Mounties say a pink blanket, found on a gravel road near the home of Jack and Lilly Sullivan on day one of the search for the missing Nova Scotia children, is one of a variety of seized items that is being forensically examined as part of an “intensive” and “deliberate” major crime investigation.

In an update Wednesday, the Northeast Nova RCMP Major Crime Unit said family confirmed the pink blanket belonged to Lilly, 6, who mysteriously disappeared along with her brother Jack, 4, from their home in Lansdowne more than two months ago.

Wildfires have burned through more than a million hectares of forest in Manitoba this year, prompting Premier Wab Kinew to declare a second provincewide state of emergency and call upon the military to help once again with thousands of evacuations from fly-in communities.

The province, which was under a state of emergency until late last month, made the latest declaration Thursday. More than 12,600 people across the province are now being told to leave their homes, many for the second time.

Above a river south of Halifax, the sky darkens to a deep indigo – a signal to millions of baby eels to emerge from under the rocks and crevices of the brackish water. They wriggle near the surface like spermatozoids, pushing against the current.

Making it this far was a feat. They drifted thousands of kilometres as larvae on ocean currents from the Sargasso Sea, landing on the eastern coasts of Canada and Maine. By then, they had transformed into baby eels – or elvers – translucent but for two black specked eyes.

Nova Scotia is overhauling its policing and potentially expanding RCMP services in response to the 2020 mass shooting in the province, which raised questions about how the Mounties handled the violent rampage that left 22 people dead.

The provincial review recommended restructuring police services in Nova Scotia by moving to a provincial police model. Currently, RCMP provide provincial police services, in addition to 10 different municipal police forces – a system the review found was underresourced and inconsistent.

Nova Scotia’s child protection agency investigated the living conditions of Jack and Lilly Sullivan months before their mysterious disappearance from a rural part of the province in early May – a case file that has been reviewed by the minister responsible for child welfare.

Scott Armstrong, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Opportunities and Social Development, confirmed in an interview that the agency had a file on the children prior to their disappearance, but said it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the agency’s findings.