Vancouver Rundown

A Spanish multinational company has reached a settlement in competing lawsuits over Metro Vancouver’s wastewater treatment plant. Acciona has agreed to pay $235M over the cancellation of the North Shore plant. Metro Vancouver says those funds will go back into project planning as part of next year’s budget process. The cost of the plant ballooned from $700M to close to $4B. A review of what went wrong will now get underway.

Members of the BC Nurses Union have voted overwhelmingly in favour of job action. The BCNU says 98.2 per cent of votes cast backed labour action, although there are no immediate plans for a strike. Union negotiators have been trying to reach a deal since October. B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne has already pointed out the government has reached deals with other health care unions. The nurses have been without a contract for over a year.

Mayor Brenda Locke says she’s outraged by the recent shootings in Surrey and is demanding a review of cuts to the local gang squad. The comments come after two teens - one 16 and the other 18 - were shot dead in the parkade of a Newton townhouse complex late Sunday evening. That shooting comes after two men were critically wounded by gunfire at a gas station on 152 Street over the weekend. Locke says the violence is deeply troubling for the people who live and work in Surrey. The shootings are both connected to B.C.’s gang conflict. Officers from the Surrey Police Service were moved to patrol duties in Cloverdale following pressure to speed up the transition from the RCMP to the new city police force.

B.C. has arranged a quarantine for four Canadians from the hantavirus infected cruise ship. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says they’ll be monitored for 21 days while in isolation. None of the Canadians has symptoms - they’ve been picked up by a plane chartered by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Three people have died, four others are ill from hantavirus which was spread by a passenger on the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius on May 2.

The personal information of millions of students, including those at UBC and SFU, is being held ransom by online hackers. The universities are among the schools that have had private information stolen from the online learning platform Canvas. Canvas estimates its platform is used by 275 million people worldwide including those in post-secondary schools, K-12 schools and other institutions. UBC is telling its students not to log in to the platform and to change their passwords. The breach includes student names, emails, birthdays and financial information. The hackers say they will release the information on May 12 if their demands are not met.

Two people have been arrested after a deadly stabbing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Wednesday morning. James Andrew Slater, 49, died in hospital after being stabbed near East Hastings and Columbia Streets at around 2:30 a.m. Charges are pending against a man and woman as investigators try to figure out why it happened.

Many people are expressing outrage after a grey whale was hit by a jet ski off Siwash Rock, on the west side of Stanley Park. Video of the incident has been shared on social media - the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Vancouver Police are investigating. Regulations require watercraft to stay at least 100 metres from whales. In this case, there’s no word yet on the extent of injuries to the grey. The jet ski driver was picked up by a nearby yacht and later taken to hospital.

No arrests have been made and Surrey Police are saying very little about a Monday afternoon shooting at a business in the Newton neighbourhood. Police do say a man was found with gunshot wounds when officers arrived at a building on 76 Avenue. First responders provided medical help but the victim died at the scene. The shooting happened on the second floor of the same building that’s home to Radio Swift 1200 AM - which has recently been targeted in an extortion case. However, staff say the shooting was at another business and not connected to the station.

It’s the downside of the current warm, dry weather - at least ten new wildfires are burning in B.C. One of those is a small but growing fire discovered between Stave Lake and Chehalis, north east of Mission. It started Sunday morning and is believed to be human caused. Two other fires are growing on Vancouver Island - one near Ladysmith and the other not far from Parksville. Meanwhile, a wildfire continues to burn in the Fraser Canyon near Hell’s Gate. Temperatures near 30C are keeping crews on standby through Monday.

Talks have broken off and B.C. nurses are a step closer to strike action. The BC Nurses Union continues to push for wages higher than the three per cent for each of four years, currently being offered. The union is preparing to hold a strike vote. Right now, B.C. has the highest paid nurses in the country.