Video, photography, content-creation course puts focus on quality

Jeff Gordon operates JAG Videos and Photography, a Winnipeg production company specializing in commercial and corporate videos and professional headshots.

Starting strong: building habits for great career, reputation in work world

Starting your first job is exciting and a little intimidating.

You’ve probably worked hard to get here through school, interviews and all the waiting that comes with trying to get a foot in the door. Now that you’re in, the next step is learning how to make the most of it.

What you do in these early months and years will shape your habits, reputation and the way people see you at work. It’s not just about doing your job well. It’s about learning how to show up, communicate and build relationships that make work easier and more rewarding for everyone involved.

The first and most important habit to develop is reliability. Employers and co-workers value someone they can count on more than almost anything else. Being reliable isn’t glamorous, but it’s powerful. Show up on time, meet deadlines and do what you say you will. If you realize you’re going to miss a deadline, let your supervisor know early and suggest a plan to get back on track.

Influencers have more reach on 5 major platforms than news media, politicians: report

OTTAWA - More than two-thirds of younger Canadians engage with political content from influencers — and influencers have significantly more reach on five major social media platforms than news media outlets or politicians, a new study indicates.

A significant portion of the political content Canadians see on the major platforms "comes directly from influencers," says the report from the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory.

The report focused on posts from individuals and institutions on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky. It did not look at or compare reach on websites, other online platforms or traditional platforms.

The researchers say they identified 1,097 influencers and collected 4.1 million of their posts from January 2024 to July 2025 on five social media platforms. Over that time period, politicians were responsible for 1.1 million posts while media outlets accounted for 2.8 million.

Hurrying hard for Jamaican flavours infusing West St. Paul Curling Club

WEST ST. PAUL — This month marks a full decade since Vincent Dennis opened a Caribbean-flavoured restaurant inside the West St. Paul Curling Club.

And although it could be assumed that a person who has spent that much time in the vicinity of rocks and rings would have picked up a thing or two about the roaring game by now, that doesn’t appear to be the case with the Jamaican-born owner of Tropical Thunder.

Not even close.

“I’ve been here since 2015 and I still don’t have a clue what I’m staring at,” Dennis, 52, says with a chuckle, seated at a table offering a perfect view of the 62-year-old club’s four curling sheets.

Le pouvoir des rencontres

Depuis plusieurs années, Djehil Togoi, élève de 11e année au Collège Louis-Riel, s’investit dans le programme CanU, un projet caractérisé par ses offres de mentorat et son accompagnement éducatif destiné à soutenir la jeunesse manitobaine.

Pour Togoi, aussi appelé DJ, cette expérience est à la fois une occasion de créer des liens et de se rapprocher d’une communauté.

“Mon expérience CanU a été très enrichissante, explique-t-il. Chaque jour est une nouvelle expérience et chaque expérience m’apporte de nouveaux apprentissages. Je suis vraiment reconnaissant d’avoir découvert ce programme.”

Le 13 novembre, CanU organise le Gala Imagine Stories, une initiative annuelle visant à lever des fonds et à mettre à l’honneur la parole des jeunes. Comme l’explique Roger Berrington, fondateur de l’organisation, “ce gala permet aux élèves de raconter leur histoire mais aussi de montrer leur courage, et ces moments-là marquent leur vie et celle de ceux qui les entourent”. Cette année, l’événement se tiendra au Musée canadien pour les droits de la personne, un choix symbolique qui reflète les valeurs de l’organisation CanU.

Puppy Sphere yoga chain rolls out ‘mood-boosting’ first classes in Winnipeg

Winnipeg yogis seeking to do a downward dog while surrounded by dogs are in luck: puppy yoga is here.

Toronto-based company Puppy Sphere began offering weekend yoga classes at Yoga Public (280 Fort St.) earlier this fall.

Each class consists of a 45-minute yoga flow led by a certified instructor, while puppies from local rescues and breeders roam the studio. The class is followed by a 30-minute wind-down that includes refreshments and canine cuddles.

Puppy Sphere founders Francesca Albo and Lea Burbidge Izquierdo said the classes began selling out almost immediately, which led them to add Thursdays to the schedule. The entrepreneurs are actively looking for a Winnipeg studio of their own.

Invention of combine part reaps recognition in Time

A dozen years ago, Jeremy Matuszewski had only visited farms a few times in his life. Now, Time magazine has recognized him for a product he created to help farmers.

