Increasing restrictions could silence culture critics

It’s getting harder to see where reviews and other forms of cultural criticism fit in the current media ecosystem. Arts writing positions are being axed at outlets all over North America — but a landscape of all influencers and no critics means all promotion and no journalism.

A roadtrip through Scotland’s rolling hills, ancient history and the zany spectacle of Fringe

Caravanners, backpackers and daredevil cyclists.

Roadtripping in Scotland is a chance to explore the country’s awe-inspiring landscape on your own schedule, while dodging droves of eclectic travellers doing the exact same.

My partner and I spent eight days in July navigating the Scottish countryside in a rented campervan.

We picked up our home on wheels — a well-appointed Volkswagen van — near Edinburgh and headed north for the highlands. Rolling farmland quickly gave way to rolling hills and tall evergreens. A wee taste of what was to come.

‘You’re planting your brand flag’: The power of brand building in the women’s sports boom

On a cold day in the beginning of 2024, Alastair Merry and Mary Lou Bunn had a few questions for a public librarian in Ottawa, Ontario.

“If you could describe Ottawa and what it means to you in a couple words, how would you do it?” they asked. “What do you think of the spirit of the city?”

Merry and Bunn, along with the design firm Flower Shop that they co-founded, were hired by the then newly minted Professional Women’s Hockey League to create the nicknames and logos for the league’s inaugural six teams. They were traveling around North America to figure out what made those six cities tick.

As the ever-growing crop of new women’s leagues — at least eight have launched in the past three years — all aim for longevity, one of the cornerstones of any sustainable foundation is team branding. It encompasses everything from the nicknames to the color schemes and logos, and the PWHL has set a high bar there that other up-and-comers would love to emulate.

bbno$, the Beaches warn approaching TikTok Canada closure will hurt homegrown artists

Several Canadian artists are worried about losing social media support that can make or break their careers as TikTok prepares to comply with a federal order to shut down its operations in Canada.

‘No safety rules’: Concerns grow as AI-generated videos spread hate online

At first it appears to be a quirky video clip generated by artificial intelligence to make people laugh.

In it, a hairy Bigfoot wearing a cowboy hat and a vest emblazoned with the American flag sits behind the wheel of a pickup truck.

“We are going today to the LGBT parade,” the apelike creature says with a laugh. “You are going to love it.”

Things then take a violent and disturbing turn as Bigfoot drives through a crowd of screaming people, some of them holding rainbow flags.

Not just Big Bird: Things to know about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its funding cuts

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” said Friday that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.

The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. It now ends nearly six decades of fueling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.

Here's what to know:

Canadian researchers create tool to remove anti-deepfake watermarks from AI content

OTTAWA - University of Waterloo researchers have built a tool that can quickly remove watermarks identifying content as artificially generated — and they say it proves that global efforts to combat deepfakes are most likely on the wrong track.

Academia and industry have focused on watermarking as the best way to fight deepfakes and "basically abandoned all other approaches," said Andre Kassis, a PhD candidate in computer science who led the research.

At a White House event in 2023, the leading AI companies — including OpenAI, Meta, Google and Amazon — pledged to implement mechanisms such as watermarking to clearly identify AI-generated content.

AI companies’ systems embed a watermark, which is a hidden signature or pattern that isn’t visible to a person but can be identified by another system, Kassis explained.

Green chemist and musician on fighting climate change

There’s no shortage of doom and gloom associated with the words “climate change” these days. As a result, many people are stressed out and feeling helpless.

Particularly concerning is that, more than ever, younger people are experiencing considerable distress with environmental anxiety, also known as eco-anxiety or climate anxiety. The Journal of Mental Health and Climate Change, an open-access publication that features interdisciplinary scientific research on mental health and climate change, continues to write extensively on this subject.

While prominent environmental activists, including well-known science broadcaster David Suzuki, paint a bleak picture of the future, many other professionals in various fields are working tirelessly to educate, inspire and fight the good fight for the next generations.

Born and raised in Lynn Lake, Man., Devin Latimer is one of those professionals. The faculty member in chemistry at the University of Winnipeg is also a long-time musician, bass player with local band Leaf Rapids and the Juno award-winning Nathan Music Co.

