Alberta is adding nearly 2,500 spaces at universities and colleges this September, the latest step in a provincial plan to increase the education capacity of the booming province.The new spots, allocated on the basis of student and industry demand and government priorities, are concentrated in health-care programs such as nursing, medicine and technical laboratory training. More than 40 per cent of the new spaces are in health-care fields. Commerce and business programs also are getting a boost in funding, as are graduate programs at universities.

In tainted-meat recalls, as in prison breaks, Canadians have a right to know the bad news. Not 14 hours later. Not when the dead bodies start turning up. Not when a grocery company can ever so slowly, ever so bureaucratically, figure out which foods should be taken off the shelves. Not when the RCMP feels like it.

Saskatchewan's most senior prison officials knew of an escape plot at the Regina jail more than a week before six men, including a founder of one of Canada's most notorious street gangs, broke through a wall and climbed a fence to freedom.

I'd like to nominate Saskatchewan's Public Safety Minister, Darryl Hickie, for the Faulty Logic and Understatement of the Year Award (Prison Break Continues To Baffle Officials - Aug. 27). Mr. Hickie is quoted as saying it's too early to say whether an aging prison structure is to blame for the brazen mass escape of six inmates ... Really? I'd say that it's a little late, myself!

Doctor in Manitoba treating gaping wound in a woman's leg, thinks hobo spider bit her

The federal government is being sued by a band from a troubled Alberta reserve over claims that Ottawa has not provided treaty relief for the ''famine and pestilence'' that have overtaken the first nation.

A doctor in Manitoba suspects a rare poisonous spider with a flesh-eating bite may be responsible for a gaping wound in a woman's leg.Neil Simonsen, an infectious-disease and wound-care specialist, treated the middle-aged woman who was bitten in a Winnipeg field at the end of June.

Alberta's first-quarter fiscal update shows the province is headed for another record budget surplus of at least $8.5-billion and is in the enviable position of not knowing what to do with the extra billions.

Six people were taken to hospital yesterday after severe winds from a tornado swept through a recreational lake area in Saskatchewan.An RCMP spokesman said they were injured when the trailer they were using as an office flipped near the small community of Spruce Home, about 35 kilometres north of Prince Albert.

Saskatchewan's Public Safety Minister says it's too early to say whether an aging prison structure is to blame for the brazen escape of six inmates from the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre.

Arlene Gorman, grappling with the pain and misery that is listeriosis, says she is hard pressed to offer people advice for steering clear of the illness.''It's hard to say, ''Watch what you buy,' because you think when you're buying food it's good to eat. It's not going to do this to you. So it's hard tell people what to do,'' Ms. Gorman said from her home in Cranbrook, B.C.

For Mary Hicks, waiting to learn whether her daughter's death is linked to the listeria outbreak has been agonizing.Early this month, Kirsten, 36, had visited the hospital in Grande Prairie, Alta., for an unrelated problem that resulted in a weakened immune system. Two weeks later, on Aug. 14, she died.

Alberta retools royalty system

Five inmates awaiting trial on serious charges, including murder and attempted murder, are on the run from police after a mass breakout at a Regina prison.The men escaped from the Regina Provincial Correctional Centre just before 10 p.m. Sunday. Authorities would not say how the men eluded prison guards, but said they escaped from a section of the Saskatchewan facility built in the 1960s - not from a much older unit that is being replaced or from a recently built wing that opened earlier this month.

Alberta's government is getting into a new business: upgrading bitumen.The government is pressing ahead with a plan to take some oil sands royalties in bitumen instead of cash, as it seeks to ensure as much heavy crude processing takes place in the province as possible.

A judge has certified a $128-million class-action lawsuit filed by seniors against the Alberta government over fees charged at long-term-care homes.The lawsuit, filed in Court of Queen's Bench on behalf of more than 13,000 seniors, alleges that rent increases of more than 40 per cent brought in by Alberta's health authorities in 2003 were unjustified.

Three Albertans will receive $50,000 each next month as the inaugural winners of a new annual awards program honouring excellence in arts and culture.Last week, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts announced the nominees for the arts awards in three categories, to be presented Sept. 6 at a ceremony in Calgary to mark the province's inaugural Alberta Arts Day. Nominated for the Tommy Banks Performing Arts Award are long-time Edmonton playwright Stewart Lemoine, Calgary dancer Vicki Adams-Willis and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, now in its 88th year.

The Manitoba government has issued a flood warning after predictions by Environment Canada that some areas of the province could get up to 100 millimetres of rain.Manitoba Water Stewardship issued the warning for parts of the Interlake region, with the highest rainfall expected in an area from Gypsumville to Grand Rapids.

No-fly zones for fruit flies

Between 80 and 90 gas stations in British Columbia and Alberta have run out of fuel as Petro-Canada continues to grapple with an equipment breakdown at its Edmonton refinery.