Local News

TORONTO - Jurors will have to weigh the mental state of a man who killed a Toronto police officer with a stolen snowplow and shouted about the Taliban, Chinese technology and a microchip in his body, court heard Monday.

TORONTO - Promises to give victims a formal role in Canada's criminal justice system and to stiffen penalties for child sex predators are important if overdue federal initiatives, two abused former hockey players said Monday.

MONTREAL - The quest to make Quebec independence a key part of the public debate hit what one of its supporters calls a familiar roadblock Monday: low media interest.

OTTAWA - Newly installed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry didn't express any concerns about allegations that Canadians were involved in last month's terrorist attack on a gas plant in Algeria, says Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

OTTAWA - The veterans ombudsman says ex-soldiers and members of the RCMP should no longer be at the mercy of government institutions when it comes to submitting their disability applications.

OTTAWA - The federal government says there is "no issue of public importance" involved in a seven-year battle to lift the shroud of secrecy over the intelligence dossier compiled on socialist trailblazer Tommy Douglas.

TORONTO - The privilege of helping to unravel a historical mystery is surpassed only by the prospect of rehabilitating the image of one of Britain's most maligned monarchs, a Canadian-born descendant of King Richard III said Monday.

OTTAWA - The Canadian penny took another step Monday on what could be a long road to extinction, with businesses given the ultimate short-term power of deciding whether they want to keep accepting them.

MONTREAL - Quebec provincial police and the province's workplace safety board have launched an investigation into a deadly landslide at a quarry near Montreal.