National News

VANCOUVER — In a year when pharmacists have stickhandled children's drug shortages and an extra-busy flu shot season, you'd think they might balk at the news in Ontario and B.C. that their prescriptive powers are being expanded.

Canada's requirement of a negative COVID-19 test of travellers from China will not help in preventing new variants or the spread of the virus, say experts.

OTTAWA — The federal government is "looking at a variety of options" to carry out a planned buyback of banned firearms — including enlisting outside help, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says.

VANCOUVER — Premiers across the country used their New Year's messages to emphasize everything from housing and affordability to healthy lifestyles.

MONTREAL — Hydro-Québec says almost all of its customers who lost power in a Dec. 23 winter storm have now been reconnected.

SAINT-SIMON, NEW BRUNSWICK — A journalist well-known to listeners of French-language radio in New Brunswick has been killed and police say they're investigating the death as a homicide.

CAP-DES-ROSIERS, Que. — Quebec provincial police say the search for a fisherman missing in Quebec's Gaspé region since Friday has resumed. Police spokeswoman Sgt.

From coast to coast, Canadians rang in the new year Saturday night with parties, fireworks and in some places, a lot of rain.

VANCOUVER — People living in tents along about eight blocks of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside roam around on a chilly afternoon as some in the throes of addiction are hunched over on the sidewalk near storefronts.

Ottawa plans to temporarily require people flying from China, Hong Kong and Macao to test negative for COVID-19 before leaving for Canada, beginning in early January.