Celebrating cats and the pet parents who love them

The cats have come back to the big screen.

Graphic novelist to lead free workshop for aspiring artists

Jonathan Dyck’s most monumental piece of advice? Start small.

Mass tourism a modern ill

When I went to Paris in 2012, I skipped the Louvre. Sacré bleu!

Graham Avenue stretch to get pedestrian, bike-only trial when buses vanish

The city will turn a four-block stretch of Graham Avenue into a living lab when Winnipeg Transit’s network overhaul pulls buses off the downtown street.

It will be cyclists and pedestrians only between Carlton and Garry streets in an indefinite pilot project scheduled to begin after June 29.

“In July 2025, buses will be removed from four blocks, creating a rare opportunity to transform the street into a safer, pedestrian-first space. With a focus on recreation, public gathering areas, and cultural programming, Graham Avenue can become a dynamic hub of activity in the heart of downtown,” a city document states.

Without changes, the area risks becoming a neglected corridor with minimal foot traffic once buses leave, it warns.

Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud

LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters.

Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently.

The app will display an on-screen label warning about “AI-generated content" and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators.

Deezer is a small player in music streaming, which is dominated by Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but the company said AI-generated music is an “industry-wide issue.” It's committed to “safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models," CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release.

‘Elio’ is an intergalactic tale — but for Toronto’s Domee Shi, it hits close to home

TORONTO - For Domee Shi, making a movie about an introverted kid getting abducted by aliens felt oddly familiar.

Not because she’s had any close encounters, but because she remembers being a teenager longing to be taken away to a world where her weirdness was understood.

The Toronto native co-directs “Elio,” a Pixar animated sci-fi film about an 11-year-old orphan who yearns to be snatched by extraterrestrials to escape his loneliness — and gets his wish when an interplanetary organization mistakes him for Earth’s ambassador.

“He's this lonely artsy kid who just wants to belong somewhere. I definitely felt that way growing up,” says the Oscar-winning animator behind 2022’s coming-of-age Toronto-set hit “Turning Red.”

L’impro comme tremplin pour la jeunesse en immersion

Le 5 juin, dix élèves d’écoles d’immersion française ont brillé sur scène lors du tout premier “Match des étoiles” de la FLIIP, une nouvelle ligue d’improvisation scolaire qui allie humour, spontanéité et passion francophone.

Après quelques essais ponctuels dans le passé, le Conseil jeunesse provincial (CJP) a lancé cette année la première ligue officielle d’improvisation destinée aux écoles d’immersion française du Manitoba. La Fabuleuse ligue d’improvisation immersive et passionnante (FLIIP) a couronné cette première saison par un “Match des étoiles” présenté le 5 juin au Centre culturel franco-manitobain.

Mélanie Bédard, responsable de projet au CJP, explique: “Nous voulions relancer l’idée d’une ligue d’improvisation pour les écoles d’immersion. Nous avons donc envoyé un courriel pour dire que nous étions prêts à les soutenir s’ils voulaient créer des clubs d’impro au sein de leur école.”

Le projet FLIIP avait vu le jour il y a plusieurs années, mais la pandémie avait stoppé net son développement. Cette année, il a enfin pu se concrétiser, avec plusieurs activités et formations déjà en place.

‘She’s all of us’: mural illustrates ties between Winnipeg and grateful Ukrainian newcomers

Blue and yellow ribbons wrapping around the city’s skyline show the deep connection between Ukraine and Manitoba in a new mural.

Take Pride Winnipeg, a downtown non-profit that seeks to clean up and inspire civic pride, unveiled its newest mural, titled “Pray for Ukraine” in the Exchange District on Monday.

It pictures a Ukrainian woman in traditional clothing stoically gazing into the distance as butterflies and a dove — which symbolize hope, peace and rebirth — flutter around the Esplanade Riel and Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The installation at Exchange District BIZ at 492 Main St. was painted by Jennifer Mosienko, who’s worked on more than 40 murals across the city.

Diversified roles in society shape painter Brian Hunter’s work and process

Brian Hunter’s multiple roles within society inform the works in his current exhibition, On Shaky Ground, at 226 Gallery, located at 226 Main St.

