National News

BEIJING — China's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it had no information about a former Canadian diplomat detained in Beijing in apparent retaliation for Canada's arrest of a leading Chinese executive.

Five stories in the news for Wednesday, Dec.

WINNIPEG — Like many millennials, Sarah Rogalsky doesn't go out of her way to buy lottery tickets. The 32-year-old is part of an office pool and chips in $2 a week at her Winnipeg workplace, primarily for the social aspect of playing with others.

WASHINGTON — North of the border, Canada's hard-won free-trade deal with the United States and Mexico is considered a matter of existential importance, heavy with implications for workers, businesses and governments of all political stripes.

WINNIPEG — An appeal hearing is being held today for a Winnipeg woman who was convicted of hiding the remains of six babies in a rented storage locker. Andrea Giesbrecht was sentenced in July to 8 1/2 years in prison for concealing the remains.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government has contacted Chinese authorities about the detention of a sometime Canadian diplomat in China at a time of intensifying tensions between the two countries.

TORONTO — The interim commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police is asking the province's ombudsman to investigate the appointment of Premier Doug Ford's family friend to the force's top job.

VANCOUVER — A top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei has been released on $10 million bail and must agree to wear an electronic tracking device while she is also monitored by two employees of a company that provides surveillance using former poli

OTTAWA — Police chiefs say methamphetamine is fuelling a crime wave in some of Western Canada's biggest cities as use of the highly addictive drug skyrockets across the Prairies.

CALGARY — The mother of slain Calgary Stampeder Mylan Hicks says she thought her son would be safe when he left his native Detroit to play football in Canada.