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A fire in a seniors’ residence has devastated the town of L’Isle-Verte, Que., and suddenly made automatic sprinklers a topic of conversation across sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½.

sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Ferries is planning to install a cable ferry between Buckley Bay and Denman Island, a scheme some say is madness. A coalition of marine experts has come together to expose what they believe are potentially disastrous flaws.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should pay a little less attention to protecting us from incursions on our Arctic territories and focus more on preventing an invasion from the south.

Fighting a serious illness brings powerful emotions — fear, anxiety, hope, despair. Perhaps for that reason, we tend to assess the treatment we receive in very personal terms.

Two Island teens have died needlessly in less than a month while they were longboarding. Ryan Thomas Wallace-Tarry, 17, died on Monday in Cedar. Ciaran Martin, a 16-year-old student at G.P. Vanier Secondary School in Courtenay, died on Jan. 2.

Oil in pipelines or oil in rail cars — British Columbians and all Canadians are staring at an unpleasant choice. The pipeline leak in Kalamazoo, Mich., and the rail explosion that devastated Lac Mégantic, Que.

While other parts of the country are digging out from under heavy snowfalls, we on southern Vancouver Island bask in January sunshine and feel a little smug. Yet we could use some of the moisture that has fallen so plentifully elsewhere.

The battle against poverty is never-ending, but that doesn’t mean we should stop waging the war. A community coalition’s plan to combat poverty has been endorsed by all 10 Greater Victoria MLAs and members of Parliament.

The folks at the Victoria International Airport can take a bow. They — or rather, their customers — set a record in 2013. The total number of passengers at the airport last year hit 1,556,960, which is 1.

The grow-ops are coming, and there is not much Island municipalities can do about it. Medical marijuana production in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ is shifting from small, home-based producers — of which there were more than 11,500 in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½