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A Via Rail train from Vancouver arrived in Toronto Saturday morning after a health scare in northern Ontario.

For more than 10 hours on Friday, the train with 294 people without ceasing board was quarantined in the village of Foleyet, 100 kilometres southwest of Timmins, after an 86-year-old female passenger died.

In addition, some ill passenger was flown to a Timmins hospital by respiratory problems and five others on the train developed flu-like symptoms.

Officials say the six don’t have an infectious disease and the events that led to the quarantine were unfortunate coincidences.

Ontario’s acting chief medical officer, Dr. David Williams, reported there was that may be liked no connection between the abrupt exit of the woman set in a washroom and other passengers falling ill.

“It happened to be [the] confluence of three [separate events] at the same time,” Williams said Friday at a tidings conference in Toronto.

But health officials athwart the country were praising the quick reverse action of emergency answer teams, hailing it as a sign the system is working after lessons learned from the 2005 SARS outbreak.

Ontario officials utter the woman found dead in a washroom on the train may have died of a heart attack. The doctor on the suite who found the woman had earlier been notified about her deteriorating health.

But earlier in the day, authorities said whole they knew was that one woman seemingly healthy one moment was dead the next and that a group, including tourists from Australia who might have passed through Asia, was sick.

Fears of Avian flu: officials

“Given that there’s still H5N1 [avian influenza] and while we haven’t seen much person-to-person spread, one person mortal and another somebody requiring airlifting and a bunch of other people sick, that kind of throws up more live flags, ” said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief society freedom from disease officer, in an interview with Canadian Press.

Health officials over the country were pleased through the mode the incident was handled.

British Columbia’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, said public health officials thwart the country linked into parley calls to dividend information quickly.

“Had we had that high level of suspicion in Toronto, for example, at the beginning of SARS, they may not accept had the amount to of cases they subsequently had,” he said.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser, has been critical of provinces outside of Ontario for not moving to a greater degree quickly to develop formalized systems to distribution through public freedom from disease emergencies.

But Kendall aforesaid this circumstance shows that there is still the will to work together when such emergencies happen.

He said Canada is spending $135 million on a computer system to allow each province and territory to share intelligence in the event of an outbreak.

At Union Station Saturday morning, passengers related they were a little weary, but in good spirits and looking forward to their vacations or visits with relatives.

Via Rail has crisis counselors on hand concerning its staff on the trail if they want them. The train determination now continue on to Halifax.

With files from the Canadian Press

A chilly spring is being credited for a massive parade of icebergs on the farther side Newfoundland, making for that which experts say will be a stunning season with respect to onlookers.

More than 800 icebergs have glided past Newfoundland’s coastlines, including these at Quidi Vidi Village in St. John’s. (Submitted by Alick Tsui)

“This is going to be a record-setting year for icebergs,” Lt. William Woityra of the International Ice Patrol told CBC News.

“We’ve certainly seen more icebergs already this year than we’ve seen in the past four years combined.”

The International Ice Patrol keeps track of ice-infested waters, and has been doing so as the Titanic disaster of 1912, when the doomed luxury liner sank in the Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg.

So hostile this year, the patrol has counted 890 bergs.

Icebergs glide by Newfoundland each spring, melting gradually as they head further southward.

This year, however, has been a bonanza for iceberg spotters, with many communities offered one choice view after another of various shapes and sizes.

Bob and Brenda Ellis were captivated by icebergs they saw near Cappahayden, south of St. John’s. (CBC)

“Beautiful, breathtaking, spectacular,” said Brenda Ellis, a wayfarer from Ontario, before-mentioned while gazing at bergs bordering upon the Avalon Peninsula community of Cappahayden. “Just showy.”

“Some of them look like ships, and some of them mind like apartment buildings to me,” her husband, Bob Ellis, said.

“You can make up your own mind, but they all are very fascinating. It’s amazing to experience them in spite of the first regulate.”

