The Thursday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

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ELLIOTT RUNNING TO LEAD ONT. TORIES: Former Ontario legislator Christine Elliott says she is running to lead the province’s Progressive Conservative party. The 62-year-old announced her plans to enter the race on Twitter Thursday afternoon, writing “I’m in.” She will be among those vying to replace Patrick Brown, who resigned last week in the face of sexual misconduct allegations that he categorically denies. The Tories are set to pick a new leader in March, with a provincial election set for June.

23 years in education

Olds teacher wins CCSSA Excellence in Catholic Leadership Award

14h ago

Medical examiner confirms homicide

RCMP investigating homicide in Louis Bull First Nation

16h ago

Reducing youth crime

Red Deer Public Schools and RCMP expand partnership into high schools

16h ago

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QUE. COURTHOUSE SHOOTING VICTIM STABLE: An 18-year-old man is in stable condition after he was shot in the head during an altercation with a special constable at a courthouse in Maniwaki, Que., about 130 km north of Ottawa. The province’s police watchdog says Steven Bertrand managed to seize the constable’s baton, and allegedly used it to strike the officer over the head. The constable then took out a gun and fired it, hitting Bertrand in the head at least once, according to the watchdog’s statement.

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WITNESS SAYS HE LIED ABOUT SASK. SHOOTING: A key Crown witness in the trial of a Saskatchewan farmer charged with shooting a young Indigenous man says he lied to authorities about carrying a gun and breaking into a truck on the day his friend Colten Boushie was killed. Under cross-examination by Gerald Stanley’s lawyer, Cassidy Cross admitted he changed his story the day before he took the witness stand on Thursday. Cross, who was 17 at the time of the shooting, told Stanley’s second-degree murder trial that he and others had gone to a neighbouring farm to steal.

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SOBEYS THREATENS TO SUE OVER BREAD SCAM: The CEO of Sobeys says he has been in “way too many meetings with lawyers” in recent days, after his company was implicated in an alleged industry-wide price-fixing scheme on bread. Michael Medline says George Weston Ltd. and Loblaw Companies Ltd. “should keep checking the mailroom” for a notice of upcoming legal action, after they made the allegation in court documents made public on Wednesday.

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NAVY PLAYS DOWN RUSSIAN RUN-IN: A senior naval commander is playing down an account of a seemingly tense standoff between a Canadian warship and Russian vessels during a recent deployment. It occurred while HMCS Charlottetown was on a six-month operation that included monitoring Russian military activity in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. In an interview with an online publication, a sailor on board the Charlottetown described having to ready the ship’s missiles at one point as the Russians neared. But Commodore Craig Skjerpen, commander of Maritime Forces Atlantic, said there was never a point when the Russians got too close.

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COP DISCIPLINED AFTER ALLEGING MISCONDUCT: A Toronto police officer who reported alleged sexual misconduct by a colleague has been disciplined because of some of the evidence she submitted to support her case. An internal disciplinary process ruled that Sgt. Jessica McInnis will lose vacation time because of her participation in a group chat found to contain inappropriate content.

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CAMPERS RESCUED AFTER APPARENT KNIFE FIGHT: Police say two men have been taken to hospital with apparent knife wounds after an altercation while they were winter camping together on a mountain north of Vancouver. RCMP say emergency responders were called to Mount Seymour early Thursday, after receiving reports of an injured hiker or camper near a snowshoe trail. A few hours later, they received another call from a second man saying he was injured and needed help.

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THIS YEAR’S FLU SHOT NOT VERY EFFECTIVE: Researchers have found that the effectiveness of this year’s flu shot has been extremely low, with the vaccine preventing only 10 to 20 per cent of infections caused by the dominant strain affecting Canadians. The mid-season estimate is in line with what Australia experienced during the southern hemisphere’s flu season, which ended in late August as Canada’s was about to begin. Both Canada and Australia used the same vaccine components.

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TROPICAL BIRD FOUND ON VANCOUVER ISLAND: A tropical bird found shivering and injured on Victoria’s waterfront is now recovering at an animal rescue centre in the B.C. capital. The female brown booby is receiving treatment while staff at the facility try to figure out how it ended up so far from its usual territory. A spokeswoman for the rehab centre said there’s very little research on brown booby migration, but the birds have been known to travel up to 3,000 kilometres.

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The Canadian Press