New Federal firearm buyback program has cost $67M, still not collecting guns after 4 years
The federal firearm buyback program has cost taxpayers nearly $67.2 million since it was announced in 2020, but it still hasn't collected a single gun.
Police in Norway on Sunday reported dozens of disturbances and violent clashes including mass brawls in the Nordic country's big cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of COVID-19 restrictions that lasted for more than a year.
The Norwegian government abruptly announced Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.
The unexpected announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg to drop coronavirus restrictions the next day took many Norwegians by surprise and led to chaotic scenes in the capital, Oslo, and elsewhere in the country.
"It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime," Solberg said on Friday at a news conference. "Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life."
Rowdy celebrations by hundreds of citizens across Norway started Saturday afternoon and lasted until the early hours of Sunday. Police said unrest was reported in several places, including in the southern city of Bergen and the central city of Trondheim, but the situation was the worst in Oslo.
Long lines were seen outside Oslo's nightclubs, bars and restaurants late Saturday and police registered at least 50 fights and disturbances during the night. Neither vaccination status certificates nor negative test results are required to enter such venues in Norway.
"That's exactly what I predicted would happen," angry nightclub manager Johan Hoeeg Haanes in Oslo told Norwegian newspaper VG. "It was a life-threatening situation in the city because they (government) didn't give us at least a few days advance notice. This was a dangerous situation, as police said all places were packed."
Among other incidents, Norwegian media reported that police received an alert about a man carrying a machete on a bus in Oslo and people fainting while waiting to get into pubs in Trondheim.
"There was a significantly greater workload (Saturday) than during the summer. There were a lot of people out already in the afternoon and it continued during the night," Oslo police spokesman Rune Hekkelstrand told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
Solberg responded to criticism of the sudden move to reopen society by saying that Norwegian health experts had supported the measure.
"We shall not have strict (coronavirus) measures unless they are professionally justified. People must be allowed to live as they wish," Solberg told VG late Saturday.
Norway is the second country in Nordic region to lift COVID-19 restrictions after Denmark did so on Sept. 10.
More than 76% of Norway's population have received one vaccine dose, and nearly 70% have had both shots, according to official figures.
The federal firearm buyback program has cost taxpayers nearly $67.2 million since it was announced in 2020, but it still hasn't collected a single gun.
If something looks too good to be true, it might be. That's the message from Saskatchewan horticulturists after customers have come into their stores hoping to buy purple apple trees this month.
The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.
Chris Knayzeh was in a town overlooking Lebanon's capital when he heard the rumbling aftershock of the 2020 Beirut port blast. Hundreds of tons of haphazardly stored ammonium nitrates had exploded, killing and injuring thousands of people.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has lost 205 firearms since 2020, including more than 120 handguns and at least five fully automatic weapons like machine-guns.
For most people, dinner on a cruise ship is a time to relax. But when influencer couple Abby and Matt Howard decided to kick back with a dinner à deux, they ended up kicking up a storm.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped Treasury Board President Anita Anand to take on additional duties as Canada's minister of transport on Thursday.
B.C.'s police watchdog is investigating the death of a woman who was shot by the RCMP after allegedly barricading herself in a room with a toddler early Thursday morning.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh got into a heated exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday, just minutes after Singh announced his party would not be supporting the Conservatives' first non-confidence motion against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government.
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.
David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.
Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.
A daytrip to the backcountry turned into a frightening experience for a Vancouver couple this weekend.