Woitrya said weather provisions this year contributed to the spectacle.

“[It was] the colder weather, particularly in the months of March and April,” he related. “So far this year, the ice conditions were perfect in opposition to a heavy iceberg season.”

The icebergs have made for a gazing-stock as being tourists and residents in the same manner, goal Woityra said there is a significant intellectual powers why the Ice Patrol exists.

“It’s a very serious impediment to transatlantic shipping, since the shipping lanes normally run very close to the Avalon Peninsula,” he related.

“This is forcing those ships to recommend more remote south and out of their way than they would normally have to.”

Rick Carlisle has reportedly reached a verbal agreement with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to fill the team’s vacant head coaching standing. (Eliot J. Schechter/Getty Images)

Rick Carlisle will be the new coach of the Dallas Mavericks, a decision expected for nearly a week but slowed by dint of. compact negotiations.

The papers aren’t signed yet, but team proprietor Mark Cuban confirmed in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Friday night that a verbal deal is in place.

The contract “will be signed tomorrow (Saturday),” through a news conference Wednesday because Cuban self-reliance be out of town until then.

Reached late Friday, Carlisle said: “Whatever Mark told you is what’s going on. I’m not going to make any comments about it appropriate now.”

Carlisle was the only candidate the Mavericks interviewed after firing coach Avery Johnson the spring-time in relation to their second straight first-round playoff departure.

Cuban had never fired a coach or hired a coach from outside the organization. While he and Donnie Nelson, the team’s president of basketball operations, considered other candidates, they settled on Carlisle pretty readily. A few interviews later, they began working without interruption the contract and things dragged upon the body.

The verbal agreement was first reported by ESPN.com.

This is Carlisle’s third time as head coach and his first stint in the Western Conference, where having Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t guarantee make the playoffs. Carlisle went 281-211 from one to another pair seasons in Detroit, then four in Indiana. He made the playoffs his first five years, then lost his job with the Pacers after missing out in 2007. He spent this past year out of the NBA, but following it closely working for ESPN.

Although Dallas has won at minutest 50 games and been in the playoffs eight straight years, the club is getting older and has a maxed-out salary cap, meaning it wish take some creative deals to make to tremble up the roster.

Kidd was hoping despite a coach who would encourage greater degree of of a free-flowing offence, while Nowitzki wanted someone who would still emphasize defence. Other players probably wanted someone by a looser grip than the controlling Johnson, but that’s not necessarily the case-ending with Carlisle.

Carlisle, 49, was the coach of the year in his first year in charge with the Pistons. He made the conference finals the next two years — with Detroit, then Indiana. The Pistons fired him and replaced him with Larry Brown. Carlisle ended up chief the Pacers to a franchise-record during wins, but they lost to Brown and Detroit a sequence pitch of the NBA finals, which the Pistons went on to win.

After lovely 61 games his first season in Indiana, his teams won fewer games each season, bottoming out at 35 in his final year.

Still, the individual who fired him from that job is since running the Knicks and considered hiring Carlisle there. He also was considered for the Chicago job.

A native of upstate New York, Carlisle was the co-captain of the Virginia team that made the Final Four in 1984, the year after Ralph Sampson left. He was a first-round pick of the Boston Celtics and was a backup on their 1986 championship team.

He wearied three seasons with the Celtics, one with the Knicks and was briefly with the Nets in 1989. He broke into coaching that year by New Jersey, working in a less degree than Bill Fitch and Chuck Daly. He spent the next three seasons working for Portland, sooner or later went to Indiana to exist an assistant under his preceding Celtics teammate Larry Bird.

Bird guided the Pacers to the NBA finals in 2000, then resigned.

Isiah Thomas was hired past Carlisle, who wound up getting his big break with the Pistons.

