News for Youse: Canucks swept out of the playoffs, election voting begins, and a new dinosaur find

Canucks swept out of the playoffs  The San Jose Sharks have eliminated the Vancouver Canucks from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For the second straight year, the Northwest Division leaders were knocked out in the first round. Patrick Marleau scored the game winner at 13:18 of overtime in a 4-3 victory over the Canucks. The loss calls into question the future of head coach Alain Vigneault.

Provincial election voting begins  Advance voting for the May 14 provincial election began this morning (May 8). Polling stations are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Registered voters can use the Elections BC website to find district information and nearby polling stations. Citizens who have yet to register or whose registration is out of date can still vote on May 14; an additional piece of identification that lists a current address of residence is required.

Liberals in gay-rights row  The B.C. Liberal candidate for Langley is taking fire after her campaign manager resigned citing concerns for anti-gay sentiments. Before joining the Liberal Party, Mary Polak served as chair of the Surrey School Board. During that time, she gained prominence for taking a position against allowing books that were supportive of gay parents into Surrey schools. Her former campaign manager, 26-year-old Todd Hauptman, stepped down just one week before the May 14 election, stating: “I simply cannot in good conscience support a campaign made-up of people who think of me as less of a person because I am gay.”

BC Rail documents leaked  Documents made public by Global BC shed new light on the nature of an agreement between the provincial government of Gordon Campbell and former ministerial aides Dave Basi and Bobby Virk. The pair were convicted on corruption charges related to the 2003 privatization and sale of BC Rail. Campbell’s government saw taxpayers cover both men’s legal fees at a cost of $6 million. You can view Global BC’s story here.

China wants a piece of Japan  China’s biggest newspaper and a mouthpiece of the government has suggested that Beijing reconsider the status of the Ryukyu island chain, which includes the Japanese islands of Okinawa. In addition to serving as a home for 1.4 million Japanese, Okinawa is notable for hosting a number of major U.S. military installations.

Body count soars in Nigeria  A disturbing report out of Nigeria calls attention to the scale of violence that has slowly come to characterize the government’s clampdown on radical militants. The New York Times reports that mutilated bodies are piling up at morgues as the Nigerian military intensifies its war against Boko Haram, an Islamist group that has claimed responsibility for years of brutal attacks on civilians.

New dinosaur find in Canada  Researchers at the University of Toronto have published findings on the discovery of the oldest dinosaur bones in North America, and possibly the world. The skeletal remains belong to the Acrotholus species, a dog-sized herbivore with a domed skull. They date back 85 million years.