Vancouver - With just a year to go until the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the winter resort of Whistler, organizers are battling to stay within budget and maintain enthusiasm for the project.

Thursday sees the countdown for the 2010 Games reach the one-year milestone and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has called on all Canadians to forget the negative headlines that have surrounded the event, at least for one day.

Vancouver  - Cross-country and Nordic combined skiers on Friday started their World Cup events in the Olympic venues in Whistler, on the eve of British Columbia legislators' emergency session to discuss the financing of athletes' accomodation for the 2010 Games.

Also on Friday, Vancouver's deputy manager for the budget-plagued Olympic Village, Jody Andrews, resigned over the issue which has been dubbed the Olympic Village "fiasco" and "scandal."

Vancouver, Jan. 13 : The Supreme Court of Canada has tossed out an unusual bid to stop it from hearing a Crown appeal against holding a fourth trial in the murder of Canadian Indian Reena Virk a dozen years ago.

According to the Globe and Mail, a five-judge panel of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that B. C. prosecutors could proceed with its appeal of a split lower-court ruling to retry Kelly Ellard in the beating and drowning death the 14-year-old Victoria student.

New York/Vancouver - Villagers in Canada's far western province, British Columbia, spent 12 days engineering the rescue of two horses stranded by two metres of snowfall, Canadian media reported Sunday.

The horses, an eight-year-old gelding and three-year-old bay mare, were discovered by villagers on Mount Renshaw before Christmas, trapped and starving in a valley, the Vancouver Sun reported.

A group returned to the horses with hay bales on their snowmobiles, then spent the following days digging out a kilometre- long path in minus-35-degree Celsius temperatures, the newspaper reported.

The horses were brought out by 11 pm Tuesday, two days before Christmas, and spent the holidays recovering in a barn.

Vancouver (Canada), Nov. 29 : A Canadian businessman, who was held hostage by terrorists inside the Trident-Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai said that he was saved from being killed by terrorists because he drifted off to sleep and ignored a mysterious knock to his door.

Vancouver-based Jonathan Erlich, 40, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that he decided to give a miss to a friend’s invitation for a nightcap in the Oberoi Hotel''s plush lobby on Wednesday night, drifted off to sleep and only woke up after hearing a loud explosion on the street below.

He said that when he went to turn on a light, a second, more powerful blast rocked the hotel. He peered in the hall and heard a guest say something about a bomb.