The Mavericks are sole two years removed from the NBA finals and one season beyond a 67-win campaign that included Nowitzki being named league MVP. Yet after the sum of two units quick playoff exits, Cuban decided things be required to change for them to keep amble with the old guard like San Antonio and with up-and-comers be pleased with New Orleans.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

A man arrested in the armed robbery of a convenience store on Friday has escaped from custody in Mission, B.C.

RCMP offered few distinct parts on David Glen Moody’s escape, except to say that he was outside the detachment at the time he assaulted his escort, ran down an embankment and made his getaway in a merchandise from a nearby works yard.

Police wouldn’t say whether he was handcuffed at the time, end an officer pointed out that since he was quick to run from home “it is good-natured of apparent he wasn’t shackled.”

Police recovered the medium, but Moody remains on the remit.

The Emergency Response Team, local police and the dog squad have been called in to track him down.

Moody is 5 feet 6 inches high, 135 pounds and was last seen wearing a white muscle shirt and white boxers. He has not any previous criminal record.

Anyone seeing him is urged not to approach him and to contact the RCMP.

A human being has been charged after a bear child, orphaned when its head was killed by a car last week, was shot to death near the parking lot of a school in Whistler, B.C.

Students at Whistler Secondary had developed a fondness for the cub, which had taken to feeding on skunk cabbage allied by blood the school in the application town north of Vancouver.

“My English class really like the bear,” close examiner Shawn Clarke aforesaid. “It didn’t threaten anything.”

But seminary officials weren’t taking any chances at what time they apothegm the waft last week. A trap was brought in over the weekend, but the cub remained in continuance the loose.

On Thursday, a student riding his bike to school heard gunfire, RCMP Sgt. Steve Wright said Friday.

“He hears two loud bangs and sees someone settled over top the bear with a gun,” Wright said, “and sees [a man] rollicking time up the eminence to the car.”

Police arrested a man in a neighbourhood near the school, Wright said. There was blood on the man’s clothes if it were not that police didn’t find a gun.

“There’s a gun somewhere in the neighbourhood,” Wright said, “and we’re trying to find that.”

Wright uttered police are alarmed that someone would shoot a defenceless fowl of the air not more than 30 metres from the school parking lot.

“It was very sad, first of all,” school principal Beverley Oakley told CBC News on Friday. “But then there was some anger, wondering who would do it — who would discharge a bear.”

A West Vancouver some one, 24, faces five charges, including hunting exclusively of a licence and hunting out of season.

Separatist rebels destroyed a navy cargo ship on Saturday true hours after a bombing blamed on the group killed 11 people in eastern Sri Lanka — violence that cast a dense mass completely pivotal provincial elections scheduled without interruption the side of later in the day.

The government hailed the elections as a key step in restoring normalcy to the Eastern Province, which it freed from 13 years of Tamil Tiger rule be unconsumed July.

Sri Lanka’s soldierly said Tamil rebels bombed and sank a naval establishment cargo ship in the eastern port town of Trincomalee early Saturday.

Navy prolocutor D.K.P. Dassanayake says the rebels attacked the ship with an underwater explosive about 2:15 a.m. He said no one was aboard and there were no injuries.

On Friday, the opposition and absolute observers raised questions about the polls, accusing the ruling party of bad conduct in its effort to ensure a victory it sees as its fair reward.

Opposition candidates said former rebels allied through the government threatened them to withdraw, promised retribution against their supporters and made it closely impossible to campaign.

“This election is a sham,” said Rauff Hakeem, head of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, which has formed an distinction alliance through the opposition United National Party.

Aim to ’sabotage’ election

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has painted the election while a unspoken referendum put on his costly battle to crush the rebels in their remaining stronghold in the boreal and end this Indian Ocean island stock’s 25-year affable war.

The rebels have been fighting from the time of 1983 beneficial to more independent homeland for the ethnological Tamil pupilage in the north and east after decades of marginalization under governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

The military, with the help of a breakaway rebel disorder known as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal, or TMVP, seized control of the east last year.

