Beyond Local

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it can’t persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organization, the head of the U.N. Development Program said.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China denied all accusations of an overseas police presence, saying Tuesday that the United States was making “groundless accusations” after U.S. law enforcement arrested two men in New York for establishing a secret police station.

BEIJING (AP) — Police in New York have arrested two men for allegedly setting up a secret police station for a Chinese provincial police agency to collect information on opponents of the ruling Communist Party.

EDMONTON — Three Alberta cabinet ministers say the government’s new question restriction policy for media applies only to Premier Danielle Smith.

CALGARY — Alberta's Opposition NDP is promising up to $200 million to create a post-secondary campus in downtown Calgary if it wins the upcoming election.

MONTREAL — A parliamentary committee has recommended sweeping changes to Canada's air passenger rights framework, including tougher enforcement and compensation rules around flight delays.

SURREY, B.C. — A 20-year-old man from Burnaby, B.C., has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a teenager on a Metro Vancouver transit bus last week. Seventeen-year-old Ethan Bespflug was killed on a bus in Surrey, B.C., last Tuesday. 

CALGARY — The union representing WestJet pilots says they have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate.

CALGARY — The deaths of a woman and a man at an apartment complex on the weekend are believed to be a murder-suicide, police said Monday.

OTTAWA — The clock is ticking for the government and Canada's largest federal public-service union to reach an agreement by a deadline of 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday evening.