NEWS IMAGE COLLAGE / for 02-2009

Defence chief promises to fast-track re-enrolment in drive to pump up dwindling military ranks

Canada's 27-year-old army trucks, plagued by problems with brakes and steering, will continue to operate as the Defence Department tries to breathe new life into its plan to buy replacement vehicles.

LIMA, Peru -- The unusually intact fossilized skull of a giant, toothed sea bird that died millions of years ago was found on Peru's arid southern coast, researchers said Friday.

Roughly half of the guns fuelling a gang war in British Columbia's Lower Mainland come from the United States, RCMP say, highlighting the difficult challenge of stopping the flow of weapons into Canada.

Maelle Ricker of Squamish, B.C., won the gold medal in a snowboardcross race at the World Cup stop on Saturday in Maine.

PASAB, Afghanistan - As Canadian troops in this inhospitable, war-battered land work to root out and confront Taliban insurgents on a daily basis, the role for women on the front lines has continued to evolve in the country where Canada lost its first fem

The US is likely to boycott a UN racism conference, reports suggest, saying a text drawn up for the event criticises Israel and restricts freedom of speech.

Green Leader Elizabeth May says many of the newly minted president's values on the economy and the environment align with those of her party, which is holding its annual convention in Pictou, N.S.

The truck Jordan Knelsen-Long, 16, drove to the Shell station in Penhold -- about 135 km north of Calgary -- for some snacks at 9:30 p.m., was returned home, said the teen's dad, Dave Long, but she hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Steve Bernier's goal midway through the third period snapped a tie game and sent the Vancouver Canucks to a 2-1 home win over the hapless Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night.

FESTUS, Mo. - A lot of people are struggling to keep their homes in these tough economic times. One suburban St. Louis family is trying to keep its cave.

The Liberal party can make gains in Alberta in the next federal election, the party's federal leader said Friday.

The New Westminster, B.C., officer charged with assault in connection with the beating of a newspaper deliveryman last month in Vancouver is now facing an additional charge.

QUEBEC -- Canadian troops in Afghanistan are waging a noble war against the "barbarian" Taliban, Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume said Friday during a stop in Valcartier where he met a group of soldiers preparing to deploy.

An autopsy has confirmed that hypothermia killed Marie-Josee Fortin, a skier who spent more than one week stranded with her husband in rugged wilderness near Golden, B.C.

She did what???

Less than a year before a B.C. Mountain will host Olympic snowboarding and freestyle ski events, a well-respected international sports magazine is slamming the way the facility handled World Cup events.

The provincial government announced Friday it will pay the entire cost of the new Port Mann Bridge, after an attempt to reach an agreement through a public-private partnership failed.

OTTAWA - Moscow and Ottawa are engaged in a war of words after Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced Friday that Canadian and U.S. fighter jets intercepted a Russian bomber and signalled it to "turn tail" over the high Arctic on the eve of American Pres

The B.C. Lions will host the 2011 Grey Cup at Vancouver's B.C. Place.

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan's interior minister says there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting inside his country, and the insurgent group is operating across about 17 provinces.

PANJWAII DISTRICT, Afghanistan - The Canadian military has put some distance between itself and its allies over the mismanagement of weapons donated to the Afghan army as concern mounts that some arms may have fallen into the hands of Taliban militants.

Fossil footprints left 1.5 million years ago in Africa by the ancestors of modern humans show their feet and gait weren't much different from ours.

As one of six Western Conference teams battling a tight race to make the playoffs, the Vancouver Canucks take on visiting Tampa Bay Lightning Friday at General Motors Place.

28 hockey stars will hit the ice to raise money for humanitarian organization

TORONTO -- Feeling betrayed and sad after yesterday's release of two men accused of killing his son, Ahmed Abdikarim Mohammed said he will take his wife and their five children back to Africa "this week." "Canada is nothing ... the Canadian government

Alberta is on track to end up with a deficit of $1.4 billion at the end of the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to the province's third-quarter update, released Thursday.