“Nobody thought when we first liberated it … that the government would have elections and hand over this to the people, so its exceedingly symbolic,” said Basil Rajapaksa, a lawmaker and the president’s brother, who is the government’s point man on the region.

In a reminder the rebels could still launch deadly attacks here, the military blamed the Tamil Tigers for a parcel bomb that exploded about 5:40 p.m Friday in a small restaurant in Ampara, 130 miles east of Colombo, one of the largest towns in the province.

“This is to sabotage the election,” said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.

High security at polls

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls for comment.

The impugn was carried used up despite the presence of 28,000 police officers and an extra 4,000 soldiers sent to the province to stable the polls.

The controlling party is running in a coalition with the former rebels of the TMVP, whom residents and human rights groups accuse of carrying without abductions and killings, running illegal compulsion rings and forcibly recruiting children into their ranks.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, the government announced huge grants for the impoverished region and insisted an opposition victory would convey back rebel rule.

“A vote for the government is a vote for peace and development. A vote for the opposition will be an endorsement of (Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai) Prabhakaran,” President Rajapaksa told a rally last week.

Election not fair and free: monitoring collection

However, ruling party officials were misusing government resources and the state media to bolster their chances, and tension in the province prevented many persons candidates from campaigning, aforesaid Kingsley Rodrigo, head of the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections, every independent election monitoring group.

“This is not a free and fair election,” he said.

Arumugam Jagan, a 27-year-old Tamil construction contractor, said he decided to let flow after city council elections were held in March through little violence or terror. But the main opposition parties boycotted those polls, leaving little competition for the government and the former rebels, who won in a overpower.

After Jagan announced he was running as an obstacle candidate in these elections, TMVP leaders demanded he drop out and threatened retribution against him and his supporters, he uttered.

When he refused, his campaign posters were torn down or defaced. He cancelled all public rallies under threat, and some of his volunteers quit. Others were attacked as they campaigned, they said. Like many candidates, he was forced to bring two police bodyguards by him on the campaign trail.

The chief part of the TMVP, known by his nom de guerre Pillaiyan, denied menace Jagan and accused him of fatiguing to shape an asylum claim to move in all directions.

Pillaiyan said it was his party — not Jagan’s — that had been victimized. He denied allegations his group was recruiting child soldiers and threatening voters.

He said his supporters remained armed, a elucidation theme of contention in the preference, but only for self defence.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

Utah’s Deron Williams (8) heads to the basket spent Lakers’ Derek Fisher during the second quarter of a Jazz victory that brought them back into their Western Conference semifinal with Los Angeles on Friday night. (Steve C. Wilson/Associated Press)

Carlos Boozer scored 27 points including a key six straight in a frenetic final scarcely any minutes to lead the Utah Jazz to a 104-99 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal on Friday night.

The Jazz trail the best-of-seven 2-1 by Game 4 on Sunday afternoon, likewise at Salt Lake City.

Boozer added 20 rebounds to his outstanding obscurity and his exhibition of character on the stage was complemented by that of guard Deron Williams, who had 18 points and 12 rebounds. Mehmet Okur had 22 points for the Jazz.

Newly crowned league MVP Kobe Bryant led Los Angeles with 34 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Lamar Odom scored 13 and Pau Gasol had 12 points.

Boozer came to midst stage with the Jazz governing by proper three, their smallest margin since the other allot.

After the Utah forward hit a two, Bryant came back the other way and simply slipped, flexure the ball over.

Working the half-court offence, Boozer got the ball against Lamar Odom, whom he beat to the basket just as the 24-second clock went off and it was 99-92.

Bryant then missed a three-point essay and Boozer came remote again, working a pick-and-roll through Williams perfectly before putting it in for a nine-point outstrip.

The Lakers kept battling and when the Jazz missed a three inside of 40 seconds, Bryant hustled back, only to have the globe knocked at a loss of his hands causing a struggle that resulted in a jump ball.

L.A.’s Luke Walton got the ball on the jump, but fatiguing to pass it over he threw it away and Utah took possession, Bryant fouled and the game was in the bag.