Winnipeg students develop critical aptitude essential for navigating media landscape

One day in the fall of 2024, two of Lily Godinez Goodman’s Grade 5 students came to her with a question: Why didn’t their Earl Grey School have a newspaper, they wondered — and if they started one, would she serve as editor-in-chief?

Schools work to fulfil promise afforded by new law supporting Indigenous language

‘Minawaanigoziwin” is the Ojibwa concept that comes to mind for Sherri Denysuik when the Winnipeg teacher is asked about her thoughts on a new law that raises the status of Indigenous languages in schools.

That term is roughly translated to “one who is happy and joyous.”

Denysuik, a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, is trying to learn words many of her ancestors were banned from speaking and, in many cases, punished for uttering inside a residential school.

Recent changes to Manitoba’s Public Schools Act are expected to make it easier for future generations to become fluent in Indigenous languages.

Smash n Axe Arcade Disco opens in former Nor Villa Hotel banquet room on blueprint of nostalgia

The dream of the ‘90s is alive in North Kildonan, and it’s been given a 2025 twist.

Adam Dudek and Raj Maniar have fond memories of visiting arcades 30 years ago, playing games and seeing the designs on the carpets glow under black lights. So when they were decorating Smash n Axe Arcade Disco, the River East neighbourhood business they opened on Wednesday, they decided to give it a neon splash.

“We really wanted to bring people back in time and give them the feeling they had when they were a kid,” Dudek said.

Located in the basement of the Nor Villa Hotel (1763 Henderson Hwy.), Smash n Axe features more than 20 arcade games, including 11 pinball machines.

Clarity, ‘competitiveness’ key to name change

In some ways, the entity that helped draw the 2023 World Police and Fire Games, a studio for video game publisher Ubisoft and the 2025 Grey Cup to Winnipeg isn’t changing.

When self-doubt creeps in at work, pause and reframe your negative thoughts. Here’s how

NEW YORK (AP) — When we make mistakes at work, it can lead to a cycle of negative thinking.

The damaging thoughts swirl: “I’m an impostor.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m failing at my job.”

Feeling like an impostor — doubting one’s own abilities despite a track record of success — is common, especially among women and members of marginalized groups. Even on days when everything’s going right, it can be hard to shift out of a cycle of self-doubt.

But there are ways to interrupt that downward spiral.

The big meaning behind micro-relationships, and why we should talk to strangers more

VANCOUVER - Psychology Prof. Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she began what she calls "a tiny, tiny micro-relationship."

She and a woman who ran a hotdog stand on her way to university around 2007 would wave hello and smile at each other. Their interactions were so small that Sandstrom uses air quotes to even describe them as a "relationship."

And yet "it really meant something much bigger than it seemed like it should, and it made me feel like I belonged there," said Sandstrom.

"I felt very out of place and she, more than anyone else, is who made me feel OK, which was a bit puzzling."

First Anishinaabe woman Bar Association president prioritizes mentorship, protecting the rule of law

In 1991, when Stacey Soldier was just 15 years old, Manitoba marked a watershed moment. After three years of hearings, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry released its final report, a searing reckoning with how the province’s police and justice system had failed Indigenous people.

At home in Thompson, Soldier watched news of the inquiry unfold on TV. (“We were only allowed to watch the news in our house,” she says with a laugh.) The Anishinaabe teen was inspired to see an Indigenous judge, then-Justice Murray Sinclair, co-presiding over the proceedings, and was transfixed by the findings.

It felt “thrilling for justice,” she recalls. But it was also a stark lesson in the challenges her people faced to obtain it.

“One thing that the AJI made clear is that this is a system that wasn’t designed to help Indigenous communities and people in any way,” she says, chatting at her law firm Cochrane Sinclair’s Exchange District offices last week.

Onslaught of sports betting ads make gambling seem enticing to youth, doctors say

TORONTO - Doctors are calling for restrictions on sports betting ads, saying they are setting youth up for a future of problem gambling.

An editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday says the ads are everywhere during sports broadcasts and that the legalization of online gambling has made every smartphone a potential betting platform.

Editor Dr. Shannon Charlebois says even though betting sites say they're only for people 19 years of age and older, youth are being inundated with advertising that equates enjoying sports with betting.

She says child and teen brains are still developing and the constant exposure to gambling messages normalizes harmful behaviour that they can carry into adulthood

Girls fell behind boys in math during the pandemic. Schools are trying to make up lost ground

IRVING, Texas (AP) — Crowded around a workshop table, four girls at de Zavala Middle School puzzled over a Lego machine they had built. As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor, nothing happened.

