Tokyo court grants legal protection to human voices in AI clone case

TOKYO (AP) — A Tokyo court has awarded legal protection to the human voice in a landmark case in which a popular Japanese anime voice actor demanded that TikTok close an account over its unauthorized use of an artificial intelligence clone of his trademark baritone.

The Tokyo District Court's decision Wednesday was the first acknowledgment of the right to one's voice in Japan. The ruling was good news for many anime voice actors at a time when they are increasingly concerned about the use of AI-generated versions of their voices on social media.

The plaintiff, Kenjiro Tsuda, is an actor best known for his “lustrous and deep” voice in starring characters such as Kento Nanami in “Jujutsu Kaisen,” a popular anime series.

In his lawsuit, Tsuda said that the anonymous operator of the TikTok account “Nanami" wrongfully profited by attracting viewers with his voice narrating in more than 180 videos about urban legends and paranormal phenomena, and asked for the material to be deleted.

Cuba’s cherished ballet tradition endures through daily blackouts and shortages

HAVANA (AP) — For months, two-thirds of Cuba had no electricity at night. Some neighborhoods in the capital of Havana have been without running water for more than two weeks. Transportation is scarce and eggs, bread and cooking oil are hard to find.

Yet every morning, about 178 young students gather for classes at the National Ballet School in the capital. Housed in an imposing Art Nouveau building in the heart of Old Havana, the school combines rigorous dance training with academic classes in math, Spanish, history and science.

Training to become a top-tier classical dancer demands discipline and sacrifice anywhere. In Cuba today, where blackouts and shortages of fuel, water and food complicate daily life, those demands extend far beyond the dance studio.

For 14-year-old Roxana Pérez de La Mora, that means waking up before dawn and traveling about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from her home to the school.

State of the Nations event to highlight Indigenous mining plans

A first-ever conference aims to connect Indigenous leaders with businesses as local mining ambitions grow.

Nvidia unveils security platform to stop AI agents from going rogue

Nvidia on Monday unveiled a new security platform designed to stop artificial intelligence agents from going rogue, saying it sets “boundaries” that could have stopped previous breaches.

The announcement of the company's Open Agent Safety Platform follows a series of revelations from top AI companies about their models escaping and breaking into other organizations.

The disclosures sparked furious debate about the safety of advanced artificial intelligence systems, including self-improving models that some fear could race out of human control.

Nvidia executives said in a media briefing the new, open-source system could have prevented a recent incident involving a swarm of OpenAI agents that autonomously hacked into AI company Hugging Face.

As Canada pivots to Arctic, experts wonder if Ottawa has enough regional diplomats

OTTAWA - As Canada plans an ambitious expansion of defence and economic activity in the Arctic, regional experts are asking whether it has enough diplomats to build the ties it wants in the North.

"The Arctic is a geopolitical hot spot," said Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. "The (Global Affairs) department does not have huge bench strength when it comes to Arctic diplomacy."

Here's a look at how the Liberals have both cut back and restaffed positions across the North in recent years.

Closing an expert centre

Signs of local neo-Nazi recruiting efforts spark concern

A far-right canvassing push in Manitoba this month is raising concerns among Winnipeg residents.

Stickers promoting Nationalist-13, a men’s-only neo-Nazi group also known as NS-13 based primarily in Hamilton, Ont., have appeared in Winnipeg and parts of southern Manitoba. The stickers bear national socialist branding and messages such as “White Man, Fight Back” and “White Community, Political Action, Training and Fitness.”

Winnipeg writer Jess Woolford recently encountered an NS-13 poster on Pembina Highway.

“It was appalling,” Woolford said. “It has the Nazi death heads covering people’s faces. It was pretty disturbing to come across this … I just didn’t expect to see it so blatantly displayed in my neighbourhood.”

‘Zero chance’ U.S. attacks Canada, Alaska governor tells conference

BANFF - The governor of the U.S. state that shares the longest border with Canada expressed dismay at the notion that his country would ever invade its southern neighbour.

"I'd have a better chance of sprouting wings and flying around the audience here," Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said during an onstage discussion Friday at the Global Business Forum in Banff, Alta.

Dunleavy's remarks come days after the New York Times quoted Prime Minister Mark Carney as saying his government has studied such a possibility as an "extreme tail risk." Federal Defence Minister David McGuinty later told reporters in Ottawa that it's "normal" for all militaries around the world to analyze risk scenarios.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted he wants to make Canada the 51st state, but has said he would do so through economic, and not military, means.

EU vows to defend its stand against X after the US backs a court challenge from Elon Musk

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's executive arm said Friday it's prepared to defend a 120 million euro ($137 million) fine against the social media platform X after the U.S. government threw its support behind a legal effort by Elon Musk this week to have the case dismissed.