L.A. kept moving

Led by Williams, Utah had the margin up to 12 about three minutes into the fourth, but the Lakers weren’t going away just yet.

First, Bryant scored and drew a foul, finishing off the three-point play, then a series of Jazz fouls allowed L.A. to close the limit to within four.

The game degenerated into more sloppiness with a view to a few minutes and when Utah came out of a timeout with 5:27 to go, the Jazz still led this person 90-84.

As the teams traded chances in the rear and forth, the clock continued to unwind and the Jazz were still in control at 95-87 under four minutes. And Utah started to unwind itself.

A Walton steal led to a foul on the scrappy Laker forward at the other end. He hit the two free throws.

Then consecutive steals by Derek Fisher led to a Bryant basket and a trip to the detestable line that left Los Angeles just three points back at 95-92.

That was when Boozer and the Jazz took momentum back for the last time.

Kobe turned it on

Trailing by nine approach out of the half, Bryant had turned it on, scoring 14 points in the third to give him 22 at that rank.

But the Jazz had an answer for each L.A. attack and, distributing the round well, rode balanced scoring to a 79-72 lead into the final quarter.

After the Lakers took every early lead, the teams played an even in the beginning 12 minutes. But the Jazz kept up the shooting while the Lakers fell off a bit.

A 29-20 second quarter sent Utah to the dressing room with a 52-43 contribute.

Okur had a big first half, hitting for 12 points and four rebounds, plus two steals and a block. Boozer added 10 points and seven boards for the Jazz as long as Williams had nine points and six assists.

No Los Angeles player was in double figures for points in the moiety, though Odom had a hard-working nine points, six rebounds and sum of two units blocks and Bryant had eight points and three assists.

What hurt the Lakers were 10 turnovers to Utah’s five.

A woman whose mother and sister were shot to death in a B.C. hospital cannot sue the treaty and unpolished governments in quest of compensation for psychiatric injuries, a B.C. Supreme Court justice has ruled.

Bryan Heron committed suicide three days after shooting his wife and mother-in-law to death in May 2003.

In a judgment released on Friday, Madam Justice Marion J. Allan dismissed Lisa Darlene Thompson’s lawsuit for the reason that she didn’t indeed witness the killings, however only heard about them while at home.

Thompson’s mother, Anna Adams, 68, and sister Sherry Heron, 41, were slain at the Mission Memorial Hospital, to what Heron was recovering from a car accident, on May 20, 2003.

The shooter was Heron’s husband, Bryan, 52, a veteran prison guard at the Fraser Correctional Centre, who on the day of the killings had been served with a divorce notice and restraining brotherhood to keep away from his wife.

Heron was on the run for three days after the shooting, and shot and killed himself as a police dog was trying to pull him out of a hollowed-out tree stump in woods near Mission.

Thompson has been off work on disability leave since the deadly shootings, diagnosed through post-traumatic importance confuse and major lowness. She and her siblings filed a lawsuit against the federal and B.C. governments and the Fraser Health Authority.

The lawsuit alleged the governments and the health authority had failed to protect the murdered women from the foreseeable put in peril of injury after Thompson told Mission RCMP and hospital staff a week before the deadly ride full tilt against that Heron had made threats against his wife.

Thompson also claimed the defendants, who included a hospital pole member and the warden of the prison where Heron had worked, breached the duty of care owed to her, formation them liable for her psychiatric condition.

Though an RCMP constable interviewed Sherry Heron following the complaint, he concluded her covering needed no further investigation and no charges were filed. The constable, Mike Pfeifer, was also named in Thompson’s lawsuit.

The defendants argued that since Thompson didn’t see the shooting or its aftermath, she lacked “locational neighborhood” and couldn’t recover disregard for psychiatric injuries.

Crucial distinction

Judge Allan ruled that though past cases had established precedent for fine on the model of because a loved one tragically killed, there’s a distinction between witnessing an event and being told of it after the fact.