It’s his first solo show in seven years.

The 22 oils, created in response to “the current shifting and uncertain atmosphere,” are a departure from the artist’s previous work.

Nine years ago Hunter snagged top spot at the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. He spent a year in an art residency at the Gwangju Museum of Art in South Korea, and has shown in South Korea, Spain, Montreal and Toronto.

Singer-songwriter Kelly Bado’s music imbued with the richness of her culture

Kelly Bado, a keen observer of the world around her, forged a sense of camaraderie with her new city — with its landscape, its history and its people — at The Forks.

Taylor Swift has regained control of her music, buys back first 6 albums

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of work.

In a lengthy note posted to her official website on Friday, Swift announced: “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.”

The pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.

In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music.

In Marseille, a shadow becomes art in Banksy’s latest street mural

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — The lighthouse appeared overnight. Painted on a wall tucked away in a quiet Marseille street, its beam aligned perfectly with the real-life shadow of a metal post on the pavement. At its center, stenciled in crisp white, are the words: “I want to be what you saw in me.”

Banksy had struck again.

On Friday, the elusive British street artist confirmed the work by posting two images on his official Instagram account — without caption or coordinates. Fans quickly identified the location as 1 Rue Félix Frégier, in the Catalans district of Marseille’s 7th arrondissement, near the sea.

Since then, crowds have gathered at the site. Tourists snap photos. Children point. Locals who usually walk past the building stop to take a closer look.

What to Stream: ‘Mountainhead,’ Bono documentary and Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel play sisters

NEW YORK (AP) — “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong’s satirical drama “Mountainhead” and Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel playing dysfunctional siblings in the murder thriller series “The Better Sister” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: a new concert special featuring Aretha Franklin, U2's frontman reveals all in the documentary “Bono: Stories of Surrender” and multiplayer gamers get Elden Ring: Nightreign, sending teams of three warriors to battle the flamboyant monsters of a haunted land.

New movies to stream from May 26-June 1

— Armstrong makes his feature debut with the satirical drama “Mountainhead,” streaming on HBO Max on Saturday. The film stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith as tech titans on a boys’ trip whose billionaire shenanigans are interrupted by an international crisis that may have been inflamed by their platforms. The movie was shot earlier this year, in March.

A show inside a cathedral featured raw chickens in diapers. The German president was in the audience

BERLIN (AP) — A performance inside a Catholic cathedral in Germany earlier this month that featured raw, plucked chickens wrapped in diapers onstage — and the country's president and the local archbishop in the audience — has prompted the church and municipal leaders to apologize that the show “hurt religious feelings."

The show, "Westphalia Side Story,” was part of a May 15 celebration to mark the 1,250th anniversary of Westphalia, a region in northwestern Germany.

Video footage shows one woman and two shirtless men singing “Fleisch ist Fleisch” (“Meat is meat”) — apparently spoofing Austrian band Opus' 1984 pop song “Live is Life” — with scythes and dancing with the dead chickens on a stage in front of Paderborn Cathedral's altar.

Performance company bodytalk said in a statement Friday that the show featured work-in-progress excerpts from “Westphalia Side Story" — which references the American musical "West Side Story."

Carrie’s voice is back. So is the show’s soul as ‘And Just Like That…’ grows up

PARIS (AP) — “She’s messy. It can be messy. But it’s real.”

So says Cynthia Nixon — not just of Miranda Hobbes, the character she’s embodied for almost three decades, but of the show itself. “And Just Like That...,” HBO’s “Sex and the City” revival, has come into its own in Season 3: less preoccupied with pleasing everyone, and more interested in telling the truth.

Truth, in this case, looks like complexity. Women in their 50s with evolving identities. Not frozen in time, but changing, reckoning, reliving. Queerness that’s joyful but not polished. Grief without melodrama. A pirate shirt with a bleach hole that somehow becomes a talisman of power.

At its glittering European premiere this week, Nixon and co-star Sarah Jessica Parker, flanked by Kristin Davis and Sarita Choudhury, spoke candidly with The Associated Press about how the show has evolved into something deeper, rawer and more reflective of who they are now.