Local News

The Alberta Liberal Party announced its plans for health care this week with a call for more local decision-making, more family doctors and a focus on prevention that would include banning trans fats and mandating ATV helmets.

St. Albert's flagship mall has a new owner and soon will feature a new store. St. Albert Centre will be the site of one of Canada's first Target stores sometime in 2012.

Premier Ed Stelmach attached a closing date to his term as premier and Progressive Conservative Party leader Friday. In a letter to party president Bill Smith, Stelmach announced his last day in office will be Oct. 1.

Woodlands got a little woodier this week as about 500 local students planted trees for Arbour Day. About 500 Grade 1 students from nine St. Albert schools romped through Willoughby Park Wednesday to plant trees and learn about forests.

Some beleaguered residents of Slave Lake just started making the long, slow drive back home yesterday.

With just days to go before the party’s leadership vote, the four Alberta Party leadership candidates made their last public pitches to party members at a forum Wednesday night.

A teacher at Elmer Gish School is being honoured with a provincial Excellence in Teaching Award. Carolyn Hunter, who has spent the last three years of her 17-year career at Gish, will receive the award Saturday evening at a banquet in Edmonton.

Negotiations aimed at averting a nationwide postal strike were set to continue over the weekend, but an interruption to mail delivery is still very much a possibility.

The city will move toward restricting ground-floor businesses in the downtown to retail operations and require professional services to locate on upper floors.

Vandals struck St. Albert’s Catholic cemetery at some point last weekend, knocking over four gravestones in an apparent random act. The toppling at the cemetery on St.