Glynn Brothen
Firefighters battling house fire in Ashcroft neighbourhood
ASHCROFT - Firefighters are currently battling a house fire on Mesa Vista Drive in Ashcroft. Members of the Ashcroft Fire Department are on scene with three fire trucks along with RCMP officers and paramedics, according to witnesses. Details have not been confirmed by members of the fire hall. We will have more information as it...
UPDATE: Police take down suspect after gas station robbery, release after questioning
KAMLOOPS - Police have released a man in custody after their search for a man who produced a knife in a gas station robbery. Mubeen Ahmed, a supervisor at the Summit Drive Super Save Gas station, said a man entered the location between 1 and 1:30 p.m. produced a knife and demanded cash from the...
SNELSON TRIAL: Cusworth was beaten to death: Pathologist
GRAPHIC CONTENT ADVISORY KAMLOOPS - Around seven or eight blows to the head caused the death of a 19-year-old girl who was found beaten, bruised and strangled in a watery ditch at the side of a pumpkin farmer’s property in Kelowna in 1993. In Kamloops Supreme Court today, June 4, Dr. Ronald Roy, a forensic...
SNELSON TRIAL UPDATE: Friends recall last moments with Jennifer Cusworth
KAMLOOPS - The last time Jennifer Cusworth’s friends saw her alive at a house party, they planned to get her home safely after drinking into the early morning hours of October 16, 1993. For Pam Coulombe and Faith Klinksiek their plan didn’t work out; the 19-year-old disappeared from the party. A jury heard Coulombe and...
No fire hydrants to fight Kamloops trailer park fire
KAMLOOPS - After a fire ripped through a double-wide trailer at the Iron Mask Mobile Home Park earlier this week the local fire chief has confirmed private hydrants on the property were lacking water flow. “Our thoughts from all of the staff at Kamloops Fire Rescue go out to the family who suffered from this...
Crown argues Gaglardi and company should pay more for environmental damage
KAMLOOPS - The case against Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi and the Northland Properties Corporation is not over yet as a Crown prosecutor argued the two should pay more for causing extensive environmental damage to a fish habitat. Crown prosecutor Digby Kier argued in Kamloops Supreme Court today, June 2, that the court impose a...
Kamloops worker shot in chest with nail gun did not have access to instruction materials
KAMLOOPS - A Kamloops construction company must better inform its employees on the use of nail guns after a man accidentally shot himself in the chest last month. According to WorkSafe B.C. inspector Vince Strain, a worker on a Columbia street construction site was trying to attach a brace on architectural trusses with a nail...
Emergency service in Ashcroft only available on weekends
ASHCROFT - The emergency room in the Village of Ashcroft will only be open on weekends as the Interior Health Authority continues its employment search for doctors. The services sustained a series of cuts after the village’s second doctor quit, leaving it to reduced emergency hours throughout the week. Now the service is only available from...
Ashcroft doctor shortage impacting other communities
ASHCROFT - A doctor shortage in Ashcroft is diminishing emergency room hours, leaving patients no choice but to either call 9-1-1 or travel over an hour to Kamloops or Merritt in the event of an emergency. Administrators at Interior Health Authority cut hours this week after one of the two doctors in town quit last...
Drunken U-turn leads to crash, injury
CHASE - One woman is in hospital and another is in police custody after a single vehicle crash on Shuswap Road East near Pritchard around 4 a.m., Monday, June 1. Chase RCMP Cpl. Mark Skotnicki says officers noticed two women in their early-20s standing on the road next to a pickup truck in the ditch....
Kamloops girl’s life cut short by abuse and neglect
KAMLOOPS - In a lengthy report documenting the plight of a young aboriginal girl failed by several bureaucracies, a critic says apathy, incomplete reports and inaction from ministry workers were significant contributors to a Kamloops girl's continual homelessness and eventual death at 19 years of age in the squalor of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Representative for...
Case against former immigration society director fails
KAMLOOPS - A judge has dropped a series of claims, including defamation and breach of confidentiality allegations against a former Kamloops Immigrant Services executive director who claimed the board chair harrassed staff in a toxic workplace after she and five other employees were dismissed. In her May 28 decision, Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin said Wanda...
High retail vacancy rate ‘a one-off for Kamloops’
KAMLOOPS - Commercial space vacancy in Kamloops is the highest it has been in the last three years but market analysts at a local real estate firm suggest the percentage is based solely on the thousands of square footage left empty by the now-defunct Target Canada in Sahali Mall. Prior to the big box departure,...
More B.C. wildfire personnel headed to Alberta
KAMLOOPS - Forty-one B.C. wildfire personnel, including two unit crews and an agency representative, will join the 88 others deployed earlier this week to fight wildfires in Alberta. Crews will be stationed in Edmonton, but could be deployed elsewhere throughout that province based on fire activity and need. Along with 129 personnel, B.C. sent two...
Pinantan store destroyed by fire ready to reopen
PINANTAN LAKE - The Pinantan General Store burned to the ground just over a year ago, now the family who owns it has rebuilt it and plans to host a grand opening celebration early next month. "The store is totally different. It’s quite beautiful. I'm proud of it," co-owner Stacey George says. The location is...