VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Leo XIV on Sunday denounced the "pandemic of arms, large and small," as he prayed publicly for the victims of the shooting during a Catholic school Mass in the United States. History's first U.S. pope spoke in English as he appealed for an end to the "logic of weapons" and f...

OTTAWA - Federal public servants were less likely to call in sick to work during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, new government data shows. The figures shared by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat indicate that in 2020-21, when the pandemic had most office employees working entirely remotely, the average num...

TORONTO - Health Canada has authorized updated COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech and by Moderna for use this respiratory virus season. Moderna says it will manufacture vaccine doses for the Canadian market in its new facility in Laval, Quebec and syringes will be filled in Cambridge, Ontario. News releases from ...

A new study suggests green space helped protect the mental health of city-bound Canadians during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The peer-reviewed study suggests people who lived in urban areas with more greenery were less likely to be depressed in the first months of the pandemic. Those benefits were stronge...

VANCOUVER - The B.C. Court of Appeal says lawsuits launched by mink farmers over a pandemic-era ban on their farms have "no reasonable prospect of success," dismissing their bid for damages against the province, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, and other officials. The ruling posted Friday says sev...

TORONTO - National health data released Wednesday shows overdose deaths in Canada dropped in 2024 but the toll still remained much higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. A joint statement from the country's chief medical officers of health, chief coroners and chief medical examiners said 7,146 people died of ...

TORONTO - National health data shows overdose deaths in Canada dropped in 2024 but the toll still remained much higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. A joint statement from the country's chief medical officers of health, chief coroners and chief medical examiners says 7,146 people died of opioid-related over...

EDMONTON - Alberta's government says residents who are not immunocompromised or on social programs will have to pay to get the COVID-19 vaccine starting this fall. More coming. The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The Canadian Institute for Health Information says more surgeries are being performed than before the pandemic - but wait times have still grown longer. The report released Thursday looked at wait times for hip and knee replacements, cataract procedures, cancer surgeries, MRIs and CT scans in 2019 and in 2024...

VANCOUVER - The British Columbia Supreme Court says a lawsuit by prison inmates alleging ill treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic can move forward as a class action against the federal government. Inmates claim they were "subject to inhumane rights restrictions" during the pandemic, including being confined...

TORONTO - Canada's gynecologists say COVID-19 vaccination is "strongly recommended" during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada issued the statement Wednesday, a day after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared the shot no longer recommende...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo after congressional Republicans recommended that he be charged with lying over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The U.S. attorney's office in Washingt...

OTTAWA - The federal government expects to spend about $7 million this fiscal year to store and maintain four custom-made, portable hospitals that cost taxpayers more than $200 million to buy - facilities meant to bolster overwhelmed hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic that were barely used. Early on in the pandemic...

VICTORIA - British Columbia's ombudsperson says the provincial government unfairly required some workers to repay $1,000 they received after losing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The BC Emergency Benefit for Workers was introduced in 2020 and, in an effort to work quickly, the B.C. government initially requir...

ST. JOHN'S - The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is intervening in a Supreme Court of Canada case this week examining the constitutionality of Newfoundland and Labrador's COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions. In a news release today, the association says it will argue the Canadian Charter of Rights and Fr...

Todd Rutter calls himself the "most non-tech person you've ever met" but he's turning to technology and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to help weather the dizzying tariff policies of U.S. President Donald Trump. The Edmonton-based co-owner of A Cappella Catering Co. said inflated food costs as p...

British Columbia's top doctor says respiratory illness season has come to an end, but the province will soon launch a spring COVID-19 immunization campaign and encourage everyone to ensure they're fully protected against measles. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says COVID-19 hospitalizations have hit the low...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A jury found the alleged ringleader of a massive pandemic fraud case in Minnesota guilty on all counts Wednesday for her role in a scheme that federal prosecutors say stole $250 million from a program meant to feed children in need. Aimee Bock - the founder of Feeding our Future, the group that prose...

Five years ago, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic of the novel coronavirus, setting off a series of policies that transformed Canadians' lives for years. The WHO's declaration followed months of warning signs about the dangers of COVID-19, including mass lockdowns in China and Italy, and served a...

TORONTO - Doctors who were thrust into national fame when COVID-19 hit five years ago say they try to focus on positive feedback from the public rather than the angry backlash and threats of violence they faced. British Columbia public health chief Dr. Bonnie Henry still has a security detail to this day because of thr...

TORONTO - There had been warning signs for months. There were the reports of dangerous flu-like symptoms in Asia. News of the lockdown that kept tens of millions of people inside their homes in China. Here at home, the growing ubiquity of blue surgical masks. The advice to sing "Happy Birthday" while washing ...

MONTREAL - Michael Hale still recalls the moment COVID-19 upended his world. "I can feel this pit in my stomach even as I recount that day," said the CEO of Northern Vision Development, which owns seven hotels and eight restaurants and bars in the Yukon. Hale and a half-dozen colleagues were gathered around a...

VANCOUVER - British Columbia is seeing "peaking influenza activity" even as other respiratory illnesses such as RSV and COVID-19 are in decline, and health officials are reminding people to get vaccinated. The BC Centre for Disease Control says influenza A infections remain high and continue to increase, with...

TORONTO - Alcohol-related deaths rose about 18 per cent during the pandemic, according to a study that points to the harm of making liquor more available at a time of increased vulnerability. Researchers with the Public Health Agency of Canada compared alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations before and after the pa...

VANCOUVER - Premier David Eby says protecting British Columbians from the potential impact of U.S. tariffs will be taken as seriously as the relief response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says every decision being taken by his ministers, including plans for next month's budget, will be made through the lens of a "po...

VANCOUVER - Premier David Eby says protecting British Columbians from the potential impact of U.S. tariffs will be taken as seriously as the relief response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says every decision being taken by his ministers, including plans for next month's budget, will be made through the lens of a "po...

EDMONTON - The organization representing Alberta physicians is calling out a government panel's COVID-19 report as "anti-science." Dr. Shelley Duggan, head of the Alberta Medical Association, says the report sows distrust by going against proven preventive health measures while promoting fringe methods. She s...

VANCOUVER - In early 2020, Lili Wu was already "armed to the teeth" whenever she ventured to public places near her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. - face mask, sanitizer, protective eyewear and gloves. It was more than a month before the World Health Organization's March declaration of a global pandemic that in...