CTV.ca News Staff As security officials worked to secure Ottawa on the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit, Canadian fighter jets were scrambling to intercept a Russian bomber plane in the Arctic skies. At a press conference Friday, Defence M

That pacing suggests that although Obama's promised withdrawal will start soon, it will be backloaded, with larger numbers of troops returning later in the 18-month time frame.

The Government of Canada signed a $346 million contract with CAE Inc. to establish a world-class aircrew training capability for Canada's new fleet of C-130 J-model Hercules tactical aircraft

A class-action lawsuit for retired military personnel exposed to radiation while cleaning up after a Chalk River nuclear reactor accident in the late 1950s is to be filed in court today.

OTTAWA -- He is now 86, but the "invisible wounds" of war remain. Jerome Jodoin returned from the Second World War with nightmares, irrepressible tears and profound sadness.

NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana woman is accused of trading two young children in her care for a pet cockatoo and US$175 cash from a couple who had been trying for years to have their own child

OTTAWA -- In her final MSN conversation, a male nurse posing as a teenage girl coaxed Nadia Kajouji to hang herself on webcam while he watched.

A Russian man collapsed and died after a 12-hour orgy.

TORONTO -- When Lindsay Hyde came forward last Sunday to tell her harrowing story of being bullied, she thought she was all alone. But not anymore.

TROLL RESEARCH STATION, Antarctica -- Antarctica's western ice sheet is pushing ever faster into the sea, but scientists know an even greater long-term threat lies here in the vast, little-explored whiteness of east Antarctica.

VASSALBORO, Maine - Cup size has more than one meaning at a new central Maine coffeehouse

Many residents of southern B.C. were digging out from another snowstorm Thursday morning after an Arctic weather front blasted through the region Wednesday.

Search and rescue officials from across the Beaufort Delta are in Inuvik, N.W.T., to learn skills that will make them better and faster at searching for people who are lost on the land.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists tougher sentences included in the anti-gang legislation the Conservatives tabled on Thursday will deter crime but said he expects opposition parties will "parrot" critics of the measures because they believe in "soft-

America's biggest domestic automaker said Thursday it lost $30.9 billion for the full year and expects an opinion from its auditors as to whether the company remains a "going concern" when its annual report is issued in March. That means the auditors will

Bamboo, steel tubes and cables, wood and tape got plenty of attention on February 23, 2009, when the Air Force officially kicked off its Centennial of Flight celebrations.

Defence planners are scrambling to figure out how the Canadian navy will be able to operate on the East and West coasts next year when it is left with only one ship capable of providing fuel and supplies for the service's frigates and destroyers.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it -- fertilization of eggs while they are still inside a female -- took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thur

In these tough economic times, it's going to get more expensive for British Columbians to drink their sorrows away.

As much as 15 cm of snow is expected to blanket parts of the Lower Mainland Wednesday, with the Fraser Valley likely to get the largest dumping.

The captain of a Spanish fishing trawler that sank Sunday on the Grand Banks says he is disturbed that a Nova Scotia MP is suggesting he deliberately scuttled his own boat.

Canada will continue to push the important role that Alberta's oilsands play in the North American marketplace, says Environment Minister Jim Prentice, despite a telling article appearing in March's National Geographic.

A Montreal man has been rescued but his spouse is dead after their ski trip turned into a 10-day battle to survive in the snowy backcountry near B.C.'s Kicking Horse Mountain Resort

Father watches young son die after car swung around stopped school bus

The Edmonton man who allegedly abandoned two horses on the side of a mountain near McBride, B.C., in December is facing three counts of animal cruelty, the B.C. SPCA confirmed yesterday.

The Vancouver Canucks were keen to complete a sweep of their four-game, cross-Canada trek, but the modestly resurgent Montreal Canadiens had other ideas.

The federal government is expected to unveil new legislation Thursday that will include an automatic first-degree murder charge for any gang-related killings, CTV News has learned.

Northern Trust flew hundreds of clients and employees to L.A. and put many of them up at some of the fanciest and priciest hotels in the city. We're told more than a hundred people were put up at the Beverly Wilshire in Bev Hills, and another hundred stay

A New Democrat MP is raising questions about a Spanish fishing vessel that sank like a stone on Sunday on the Grand Banks, as the crew scrambled into the North Atlantic.