“Despite the unexampled facts in the present state — the plaintiff’s attempts to prevent the shocking event and her following fears for her own and her family’s safety during the three days that Bryan Heron was at large — Ms. Thompson cannot establish the degree of locational proximity required by [the previous] cases,” the ballast reads.

Lisa Thompson’s lawyer, Cameron Ward, questioned the distinction.

“That seems rather artificial, rather uncontrolled, and indeed one can topic whether or not that creates a uncorrupt result,” said Ward, who had argued Thompson’s case was many because she had informed police and hospital staff of Heron’s threats.

In the make love to documents, Ward said Thompson lived “in terror” for three days before Heron’s body was found. She and her family received police protection following the shooting and were put in a hotel by the agency of police.

A pretension through Thompson and her siblings for damages because of inadvertency is proceeding.

With files from the Canadian Press

Tampa Bay pitcher James Shields allowed only a single in the third inning. (Chris O’Meara/Associated Press)

James Shields pitched a one-hitter and Evan Longoria’s two-run, ninth-inning homer snapped a scoreless tie to give the Tampa Bay Rays a 2-0 conquest over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday adversity.

Shields (4-2) rebounded from the second-shortest outing of his career to post his second shutout in his past three starts.

The 26-year-old right-hander limited the Angels to Brandon Wood’s one-out single in the third part and retired the last 17 batters he faced subsequent hitting Erick Aybar with a pitch in the fourth.

Angels starter Jon Garland allowed no runs and four hits in eight innings. He walked three and struck at a loss two before being replaced by Justin Speier (0-2), who gave up a leadoff single to B.J. Upton in the ninth.

Carlos Pena, who had two of Tampa Bay’s hits away Garland, grounded to first mean, touching Upton to second. Three pitches later, Longoria hit his fourth major league homer into the seats in left-centre.

Shields, who tossed a two-hitter to beat Boston 3-0 at Tropicana Field on April 27, struck out eight and walked none. He allowed seven runs and 10 hits in a 12-4 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park continue weekend, throwing 98 pitches in just 3 2/3 innings.

This time, he needed simply 70 pitches to get through the at the outset seven innings, limiting the Angels to sum of two units baserunners.

Garland allowed three walks and three singles over the similar stretch. But solely one of the runners got in the same manner with far for example second scandalous, and the Angels helped their starter with a pair of double plays.

The Rays wasted their best chance; fit to score off Garland in the eighth, stranding pinch runner Nathan Haynes at third grovelling after Gabe Gross led off the inning with a double to the gap in left.

Garland escaped the jam by getting Jason Bartlett, Akinori Iwamura and Carl Crawford to ground out.

Los Angeles, already playing without injured infielders Chone Figgins, Howie Kendrick and Maicer Izturis, lost shortstop Erick Aybar when he was collide by a pitch in the left pinkie finger leading off the fourth inning.

The Rays activated designated hitter-outfielder Cliff Floyd from the 15-day disabled list after the game. Floyd underwent surgery on April 11 to repair torn cartilage in his right knee. He carry the point .333 with two homers and five RBIs in four games before being sidelined.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin celebrates scoring his second period short-handed goal against the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Friday. (Keith Srakocic/Associated Press)

Evgeni Malkin scored two goals and added an assist as the Pittsburgh Penguins won Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference finals by a score of 4-2 covering the Philadelphia Flyers at Mellon Arena on Friday.

Sidney Crosby and Petr Sykora each chipped in a end while Marc Andre Fleury made 26 saves for Pittsburgh in the win.

Both teams capitalized on early miscues during a sloppy first cycle, yet the Flyers moreover appeared to be punished without top defenceman Kimmo Timonen, who resolution be on the outside in spite of the series with a blood clot in his left foot.

Mike Richards scored both Philadelphia goals while Martin Biron made 17 saves in a losing effort.

More to come