The Grey Cup Festival has officially kicked off in Calgary. A splashy ceremony was held in front of City Hall over the noon hour Wednesday. Champion chuckwagon driver Kelly Sutherland drove by wtih the Grey Cup itself on board. Events will be held primarily at Olympic Plaza and other downtown locations leading up to Sunday's big game between the Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders ...

Freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout, from Sylvan Lake, Alberta, has been freed in Somalia. Lindhout was kidnapped in August 2008, along with photographer Nigel Brennan, of Australia. Lindhout says she believes a ransom was paid for her release. She also says she never felt any sympathy for her captors and is relieved her ordeal is finally over.

EnCana shareholders have voted to split the energy giant into two separate companies. The vote was 99 per cent in favour. The company first announced the plan in the Spring of last year, but then pulled back when the recession took hold last fall. The scheme was re-introduced in September. The split creates two firms, EnCana, which will be focused on the natural gas industry and Cenovus Energy ...

Stoney Trail is about to move another step closer to being a free flowing ring road in the north. The Alberta government announced plans to remove a set of traffic lights from the northwest ringroad. Work will being early next year on an interchange on Stoney Trail at Harvest Hills Boulevard. It's part of a plan to remove all grade level intersections on Stoney Trail by 2013. Area MLA Teresa Woo ...

A tree-killing fungus has hit Calgary and now city officials are asking residents to help stop it from spreading. It's called "bronze leaf disease", or BLD, and it attacks some of the city's most popular trees such as the Swedish Columnar Aspen. If the section of the tree that is infected isn't pruned off, it will die within three to five years. Urban forestry coordinator Russell Friesen says ...

Albertans are spending more of their income to afford homes. RBC Economics has released a report which says after a long string of improvements in housing affordability in the province, the situation deteriorated in the third quarter. Housing prices have stabilized or are increasing as activity in the housing market has picked up since last winter. According to RBC, Albertans will spend anywhere ...

Calgary RCMP are warning the public about counterfeit....curling irons! Mounties say they seized two counterfeit CHI Ceramic hairstyling irons this week, and believe upwards of 600 of them may have been sold in southern Alberta. The RCMP say it is a serious issue, because the couterfeit flat irons are a potentional fire hazard.

Calgary police say a medical condition likely caused a fatal three-vehicle collision on southbound Crowchild Trail during the drive home Tuesday afternoon. Police say a 53-year-old man died in hospital after slamming into the back of a pick-up truck near 33rd Avenue on Crowchild at around 4:30 p.m. That truck then hit a small SUV. The other two drivers and a passenger escaped with minor injuries ...

It wasn't quite the turnout organizers were hoping for at Tuesday night's forum on H1N1 at the U of C's Health Sciences Centre. Only about 20 people showed up. Organizer Wilfreda Thurston says people seem to be complacent about H1N1 and that needs to change. She says from a public health perspective, people can't think this pandemic is over just because of the Grey Cup or Christmas. Four experts ...

The Western Conference champion Saskatchewan Roughriders touched down at Calgary International Airport Tuesday afternoon and were greeted by a marching band and dozens of fans wearing green. Players say they are expecting something similar to home field advantage at McMahon Stadium this Sunday. Lifelong rider prider Garry showed up to greet the team and get his jersey signed. Garry has lived in ...

A team from Edmonton's Grey Cup Committee will be in Calgary this week taking in all the festivities. Executive Director of Grey Cup 2010, Duane Vienneau says it is an opportunity to see what works and what does not. For the first time ever, the Grey Cup is being held two years in a row in Alberta - Calgary this year and Edmonton in 2010.

A deal worth more than $550 million has been signed to transport carbon dioxide via pipeline from Alberta's industrial heartland to producing oilfields. The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line will stretch 240 kilometres from the Fort Saskatchewan region to central Alberta, and transport 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The line will be constructed by Enhance Energy and North West Upgrading ...

Innisfail RCMP are asking for your help in locating a man who has not been seen since Friday morning. Bruce Thacker has a medium build with brown hair and blue eyes. His 2005 Chevy Silverado is also missing, Alberta plate number RZW-750.

Police have busted a marijuana grow-op at a home in Edgemont in the northwest. Over 1200 pot plants were located, worth an estimated street value of just over $1.5 million. No one was at home at the time and no arrests have been made yet. Police were called to the home on a report of suspicious activity.

Police are looking for a man in connection with a stolen truck that went up a curb, ran over a stop sign, and landed on some decking next to a condemed house in the north east community of Temple. Police noticed a black Ford truck driving eratically. They kept their distance but the man likely noticed them and wound up crashing up onto the lawn of a Temple home. Duty Inspector Rob Williams says ...

RCMP in Redcliff made a big drug bust Tuesday. After pulling over an S-U-V for a traffic infraction, they discovered $50-thousand worth of ecstasy. A twenty three year old man and an eighteen year old from Regina are facing charges for possession for the purpose. Both will be appearing in Medicine Hat Provincial Court.

Police have arrested one of two suspects wanted in connection with a weekend bomb scare in the northeast. A phone tip to police alerted cops to the whereabouts of a seventeen year old suspect. He was arrested getting off the bus in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba Monday night. Cops are still searching for a second suspect, twenty four year old Kyle Robert McKee, who has links to the white ...

We will get a better idea this week of what is in the province's piggy bank. Finance Minister Iris Evans and Treasury Board President Lloyd Snelgrove will give a second quarter fiscal update on Thursday in Edmonton. Three months ago, we were told to expect a $6.9 billion deficit. But Premier Stelmach says his government could shave more than two billion dollars off of that by the spring.

City council has approved a 2010 property tax increase of 4.79 percent. That is a hair lower than the 4.8 percent they were initially looking at, but still not good enough for one business lobby group. Richard Truscott, the Calgary Director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says it is too high. The CFIB says Alberta municipalities need to reign in spending in order to set ...

City council has passed the budget, but did not make any major cuts. Next year's property tax hike sits at 4.79, just a hair below the 4.8 per cent increase council had been looking at heading into budget talks Monday morning. Council did agree to a motion by Alderman Ric McIver to ask all city departments to look for a further 1 per cent in reductions and report back in the Spring as to w...