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Arrests in SASK. killings

REGINA — RCMP say they have arrested a man and a boy in the shooting deaths of four people on a First Nation in southern Saskatchewan.

Mounties say 18-year-old Darrius Racette faces four counts of first-degree murder after two men and two women were found dead in a home on Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation, east of Regina.

The boy is to be charged later on Wednesday.

Mounties had previously identified the victims as 34-year-old Tracey Hotomani, 51-year-old Terry Jack, 44-year-old Sheldon Quewezance and 47-year-old Shauna Fay.

Police have said the home was targeted.

RCMP say the pair were arrested on Tuesday.

BELL CABLE ‘CUT BY HUMANS’ on two separate occasions

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Bell is looking for answers after its subsea fibre-optic cable connecting western Newfoundland to Nova Scotia was severed for the second time in the space of a year.

The telecommunications cable was most recently cut on Dec. 24, said David Joice, the company’s networks director. That’s almost a year after the first incident on Jan. 4, 2024.

“We found that it was cut by humans,” Joice said in an interview Wednesday. “And what was really difficult about this, because it’s a huge investment, is we found that it was deliberately cut for the second time by humans.”

The cable stretches across the Cabot Strait, between Dingwall, N.S., and Codroy, N.L.

When crews retrieved the ends of the three-centimetre cable, they saw it was sliced clean, as if someone had used a specialized tool, he said.

Joice said it is possible an anchor got ensnared in the line, which lay roughly 30 metres below the surface, and it was cut to free a ship.

Wrapped in coils of thick wire that act as armour, the line is a “primary connection” for internet, television and long distance communications between the two provinces, Joice said.

Bell has contacted the RCMP to find out who sliced the cable and why, he added.

In the meantime, the cable has been repaired and returned to the water, where remotely operated vehicles dug into the seabed to bury it much deeper.

The company is also looking at “surveillance options,” Joice said.

SMITH ESCHEWS PUBLIC INQUIRY

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is removing her government’s deputy health minister but bucking calls for a public inquiry into allegations of government interference in lucrative medical contracts.

Smith says Andre Tremblay is being replaced in the ministry but will continue as head of Alberta Health Services, the province’s front-line health agency.

The former head of AHS, Athana Mentzelopoulos, alleges in a lawsuit that she was wrongfully dismissed for looking into questionable contracts pushed by government officials as high up as the premier’s office.

The statement of claim alleges Mentzelopoulos was pressured by government officials to sign off on contracts with surgical facilities at unjustified, inflated prices.

The allegations have not been tested in court and a statement of defence has not been filed.

The premier says the government is working to hire an independent third party to help with an internal review is and setting up a “legal conflicts wall” to separate ongoing work of those implicated from the investigation.

‘SEXUAL ENHANCEMENT PRODUCTS’ WARNING

Health Canada is warning people in at least three provinces against using unauthorized sexual enhancement products that may pose serious health risks.

The agency says it has seized various products from stores in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario that have been found to contain “dangerous ingredients.”

Many of those products were found to contain sildenafil, a prescription drug for erectile dysfunction that Health Canada says should be used only under the supervision of a health-care professional.

The agency says possible side-effects associated with sildenafil can range from headache, dizziness and abnormal vision to increased risk of heart attack or stroke in people with heart problems.

Some of the seized products were also found to contain tadalafil, another prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction that may cause similar side-effects.

Health Canada has listed all of the seized products on its website and added that anyone using them should stop and consult a doctor should they have concerns.

» The Canadian Press