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.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is still working to identify the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, its director general said on Friday, after a U.S. agency was reported to have assessed the pandemic had likely been caused by a Chinese laboratory leak.
"I have written to and spoken with high-level Chinese leaders on multiple occasions as recently as just a few weeks ago... all hypotheses on the origins of the virus remain on the table," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.
"I wish to be very clear that WHO has not abandoned any plans to identify the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic," Tedros said.
The U.S. Energy Department made its judgment with "low confidence" in a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal said, citing people who had read the intelligence report.
Four other U.S. agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still think COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided, the Journal reported.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, expressed frustration on Twitter on Thursday that the United States had not shared additional information with the WHO on its reports assessing the origin of the virus.
On Friday, she urged countries, institutions and research groups that might have any information on the origins of the pandemic to share it with the international community.
"We don't completely have the answers to how this pandemic began and it remains absolutely critical that we continue to focus on this," she said.
She said it was crucial to study coronaviruses circulating in animals and how people come into contact with those animals.
"Our work continues on this space: looking at studies in humans, looking at studies in animals, looking at studies at the animal human interface, and also looking at potential breaches in biosafety and biosecurity for any of the labs that were working with coronaviruses, particularly where the first cases were detected in Wuhan, China, or elsewhere," she said.
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.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped Treasury Board President Anita Anand to take on additional duties as Canada's minister of transport on Thursday.
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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.