China approves 105 online games after draft curbs trigger massive losses

US Treasury proposes a rule to crack down on high-tech investments in China, other adversaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department proposed a rule Thursday to crack down on American high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence in China, Russia, North Korea and other “countries of concern."

The U.S. government has been working for years to deny China and other adversaries investments that could help them boost their military power.

That program began in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting restrictions on outbound U.S. investments in sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence going into China. Treasury later established the Outbound Investment Security Program.

In December 2025, Congress passed a law that codified and expanded the program to target more technologies and more foreign countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Alberta: More federalist than you thought

Avert your eyes if you don’t like hard-core. This is a hard-core column about the hard-core Alberta separatists who hijacked a party, corrupted a process and failed in their fevered fervour to break up Canada.

First, be of good cheer. Canada won Monday night’s referendum in Alberta. Decisively. Three-quarters of the votes cast were for Option 1: “Alberta should remain a province of Canada.” Only one in four Alberta voters opted for a referendum on separation.

Alberta won, too. That strong vote against separation means the province can look ahead, confident the independence fever dream is boxed. A true win-win and a sad rarity in politics these days.

Be warned, though. Those hard-core separatists are hard dogs to keep on the porch, as the expression goes. They are already agitating to be taken more seriously than the votes warrant. They intend to flex whatever muscle memory remains to depose Premier Danielle Smith from her leadership of the United Conservative Party. Dis-united Conservative Party, anyone?

Province orders ban on private teacher-student messaging

Manitoba teachers are no longer allowed to text or use social media to contact a student – regardless of whether they coach a school sports team or supervise other activities outside typical instruction times.

What $4 pumpkin can teach us about workplace culture

There are few things more revealing about a workplace than what happens when someone suggests a little fun.

Put a pumpkin on the reception desk, announce a Halloween costume day or suggest that everyone take 20 minutes to enjoy some candy and you may discover that your organization falls into one of two camps.

There are those who embrace the opportunity to do something different and those who immediately begin calculating the cost of lost productivity.

Somewhere, a manager is currently wondering whether the employee who spent 15 minutes decorating their office door could have used that time to answer three emails. Another is worried allowing costumes will somehow lead to a complete collapse of professional standards. A third is quietly trying to figure out whether a bowl of miniature chocolate bars can be claimed as a business expense.