The European Commission fined X late last year for breaches of the bloc’s landmark digital regulations, stoking tensions with Washington.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that it had filed an application to support X's bid to have the case annulled at the European Union's General Court. It was the second time in three months that the Justice Department has intervened to defend a company owned by Musk.

In July, the Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in a civil rights lawsuit that alleges Musk’s xAI is illegally running dozens of natural gas turbines to power a $20 billion AI data center in Mississippi.

Ottawa takes next step in negotiations on possible GlobalEye radar plane purchase

OTTAWA - The Liberal government has taken another step forward in talks with the Swedish defence company Saab as it considers acquiring its advanced radar planes for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Ottawa and Saab agreed on a non-binding term sheet that supports more detailed negotiations on a fleet of GlobalEye aircraft.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced at the CANSEC defence expo in May that Canada had selected Saab as a preferred supplier for airborne early warning and control planes.

While Ottawa has made no binding commitment to purchase the platform, it has indicated a strong intention to reach a deal.

Defence minister downplays PM’s comments on prospect of U.S. military action

OTTAWA - A day after Prime Minister Mark Carney told a U.S. media outlet his government has studied the possibility of U.S.-led military action in Canada, Defence Minister David McGuinty said all militaries consider such risks.

"It is normal. All militaries in the world spend time analyzing risk scenarios," he told reporters in Ottawa.

McGuinty downplayed the significance of comments Carney made to the New York Times on Wednesday indicating Ottawa has examined the possibility of American military action.

Carney told the New York Times he would not discuss in detail what that examination involved, but suggested it would be irresponsible not to prepare for what he called "extreme tail risk."

Winnipegger’s attic boutique bucks fast-fashion habits

While most of us are likely to chuck on a hoodie and sweatpants for a last-minute dash to the store, Tara Cole-McCaffrey’s early morning run to pick up a carton of milk probably involves sequins, biker boots or a frilly maxi dress — or all three.

It’s a fitting look for someone who owns her own by-appointment-only vintage showroom, Patron of Dreams. But she’s not dressed up deliberately; Cole-McCaffrey just grabbed whatever she could find by her bed before heading out.

“I wear what I own; I don’t have basics,” says Cole-McCaffrey, 48. “If I had sweats and a wrinkled T-shirt sitting on the floor, that’s what I would have put on, because it was convenience I was looking for.

“But if you buy clothes that are fun and interesting, that is what becomes convenient, because that’s what’s in your closet.”

David Suzuki says Mark Carney is driving Canada ‘into a ditch’ with shift on climate

OTTAWA - David Suzuki said that when Prime Minister Mark Carney was first elected last year, he celebrated. Having met and interviewed the prime minister before, the national environmentalist icon said he knew Carney understood the challenges of climate change.

But in an interview with The Canadian Press, Suzuki said he now feels he was "wilfully blind" to Carney's promises of action on climate, despite warnings from his longtime friend the late Stephen Lewis, who predicted the agenda of a banker — and now politician — would supersede Carney's views on addressing climate change.

"I don't see that there's going to be any deviation from the driving of our country into the ditch," Suzuki said.

He acknowledges that Carney's actions come as Canadians' views on climate have shifted to other priorities.

AI’s dangers ‘real and imminent,’ Canadian AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio tells UN

OTTAWA - Canadian AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio and the heads of two major American AI companies pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to set controls on the burgeoning technology.

Bengio told the UN Security Council Wednesday that AI poses an "unprecedented threat."

"One that none of its members would choose, that none can contain alone, and that does not respect the borders we defend," Bengio said, in a copy of his prepared remarks.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, also made presentations to the Security Council, warning the council must set actual controls to prevent the technology from becoming too powerful to rein in.

A look at AI doomsday scenarios that researchers say could put humanity at risk

For years, artificial intelligence researchers have warned of ways the technology could wipe out humanity: AI bots could design an unstoppable disease, unleash a nuclear war, or transform all of Earth into paper clip factories, as one thought experiment goes.

Debates inside the AI industry and beyond over the plausibility of these doomsday scenarios have heated up since several executives endorsed slowing the technology's development for safety reasons.

Despite warnings of the potential for humans to lose their grip on the technology, some suspect the worst-case scenarios described by the AI companies themselves have more to do with validating the importance of their work than reality.

“These arguments just don’t really hold water. I think they’re sci-fi and they’re enticing to a certain childish style of thinking and it’s very tempting for the frontier labs because it helps them recruit certain types of folks,” said Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne and a member of OpenAI’s Frontier Risk Council.

B.C. sues OpenAI, says one call could have prevented Tumbler Ridge mass shooting

VANCOUVER - The B.C. government has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company OpenAI in California over the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., asserting "one telephone call to the RCMP could have prevented the tragedy."

Attorney General Niki Sharma announced the filing on Monday, saying the province is seeking accountability from OpenAI and its decision-makers.

