Nova Scotia man's disappearance triggers Florida search
CBC
The disappearance of a 74-year-old Nova Scotia man in Florida remained unexplained Thursday despite a large search effort in Hernando County, roughly 80 kilometres north of Tampa on the state's Gulf Coast.
The Hernando County Sheriff's Office said Richard Paquet was reported missing Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. local time.
Paquet and his wife recently drove to Florida from Nova Scotia in their silver-grey van.
Around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, a resident of the seaside community of Hermosa Beach called police to report a strange van parked in her driveway.
"When she went to look in the vehicle, there was an older female in the vehicle. And I think she was still sleeping. And she woke up when the resident came out and asked her, 'What are you doing in my driveway?'" said Denise Moloney, public affairs officer with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.
The couple's dog was still in the van, but Paquet was gone and his wallet and cellphone left behind.
Moloney said the couple had backed into the driveway sometime around midnight.
"The houses in Hernando Beach are on stilts because of hurricanes," Moloney said. "So when they pulled in there the night before, nobody knew they were there."
Moloney said canals run through the neighbourhood, with most homes backing onto the deep waterways.
"We've been searching tirelessly here ... The minute the deputy got on the scene, the search started. And we kept adding to that and adding to that," Moloney said.
"We had our deputies on foot in the area, deputies driving the area. We had them using drones. We had our helicopter out there ... The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had a plane up to assist us."
But as of Thursday, the search had proved fruitless.
Tracking dogs, including bloodhounds, were unable to pick up a trail. Calls to local hotels and hospitals came up negative.
Police have been using side-scanning sonar to sweep the canals underwater.
Anxiety is the most common reason Island students are turning to well-being teams in schools, says a social worker involved with a P.E.I. support program.
Pauline Frost, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in northern Yukon, usually looks forward to late January, when the winter sun returns to her Arctic village.
This story is part of Welcome to Canada, a CBC News series about immigration told through the eyes of the people who have experienced it.
Will it be sticker shock for Toronto homeowners again this year?
Researchers at the University of Waterloo say they've made a breakthrough in introducing a new trait into bacteria found in wastewater, giving them the ability to break down microplastics.
Aircraft dropped water and fire retardant on steep hills, and ground firefighting efforts were stepped up in a bid to stem the eastward spread of the Palisades wildfire in Los Angeles on Saturday, amid new predictions of wind gusts that could hit 110 kilometres per hour.
Seven people are in custody following a raid on a home on Mundy Pond Road in St. John's on Saturday.
Four people were taken to hospital, at least one with serious injuries, after a fire early Saturday in a duplex in Lower Sackville, N.S.
Five large pump trucks idle loudly in an otherwise empty Tim Hortons parking lot in Woodstock.
Montreal city councillor Abdelhaq Sari is hoping to become the next MP for the federal riding of Bourassa. The riding encompasses the Montréal-Nord borough and part of Ahuntsic-Cartierville.
The sister of a man who died while waiting for care at a Winnipeg emergency room says his family is feeling relief, and some closure, after speaking with health officials to learn some details about what happened that day.