National News

OTTAWA — Defence Minister Bill Blair says Canada could hit its NATO defence spending target within just a few years if need be but didn't commit to doing so.

HALIFAX — Long before Brenda Tatlock-Burke was killed by her husband in October, there were signs of his controlling and coercive behaviour.

IQALUIT — A former Catholic priest took advantage of an already vulnerable community when he inflicted horrific sexual abuse on several Inuit children decades ago, a Crown prosecutor told a sentencing hearing Friday.

MONTREAL — A 42-year-old woman is dead and her 21-year-old son has been arrested in what Montreal police say is the city's first murder of the year.

A Quebec man has been sentenced to 30 years in United States federal prison for his role in an international drug ring that imported millions of fake Xanax pills into that country. The U.S.

Poppy, a six-year-old springer spaniel with floppy brown ears and a tail that never seems to stop wagging, is by all accounts a very good dog. Her white, brown speckled nose has also made her something of a trailblazer.

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed...

OTTAWA — The Liberal caucus met on Parliament Hill Thursday to plot election strategy but the biggest conversations were largely about who sitting MPs will back in the upcoming vote to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as their leader.

IQALUIT — A Catholic priest's sexual abuse of Inuit children decades ago in Igloolik, Nvt., transformed a once friendly and trusting hamlet into a place marred by anger and addiction, court heard Thursday.

OTTAWA — Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday that Donald Trump's return to the presidency is the reason she would repeal changes to the capital gains tax she introduced just last year.