning. 

Applications are expected to open as early as next week, starting with qualifying seniors over the age of 87, but it will take months before they can start to claim the benefits, the officials said in a briefing provided to The Canadian Press on the condition they not be named. 

About one in nine Canadian adults have had long-term symptoms from COVID-19 infection, according to a Statistics Canada report issued Friday. 

That amounts to 3.5 million Canadians, it said. 

Almost 80 per cent of those people with long-term symptoms have them for six months or more, the report said, including 42 per cent who had them for a year or more. 

A dinosaur fossil found in the Alberta badlands has revealed new details about the diet of young meat-eating tyrannosaurs.

The research, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, is based on a well-preserved Gorgosaurus libratus specimen discovered in 2009 by a technician from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta.

"We describe the first tyrannosaur skeleton found with prey items preserved inside the stomach," Darla Zelenitsky, an associate professor in the department of earth, energy and environment at the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

Canada's financial intelligence agency says it anticipates that criminals will increase their use of cryptocurrency to raise, move and hide funds outside the traditional banking system.

In its latest annual report, released Monday, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada highlights its development of strategic intelligence on the role virtual assets play in money laundering and terrorist financing.

The controlled release or burning of methane from oil and gas production sites will be almost entirely barred in Canada by 2030 under proposed regulations outlined Monday by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

The proposed regulations seek to implement a new target to cut methane leaks and releases from the oil and gas industry by at least 75 per cent over 2012 levels by 2030. 

Existing regulations target a 40 to 45 per cent cut by 2025.

Health Canada has granted approval to lift a ban on blood donations from people who lived or travelled in the United Kingdom, Ireland or France for long periods of time in the 1980s and 1990s, Canadian Blood Services said Wednesday. 

The ban was adopted more than two decades ago by blood agencies in many countries to prevent the transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease."

Brett Herman thinks back fondly on his childhood, running outside his grandfather’s house in northern Saskatchewan with his younger brother chasing behind. 

He describes his brother, Braden Herman, as a gentle giant who would never hurt a fly.

Brett Herman says he never would have imagined that years later, his younger brother would be killed and the accused would be a veteran police officer. 

“I really don't know how to deal with this,” Brett Herman says.