Local News

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.

Victoria’s downtown is in the midst of an economic upturn heading into 2014, says Mayor Dean Fortin.

Victoria police would like to talk to anyone who witnessed a collision between a police van and a Honda Civic at 6 p.m. on Dec. 26. The collision took place at the intersection of Douglas Street and Caledonia Avenue.

Victoria police discovered a loaded handgun and a plastic bag of cocaine during a traffic stop early Monday morning. About 2 a.m., an officer noticed that a truck travelling in the Bay Street-Tyee Road area had some mechanical defects.