OpenAI partners with Walmart to let users buy products in ChatGPT, furthering chatbot shopping push

Katie Zacharia and the telling of lies

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new press secretary made her debut last week and was almost universally panned and parodied, lasting just five days before being fired.

No surprise there — it’s one of the most glaring spotlights on the planet and Katie Zacharia had a tough act to follow in Karoline Leavitt, who — as I noted in an earlier column — truly put the “pro” in propaganda.

Even Leavitt — skilled as she is — couldn’t persuade the public that she was leaving the high-pressure post on Aug. 27 to spend more time with her family. She’ll be back hammering Trump’s message home through Fox News as an on-air contributor starting Nov. 1. Fox, of course, is Zacharia’s old stomping grounds, where she often offered her views as an attorney, which she is not, though she played one many times on TV.

Predictably, since she’s a woman, the parodists on social media — both professional and amateur — were quick to mock Zacharia’s appearance (flawless hair, teeth, clothing) and delivery during her excruciating, 14-minute inaugural press briefing on Oct. 13.

Disgraced ex-dean landed job at German university after fleeing Winnipeg

Before he was arrested in a posh Paris suburb, the disgraced dean of Manitoba’s only law school — who fled the country following a 2020 expense scandal — kept a low profile at a German university.

Klein calls union’s attack ads ‘dirty politics,’ urges Gillingham to reject support

Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein said attack ads from Winnipeg’s largest union are an example of “dirty politics” and verge on United States-style campaigning.

The pamphlets, signed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, show a United States flag draped behind Klein, with text stating he has sided with “the broader alt-right political movement” and defends the U.S.

“As Canadians we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. This is not the politics that we have experienced in the City of Winnipeg. This is not the type of politics we want to experience in Canada,” he said during a Tuesday news conference at his campaign headquarters.

He called on incumbent candidate Scott Gillingham to denounce the ads and reject the union’s campaign support.

Maple leaf love: Albertans vote strongly to stay in Canada

EDMONTON - O Canada, Alberta is staying put.

In a historic referendum Monday, voters marked their ballots in overwhelming numbers to remain in the country that made Alberta a province 121 years ago.

In early returns, about 76 per cent of Albertans said yes to Confederation, while 24 per cent said they wanted the province to hold a second, binding referendum on leaving.

Both Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney lauded the result.

Empty desks: Advocates talk chronic school absenteeism

Concerned that school and government leaders are downplaying the state of student absenteeism, community organizers are strategizing to create urgency around who’s regularly missing class — and why — in Winnipeg.

The inaugural Youth at Risk in Winnipeg Symposium, held over the weekend at the Canadian Mennonite University, drew roughly 100 people to discuss barriers to attendance and brainstorm ways to remove them.

Nearly 20 years after he began calling attention to the issue, first as a volunteer with the Point Douglas Residents Committee, Sel Burrows gave an impassioned speech about the lack of political will to take meaningful action to help students from “dysfunctional homes.”

“I’ve dealt with nine cabinet ministers, Conservative and NDP, and five deputy ministers, and the issue has not gotten any better,” Burrows told teachers, reseachers and community support workers gathered Saturday on CMU’s Shaftesbury campus.