A wolf is trapped and an RCMP arrest prompts warnings; In The News for Jan. 28

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Jan. 28 …

What we are watching in Canada …

The Canadian government is now advising citizens against all travel to a Chinese province that’s at the centre of a global outbreak of a new form of coronavirus, stepping up an earlier warning about the region. 

On Monday afternoon the government updated its advice for travellers to say that Canadians shouldn’t go to Hubei province at all. 

“Avoid all travel to the province of Hubei, including the cities of Wuhan, Huanggang and Ezhou, due to the imposition of heavy travel restrictions in order to limit the spread of a novel coronavirus,” the website stated.

Previously, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne had only advised Canadians to avoid non-essential travel to the region.

The Chinese government cut transportation links to and from the city of Wuhan, at the centre of the outbreak, on Jan. 22 and has since expanded those controls to several nearby cities.

Anyone travelling from Wuhan is required to register and quarantine themselves for 14 days — the maximum incubation period for the virus.

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Also this …

After the shocking arrest of one of their own on national-secrecy charges, rank-and-file Mounties were encouraged to get counselling if needed, decline to speak with the media and avoid the headquarters venue where a news conference on the case was taking place, newly released documents show.

RCMP members were also advised what to say to colleagues at home and abroad who asked about the Cameron Jay Ortis file.

Ortis, 47, faces eight charges under the Security of Information Act. He is also accused of breach of trust and a computer-related offence.

The director general of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Co-ordination Centre was arrested Sept. 12 for allegedly revealing secrets to an unnamed recipient and planning to give additional classified information to an unspecified foreign entity.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada says the secrecy charges will proceed by way of direct indictment, meaning there will be no preliminary inquiry. Ortis, being held at an Ottawa jail, is due back in court today.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed near Los Angeles, killing former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and eight others, told air traffic controllers in his last radio message that he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer before plunging more than 1,000 feet (305 metres) into a hillside, an accident investigator said.

Radar indicated the helicopter reached a height of 2,300 feet (701 metres) Sunday morning before descending, and the wreckage was found at 1,085 feet (331 metres), Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said during a news conference Monday afternoon.

NTSB investigators went to the crash site in Calabasas on Monday to collect evidence.

“The debris field is pretty extensive,” Homendy said.

“A piece of the tail is down the hill,” she said. “The fuselage is on the other side of that hill. And then the main rotor is about 100 yards (91 metres) beyond that.”

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

Britain’s Prince Andrew has provided “zero co-operation” to the American investigators who want to interview him as part of their sex trafficking probe into Jeffrey Epstein, a U.S. prosecutor said.

Speaking at a news conference outside Epstein’s New York mansion, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said prosecutors and the FBI had contacted Andrew’s lawyers and asked to interview him.

“To date, Prince Andrew has provided zero co-operation,” said Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

Andrew announced last year that he was withdrawing from his royal duties amid renewed public attention on a woman’s claim that she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest, starting when she was 17.

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ICYMI (In case you missed it) …

TROIS-RIVIERES, Que. — A world champion canoeist won a doping case on Monday after persuading a tribunal that her positive test was caused by bodily fluid contamination from her ex-boyfriend.

The International Canoe Federation ended its investigation into 11-time world champion Laurence Vincent Lapointe, who tested positive for a steroid-like substance in July. She faced a four-year ban and could have missed her event’s Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

The Canadian canoe sprint racer and her lawyer says a laboratory analysis of hair from her then-boyfriend showed he was likely responsible for a tiny presence of ligandrol in her doping sample.

“It’s pretty incredible,” Vincent Lapointe’s lawyer Adam Klevinas says. “It took months to get results, and then at the end, we got the idea to analyze the hair of her ex and to test a product he finally admitted to taking.”

The governing body said in a statement that it: “accepted Ms. Vincent Lapointe’s evidence which supports that she was the victim of third-party contamination.”

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Weird and wild …

VICTOIRA — Conservation officers have captured a wolf that was spotted over the last few days roaming a busy Victoria neighbourhood not far from the British Columbia legislature.

The wolf was first spotted on Saturday but police and animal control officers were unable to track it down.

It was seen again Sunday and police trailed it to an area between a fence and a building where it curled up and appeared to fall asleep.

The adult male wolf was tranquilized, safely removed from the area and police say veterinarians with the conservation service will determine next steps.

A lone male wolf has been living on a tiny island more than a kilometre off the coast of the Victoria suburb of Oak Bay, for the last seven years but it’s not known if the tranquilized wolf and the one on Discovery Island are the same. 

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Know your news …

The Chinese city of Wuhan is the epicentre of that country’s coronavirus outbreak. What Canadian community is a sister city to Wuhan?  

(Keep scrolling for the answer)

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On this day in 1983 …

Progressive Conservative Party convention delegates voted 66.9 per cent against a review of Joe Clark’s leadership. But Clark said the mandate was not clear enough and called a leadership convention. He lost the ensuing contest to Brian Mulroney.

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Entertainment news …

TORONTO — The 2020 Juno Awards nominees are set to be revealed this morning.

Among the potential contenders at Canada’s biggest night in music are previous Juno winners Daniel Caesar, Avril Lavigne and Carly Rae Jepsen, who all released acclaimed albums over the past year.

And pop superstar Shawn Mendes could score recognition for his fiery hit single “Senorita” alongside girlfriend Camila Cabello.

Other possible nominees include rock acts the Glorious Sons and Pup, and hip-hop artists Haviah Mighty and Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

This year’s awards will be handed out in Saskatoon and will air live on CBC on March 15.

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Know your news answer …

Markham, Ont. The two cities signed a sister city agreement in 2003.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2020.

The Canadian Press