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

OTTAWA — A group of Canadian academics is calling on the federal government to speed up approvals of student visas for Palestinians after two students who were accepted at a Canadian university died before they could leave the region.

SURREY — Two suspects have been arrested in British Columbia in an investigation into widespread extortion of South Asian business figures, crimes that police and politicians say reach back to India. RCMP in Surrey, B.C.

Mounties say a out-of-control wildfire that has triggered evacuations near Lytton, B.C., was caused when a wheel fell off an RCMP trailer in a "tremendously unfortunate" incident. Staff Sgt.

SALABERRY-DE-VALLEYFIELD — The Montreal mother who allegedly abandoned her daughter in a field in Ontario last month has been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

OTTAWA — The City of Ottawa has converted unused office space in a downtown building into transitional housing for 140 asylum seekers — just blocks from Parliament Hill.

OTTAWA — The head of an organization representing automakers said he's "cautiously optimistic" after meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney to urge him to repeal the electric vehicle sales mandate.

Inspector Drew Milne of the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service likened it to finding a needle in a haystack — the haystack being a 137-hectare park on Vancouver Island, and the needle being a 1.5-metre-long boa constrictor.

MONTREAL — A recent Quebec government investigation into the climate at two Montreal junior colleges may have had a chilling effect on teachers, according to the director general of one of the schools.

OTTAWA — Canada's efforts to broaden trade beyond the United States appear to be bearing fruit, but economists warn it will be a long road before Canadian exporters settle at a new status quo.