The AP Interview: Ukraine bets on battlefield AI as the race for weapons autonomy intensifies

Give-and-take relationship of Roman leaders takes centre stage in Harris’s historical fiction

British novelist Robert Harris’s latest work is a reflection on tyranny, corruption and betrayal among all-powerful political leaders.

You might be forgiven for thinking it’s a contemporary thriller — it’s actually historical fiction set in ancient Rome.

A former BBC journalist, Harris debuted as a novelist in 1992 with Fatherland, an alternative history where Nazi Germany won the Second World War.

Since then, the prolific author has become best-known for his works of historical fiction, especially his ancient Rome trilogy released from 2006-2015 and the novel Conclave, which was published in 2016 and was made into the film of the same name in 2024.

Kinew delivered what most of us wanted; now we’ll have to deal with the consequences

Premier Wab Kinew has decided to adopt permanent daylight savings time, which means a permanent end to the spring forward, fall back tradition of adjusting our clocks. And absolutely no one is surprised.

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

When Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton moved into the 55-plus apartment building on Stradbrook Avenue last year, she came across as “timid, soft-spoken and sensitive,” said building manager Tanya Owen.

Little did Owen know the meek-looking 58-year-old woman would soon turn her life and the lives of many of her tenants upside down and threaten her career and family.

“She was looking to destroy me for a simple tenant disagreement,” Owen said Thursday.

Court records show Ciochon-Newton was arrested earlier this month and charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel.

Steinbach Credit Union member warns others after scammer steals $10K

A Winnipeg single mother whose bank account was drained of nearly $10,000 says Steinbach Credit Union needs to warn its members about what she believes is a broader security problem.

The woman, who is not being named to protect her identity, said a scammer gained access to her account earlier this week after calling SCU’s contact centre, claiming to be her and successfully completing the credit union’s authentication process.

She said she knows of at least six others who have experienced similar incidents in which callers impersonate SCU account holders and pass the authentication checks.

The woman discovered something was wrong when her minor son asked why money had been transferred out of an account they jointly hold.

American Hostage stars recall warmth of Winnipeggers during brutal winter

TORONTO — When you stream the eight-part series American Hostage, a sense of familiarity may strike.

That’s because the show was shot in Winnipeg — especially in the Exchange District — from November of last year to the beginning of February, with Winnipeg portraying Indianapolis circa 1977.

The whole world seemed to be watching that midwest American city that year as a hostage crisis unfolded involving one Tony Kiritsis, an angry man who goes ballistic when a mortgage brokerage was poised to foreclose on property he had dreamed of developing into a shopping centre.

Kiritsis kidnapped his mortgage broker, Richard Hall, wiring a shotgun to the back of his head, and demanded a public airing of his grievances, with the reluctant help of popular radio broadcaster Fred Heckman.

Family account spiced with magic realism, geopolitical intrigue and a ghost story

Tom Lin’s second novel Babylon, South Dakota moves beyond a historical account of an immigrant family’s struggle, delightfully blending and bending genres.

Lin is a Chinese-born novelist whose family emigrated to the U.S. when he was four years old. His debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making him the youngest ever recipient of that award. He earned a PhD in English from the University of California Davis and is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.

Babylon, South Dakota takes place in an unspecified time period that can be understood to be during the Mao era — likely the 1950s or ’60s. A young Chinese couple, the Hsuis, immigrate to the rural community that gives the book its title. They take the names Saul and Mei and settle on a 160-acre homestead left to them by a distant relative.

Saul’s dream is to breed and sell chrysanthemums from seeds he brought from China, while Mei wants to raise livestock. They speak no English, know nothing of life in the United States, are unprepared for the harshness of winter and the isolation of the farm and bring nothing with them except some gold, which Mei hides around the house for emergencies. Their only link to the outside world is a discarded and marginally functioning TV set, which Saul rescues and rigs up.