The teacher at the Dallas-area school had emphasized that in the building process, there is no such thing as mistakes. Only iterations. So the girls dug back into the box of blocks and pulled out an orange card. They held it over the sensor and the machine kicked into motion.

“Oh! Oh, it reacts differently to different colors,” said sixth grader Sofia Cruz.

In de Zavala’s first year as a choice school focused on science, technology, engineering and math, the school recruited a sixth grade class that’s half girls. School leaders are hoping the girls will stick with STEM fields. In de Zavala’s higher grades — whose students joined before it was a STEM school — some elective STEM classes have just one girl enrolled.

How young content creators plan to balance their social media success and campus life

Growing up, Sofia DelGiudice never imagined her father’s annual back-to-school tradition would be a pivotal moment in her social media career.

Before starting university two years ago, the 19-year-old content creator from Toronto had the idea to stitch together all the videos her dad filmed of her descending the stairs in the family's home on the first day of school.

"It's the first day of what grade?" DelGiudice’s dad can be heard asking her in each clip recorded from kindergarten onward.

DelGiudice posted what she thought was a cute homage only her small TikTok following would see — and it went viral.

AI-powered personal finance is here: for better and for worse

Financial advice at your fingertips is by no means a new innovation.

Yet with the rise of artificial intelligence, getting insights about your money has been taken to new heights of potential benefit — and dangers.

“There is a lot of upside to using AI, especially for budgeting, and it’s often good as a first draft for anything you want to do,” says Monisha Sharma, Toronto-based chief revenue officer at Fig Financial, which provides consolidation, home improvement and unsecured loans.

Fig has some insight on AI’s benefits. The fintech company leverages AI technology to make loans quickly to Canadians, but its use case is contained to Fig’s own specific data to ensure a low error rate.

First school year of cellphone ban well-received: minister

Sweeping restrictions on cellphone use in schools are here to stay, despite frustrations related to inconsistent enforcement and student workarounds during the 2024-25 rollout.

Manitoba banned phones in elementary classrooms last summer and introduced new rules to silence devices and keep them out of sight during Grade 9 to 12 lessons.

“How practical is that going to be in the real world? AI exists. Cellphones exist. Banning them is only going to make us sneakier,” said Diana Bonakdar, who just finished Grade 11 in Winnipeg.

Diana and Nadia Lovallo, the new co-presidents of the student council at St. Mary’s Academy, question the effectiveness of the policy and its long-term impact.

Right To Play International asks people to play and share their stories on Wednesday

As two of Canada's most experienced Olympians, Miranda Ayim and Erica Wiebe have made careers out of playing sports at the highest levels of competition.

But some of their most formative memories are of playing as children with almost no stakes.

"We basically would have a neighbourhood-wide game of tag where we were just jumping fences from yard to yard," said Ayim, who was on Canada's women's basketball team at four Olympics.

"I don't know if our parents really appreciated that, but we felt so adventurous going from yard to yard and running but still feeling safe to do so in that neighbourhood, and enjoying that time and that feeling of freedom."

Rent-free months and gift cards: How Toronto-area landlords are vying for tenants

TORONTO - Toronto landlords are trying to lure in tenants with rent-free months, complimentary Wi-Fi and $500 gift cards amid an unprecedented supply of condos and lower rents.

Real-estate market experts say the fierce competition – which extends beyond the Greater Toronto Area – is giving renters more negotiating power, echoing trends last seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two months of free rent, free parking and gift cards for food delivery or public transit are among thousands of dollars' worth of perks and discounts advertised on Toronto rental listing websites and apps.

While such incentives are ubiquitous in Toronto, landlords in other GTA cities and the Greater Hamilton Area are also locked in a tight contest that benefits renters.

Program offers a promising future

As soon as Anfernee Clarke learned about the Pre-Apprentice Bricklayer Program being offered by First Peoples Development Inc. he was intrigued.

A decade ago an 18-year-old Clarke started working in the construction industry doing concrete work. He loved the physical nature of the work but a back injury he suffered five years ago forced him to temporarily put that career on hold and seek out other employment opportunities.

Now fully healed, he learned about FPDI’s bricklayer program late last year and wasted no time applying. He was one of 12 people who were part of the program’s initial cohort of students when it was launched this past January.

“I made up my mind pretty quickly (about applying),” he says.