A Minnesota court requested the arrest of a Canadian resident this month so he can stand trial in the U.S. after he allegedly helped with the 2022 cross-border smuggling of an Indian family of four who froze to death in Manitoba.

U.S. authorities were concerned that Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, would flee Canada – possibly to India – according to new court documents filed in Ontario and Minnesota, verified by The Globe and Mail.

A Canadian resident has been arrested after his alleged involvement in the high-profile smuggling of a young Indian family of four who froze to death along the U.S. border in Manitoba in early 2022.

Fenil Patel, 37, who also goes by the name Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel, was apprehended on Sept. 5, based on an extradition request from the U.S., said Kwame Bonsu, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice Canada. The official declined to provide further details, including about any pending charges, describing the matter on Tuesday as part of “confidential state-to-state communications.”

More than two months after her entire Northern Manitoba community was forced to flee from a raging wildfire this summer, Beverly Baker has no idea when she will be allowed to go back home.

The flames near Leaf Rapids, a scenic town with a population of 350, have been under control since last month. Evacuees were being prepared to return this week. But on Friday, residents were told they will have to wait even more – at least until October – because their homes are no longer habitable.

A lawyer for Edmonton police says the specific facts of a child’s horrific homicide – coupled with mounting frustration with Alberta’s Crown Prosecution Service – led police to take the exceptional step of asking provincial justice officials to intervene in sentencing for the child’s killer.

Edmonton Police Service lawyer Megan Hankewich said officers learned “by happenstance” that there was a plea deal happening in the case Wednesday, in which the child’s stepmother would plead guilty to manslaughter and receive an eight-year sentence.

Ms. Hankewich said the eight-year-old’s homicide “remains one of the most horrifying cases of child abuse, and ultimately death from abuse, that our police service has ever seen.”

Alberta is extensively revising its ministerial order for the removal of books in schools across the province, adjusting restrictions to include only visual depictions of sexual acts after widespread dissension erupted over the policy.

The written word, particularly classic literature, will no longer be part of the bans, Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides told reporters in a Monday teleconference.

It’s an oft-used cliché with smaller towns, but in Manitoba’s lakeside community of Hollow Water First Nation, everyone knows everyone, says rural band councillor Maurice Williams.

That’s why after a stabbing rampage this week left a woman and the suspect, her brother, dead, along with seven other people seriously injured in the tight-knit area, everyone is now in mourning.

A woman has been killed and the suspect, her brother, is dead after multiple stabbings in Hollow Water First Nation, a small Manitoba community on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg.

At least seven people remain in hospital with serious injuries, Manitoba RCMP said late Thursday afternoon. The suspect, Tyrone Simard, 26, knew all of the victims. He was killed after allegedly fleeing from the area in a stolen vehicle, succumbing to his injuries from a collision with a police cruiser.

The Alberta government is pausing its controversial order for the removal of books deemed sexually explicit from school libraries, a retreat that Premier Danielle Smith vowed would be short-lived as the province continues to push policies around sexuality and gender into the classroom.

As of this month, new amendments to the Education Act dictate that ministerial approval is required before learning resources related to gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality are presented in schools.

A teachers’ strike or a lockout is looming in Alberta just days before the start of school. The conflict between the province and union is coming to a head as the government mandates book restrictions in school libraries and implements sweeping rules around students’ pronouns and transgender identity.

Contract negotiations between the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the province’s bargaining team have reached a significant impasse, said Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides. He characterized the union as “manipulative” after it declined to accept an offer during mediated talks this week.

“Parents should be furious that union leaders are gambling with their kids’ future,” Mr. Nicolaides told reporters in Calgary, joining Alberta’s Finance Minister Nate Horner on Friday to emphasize that the province cannot afford to pay teachers more than a proposed 12-per-cent salary increase over four years.

Police in Alberta are discouraging attempts at vigilante justice after a 12-year-old boy narrowly escaped the car of a man who allegedly abducted him this week in the course of a “catch-a-predator” plan that the youngster had hatched with a group of fellow tweens using social media.

The group of about seven or so children, each under or around the age of 13, staged their makeshift sting operation in the north Calgary suburb of Airdrie, the RCMP said. Although it did not entirely go as planned, their endeavour ended with the arrest of a man who has a criminal record for previous offences involving minors.