The Afghan National Army's 205 Corps and Task Force Kandahar have successfully completed Operation SHAHI TANDAR 3, a three-day operation targeting insurgent capabilities in western Panjwayi and western Zhari districts.

McGuinty has ordered aides to instruct the Queen's Park Press Gallery that he no longer wishes to participate in media "scrums" that politicians have endured for years.

The Department of National Defence has released a counter-insurgency manual that manages expectations for victory, urges troops to understand their adversaries' grievances and pushes for political and social solutions in concert with military force.

LOS ANGELES - It seems so long ago now, but for just a day or two last month Nadya Suleman was known as Miracle Mom, the amazing woman who gave birth to the longest-surviving set of octuplets.

Canada's #1 original comedy series CORNER GAS commemorates its 100th milestone episode in "TV Free Dog River", premiering Monday, March 2 at 9:30 p.m. ET

A Vancouver journalist, who was abducted last year in northern Pakistan, says in a videotape she's being held by the Taliban.

A third child has died from wounds sustained in an explosion in an Afghan village that residents and relatives alleged was caused by a shell fired by Canadian troops.

An infant and at least four other people were shot Tuesday along a New Orleans parade route packed with Mardi Gras revellers, police said. Two suspects were in custody and the victims were recovering.

Four American soldiers and an Afghan civilian were killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.

A British-born bishop who denies the scale of the Holocaust scuffled with a reporter in Argentina on Tuesday before boarding a flight back to Britain after the Argentinian government ordered him to leave the country.

North Korea said Tuesday it is in "full-fledged preparations" to shoot a satellite into orbit, its clearest reference yet to an impending launch that neighbouring countries and the U.S. believe will be an illicit test of a long-range missile.

Both Mac and Windows users now have access to a browser that loads web pages close to three times faster than the latest versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer or the open-source Mozilla Firefox, Apple has announced.

The Canucks earned a 4-2 victory over Montreal in the first meeting, on Feb 15. Daniel and Henrik Sedin each notched a goal and an assist, while goalie Roberto Luongo made 25 saves.

Maple Leaf Foods has voluntarily recalled hundreds of cases of wieners that had not completed tests for the listeria bacteria species.

A NASA satellite designed to track carbon dioxide emissions has landed in the ocean near Antarctica after failing to reach orbit early Tuesday

OTTAWA - Consumer confidence hits new lows. Housing prices crumble to 2003 levels. Unemployment insurance claims rise five per cent in one month.

A small group of protesters demonstrated outside Halifax City Hall Tuesday to show their opposition to Metro Transit's decision not to place atheism-themed ads on its buses.

Canada's two main police associations defended the use of Tasers on Tuesday, saying all officers should be equipped with stun guns because they save lives and there is no proof they have been directly responsible for civilian deaths.

A dining table in the officers' mess at Canadian Forces Base Shilo has a story steeped in 250 years' worth of history

Two organizations are calling on the Alberta government to pay more attention to the impacts of the oilsands pollution on waters downstream in the Northwest Territories.

Almost 10 days after he started out, Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse has won the 26th annual Yukon Quest sled-dog race, crossing the finish line in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Tuesday morning.

A Vancouver father says he is pleased with the sentences given to three men in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday for the kidnapping and confining of his son.

Some of the snowiest places following Monday's blizzard were McNamee, near Boiestown, which saw more than 65 centimetres of snow fall, as well, Kouchibouguac, on the province's east coast, witnessed 60 centimetres of snow fall.

But Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has recently fired a shot across the media's bow for reasons that are unclear. The premier has reportedly ordered his aides to tell the Queen's Park press gallery that he doesn't want to be involved in any more media

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said today his country was prepared to accept prisoners from US detention camp Guantanamo Bay.

Police arrested a motorist after a Honda CRV was involved in three separate accidents on Highway 401 in a span of 15 minutes.

MELBOURNE, Australia - With terrifying memories of Australia's deadliest wildfires still fresh, residents chose to flee rather than protect their homes Monday when new blazes broke containment lines and threatened the fringes of the country's second-large

Child abuse early in life appears to permanently change how people respond to stress, say researchers in Montreal who studied the brains of suicide victims.

