Local News

For more than a decade, Vancouver Island patients have been spirited to and from hospital on the wings of angels. Their mode of transport is Angel Flight of B.C.

Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen said he was happy to skip the sherry and crustless sandwiches from New Year’s Day levees of the past to embrace a more inclusive and healthier tradition.

Citing a need for leadership, first-term Victoria Coun. Lisa Helps says she will challenge Dean Fortin for the mayor’s chair in November. “I think there are lots of things that I bring to the table that differentiate me from Dean,” said Helps, 37.

RCMP and the coast guard were combing the land and sea around Mill Bay on Wednesday, searching for a Shawnigan Lake man. “The search will go until the last tide at midnight [Wednesday],” said Const. Kevin Hopkinson with the Shawnigan Lake RCMP.

PORT ALBERNI — Rescue crews picked a 55-year-old Victoria man off Mount Arrowsmith and airlifted him to St. Joseph’s General Hospital in Comox with serious but non-life-threatening injuries Tuesday night.

Tru Value Foods in Cordova Bay is closed today after a freezer caught fire this morning, causing smoke damage throughout the store. Saanich Fire battalion chief Gary Stark said firefighters were called to the store at 5124 Cordova Bay Rd.

A Saanich couple are the proud parents of British Columbia’s first baby of 2014, brought into the world just seconds after midnight.

Victoria police were kept hopping well into the new year with more than 130 calls including assaults and grossly drunken behaviour. Nineteen of those people rang in the new year behind bars in Victoria jails.

A number of Greater Victoria care homes and one hospital unit are battling outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness among residents, patients and staff, Island Health reports.

Hundreds of polar bear dip enthusiasts will plunge into Thetis Lake on New Year’s Day instead of Elk-Beaver Lake, where a potentially poisonous algae bloom is flourishing.