British Columbia is also aiming to recover costs associated with the shootings in February that left eight victims dead, including five students at the local secondary school.

Sharma said OpenAI failed to warn police of concerning interactions between the shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, and the company's chatbot ChatGPT.

Moe warns ‘blood potash’ part of Trump’s planned deal with Belarus to thwart Canada

REGINA - As U.S. President Donald Trump works on a deal to buy potash from Belarus to lessen dependence on Canadian fertilizer, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is warning that the eastern European country has blood on its hands.

"More than 40 countries – Canada and its allies – have sanctions against Belarus for supporting war criminal (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine," Moe said on social media Monday.

"Buying blood potash from Belarus is supporting Russian aggression.

"It’s wrong and it doesn’t make sense."

Oil, grain exports fuel record cargo at Port of Vancouver as trade shifts beyond U.S.

The head of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority says surging oil and grain exports drove a record amount of cargo through its gates in the first half of the year as part of a push away from U.S. markets, with Alberta crude fuelling the pivot.

Freight volumes at the Port of Vancouver rode a rising tide of crude oil and canola seed to a three per cent year-over-year increase for the six months ended June 30, the federal agency said Monday.

Port authority chief executive Peter Xotta described "a degree of focus and urgency" to hauling loads — fossil fuels included — to and from countries that lie beyond North American shores.

"The U.S. percentage of crude oil shipments is declining ... as those global destinations for Alberta crude increase," he said in a phone interview from Canada Place, which overlooks Vancouver Harbour.

Climate Week talks balance hope for clean energy against uncertainty over artificial intelligence

NEW YORK (AP) — As scientists calculated that Earth is getting sicker, global leaders on Monday kicked off a week of talks about how to fix it and fast, pointing to hope from a renewable energy boom.

A different boom, in artificial intelligence and the power-and-water-hungry data centers behind it, could both worsen and solve some of these issues, a paradox world and business leaders will struggle with this week.

Every year as top government officials attend the United Nations General Assembly and business executives flock to New York Climate Week sessions, global warming generates lots of talk but little action.

This time two new forces — the rise of AI and data centers, as well as higher fossil fuel prices from wars in Iran and Ukraine — should change the discussion, experts and activists said. That's on top of climate-driven disasters recently reaching new levels of destruction in Asia.

News outlets sue Trump over lost White House access, citing ‘blatant violation’ of First Amendment

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump’s administration days after they were barred from White House grounds, calling the selective ban — based on the content of their coverage — a “blatant violation” of the First Amendment. Trump said on social media that he ”cherished" a free press but not “FAKE NEWS.”

“White House access is a privilege — not a right,” the administration posted on X.

The extraordinary ban of the three news outlets' reporters, which began over the weekend, represented a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable. They were also the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States, where the government is constitutionally forbidden from restricting the press.

The Constitution, the banned news outlets said in their lawsuit, “does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”

Canada, France pledge to work together on space infrastructure, economy

SAINT-PIERRE - Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to work together in the areas of space infrastructure, business and economic growth as the leaders met Sunday in the French territory of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.

Speaking to reporters, Carney said he and Macron will task their space agencies and defence ministries to develop and share common infrastructure, including space launch systems and ground-based reception facilities.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office said the countries plan to work together on infrastructure that can receive data from satellites.

Carney said that he and Macron will also task the regional joint cooperation commission between Atlantic Canada and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon to expand its work in economic growth, energy transition and climate resilience.

Winnipeg, source d’inspiration pour la philanthropie canadienne

Dirigé par le Franco-Manitobain d’origine Jean-Marc Mangin, l’organisme Fondations philanthropiques du Canada (FPC) sera à Winnipeg du 23 au 25 septembre prochains pour sa conférence nationale, organisée tous les deux ans. Une première pour FPC, et un retour au bercail attendu pour son président-directeur général.

Pour la première fois depuis 26 ans que l’organisme existe, FPC a choisi le Manitoba pour sa grande conférence nationale de 2026. “On a été dans plusieurs gros centres urbains du Canada, notamment Ottawa, Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver ou encore Calgary, mais ce sera notre première fois à Winnipeg,” se réjouit le PDG de FPC, Jean-Marc Mangin, lui-même originaire de Saint-Boniface.

Ce n’est toutefois pas la nostalgie de l’enfance qui a fait pencher la balance en faveur du Manitoba, mais plutôt un vent de changement observé par bon nombre dans la capitale manitobaine.

“Nous ne sommes pas les seuls dans le secteur caritatif à choisir Winnipeg,” constate Jean-Marc Mangin. “Plusieurs organismes y tiennent leurs conférences nationales cette année ou la suivante. Et ça, ça dit quelque chose sur ce qui se passe au Manitoba : c’est très actif, il y a beaucoup d’innovation sociale qui prend place.”