A comet is closing in on Earth and may be visible to the naked eye around 3 a.m. ET Tuesday.

TORONTO - It's unacceptable that 90 children known to Ontario child protection services died in 2007 - and most of those deaths could have been prevented, the province's child and youth advocate said Monday.

A crab fisherman from Clarenville says he is still overwhelmed by news that he is one of four winners of Saturday night's huge lottery jackpot

A 62-room resort in the Cariboo region of the B.C. Interior was destroyed by a fire Monday morning.

Police in Toronto were searching for at least three suspects in the city's west end on Monday after an 18-year-old man was injured in a shooting on a public transit bus

The outlook for endangered seabirds looks better thanks to a scheme that reduces the numbers accidentally killed by the fishing industry.

North Korea has recently completed the deployment of new medium-range missiles capable of reaching more parts of Asia, South Korea says.

TORONTO -- The Toronto stock market fell through its most recent lows set last November on Monday as a fresh wave of pessimism trumped assurances from U.S. regulators on the financial system.

Memo to all those anglophiles outraged over the cancellation of plans to re-enact the Battle of the Plains of Abraham: Get over it, for crying out loud.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent, the first federal judge charged with a sex crime, retired Monday, avoiding possible impeachment by Congress

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's Carnival, long a symbol of youth, beauty and sex, added a mature twist Monday by giving two women in their 40s a chance to dance nearly nude at the head of their samba parades.

Police launched a massive manhunt Monday after a notorious bank robber hailed by some Greeks as a modern-day Robin Hood was lifted out of prison along with his Albanian accomplice in a rented chopper amid fire from prison guards.

The trading deadline has truly become an event on the hockey calendar, and it has been nothing but consistent since the lockout

The Canadian military is investigating allegations that two Afghan children were killed in an explosion Monday caused by a shell left by Canadian troops.

One man is recovering from critical injuries following a shooting just east of Fraser Street in East Vancouver around 10:30 p.m. Sunday

A Vancouver-born actor and singer appeared in a Vancouver courtroom Monday morning to testify about his role in a Chinese celebrity sex scandal.

One of the RCMP officers who confronted Robert Dziekanski the night he died at Vancouver airport testified on Monday that he feared for his safety after Dziekanski took a combative stance.

New Brunswickers are digging out from a massive overnight storm that dumped as much as 35 centimetres of snow in parts of the province, causing power outages and forcing plows to be pulled off the roads.

The captain of a Spanish fishing vessel said Monday he and his crew were in mortal peril when a Canadian Coast Guard ship pulled them from the frigid North Atlantic.

His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mas

Fifteen years on, Karlee Kosolofski, who was discovered frozen at the door to her home but was revived in what medical experts have called a miraculous comeback, says she remembers nothing of the ordeal but appreciates her good fortune.

Beth Figley, the mother of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan, is searching for the truth behind her son's death and she may find the answer on Wednesday

OTTAWA -- Senior government officials say that rail commuters can expect some quicker trips in Central Canada and renovated stations across the country because of a multimillion-dollar injection of new cash for VIA Rail outlined in the last federal budget

On Monday, Canadians will hear for the first time from the four RCMP officers involved in the stun gun-related death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport.

Three Canadians who were jailed and tortured in Syria are filing new lawsuits against the federal government, armed with fresh information from an inquiry that implicated several agencies in their ordeals.

Pauline Marois said Sunday that independence was at the front-and-centre of the PQ's agenda but offered neither a timeline nor a plan of action on how the party will sell Quebecers on sovereignty.

Hundreds of people, including politicians and police, showed up at a rally in a suburb of Vancouver to protest gang violence in Metro Vancouver.

Why? Because despite its members' claims at the time of Fortune's Rock Star win in late 2005 that he was a permanent hire, INXS dumped its new singer off at the Hong Kong airport when the clock ran out on its 18-month Switch tour. Handshakes all around an

NASA's Phoenix lander may have captured the first images of liquid water on Mars - droplets that apparently splashed onto the spacecraft's leg during landing, according to some members of the Phoenix team.