Red River Co-op to open grocery store, pharmacy at Portage Place redevelopment

A Red River Co-op full service grocery store and pharmacy — “one of the missing pieces in the puzzle of downtown” — will be an anchor in the massive redevelopment of the former Portage Place mall.

True North Real Estate Development announced Wednesday the downtown location will include a 22,500-square-foot food store and a 6,500-sq.-ft. pharmacy.

“Red River Co-op was founded nearly 90 years ago on the belief that people working together can create stronger communities. Our investment in the Portage Place redevelopment reflects that same belief today,” Red River Co-op CEO Craig Gilpin said in a news release.

“This project is about more than building a food store and pharmacy, it is about bringing essential services back to the heart of our city, investing locally and helping create a downtown Winnipeg that future generations will be proud to call their own.”

Indigenous communities in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to receive smoke detectors

FREDERICTON - Tammy Nash says a smoke detector likely saved her son's life when their family home caught fire in 2010 on the  Sitansisk First Nation in central New Brunswick.

Nash, director of the local Maqiyahtimok Centre, says her then 14-year-old son was asleep on the couch when the fire broke out. The smoke detector's alarm woke him up and he escaped before their house burned to the ground.

Nash was on hand in Fredericton on Tuesday when three fire safety organizations came together to announce the distribution of hundreds of free smoke detectors to her community near Fredericton and two other First Nations in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Kidde, a U.S. firm that sells fire safety equipment, is donating about $500,000 worth worth of smoke detectors.

Health Canada approves weight-loss drug for sleep apnea in patients with obesity

TORONTO - Health Canada has approved weight-loss drug Zepbound for treating obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.

The department confirmed that the authorization granted on June 11 makes Zepbound the only GLP-1 drug in Canada approved for the sleep disorder that causes people to stop breathing temporarily because their upper airway is blocked.

That blockage can happen when throat muscles relax or when there is too much fatty tissue around the upper airway.

Sleep apnea causes daytime sleepiness and other potential risks including high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, said Dr. Mandeep Singh, a clinician investigator in sleep science at University Health Network in Toronto.

In a rainbow-trimmed robe at the World Cup, a gay Qatari doctor advocates for equal rights

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Formally dressed in a traditional Qatari bisht, Dr. Nasser Mohamed strolled past a crowd of several hundred people outside Chase Center as the England-Croatia World Cup match was shown high above on the big screen. His gold-and-black robe featured a flourish: rainbow piping down each sleeve and the words “love” and “freedom” written in Arabic.

“That’s why the World Cup is really powerful, because people don’t need to hear about who I am — I can just walk, be seen, and that’s it,” he said. “We don’t have to say a word.”

Four years ago, when the World Cup was played in his home country and Mohamed was already living across the world in San Francisco, he came out and became an exceptionally rare openly gay man from Qatar, where gay sex is prohibited and he can't dress how he'd like.

Mohamed is speaking up again for those without a voice. The 39-year-old now feels secure enough to walk around with confidence, and without fear of harm, while wearing chunky heeled boots, mascara and 2-inch dangly earrings. He still gets regular backlash and hate, but he has also found support and kindness from around the globe that helps drown out the death threats and divisiveness.

Daycare, community hub answer to church’s prayers

A dwindling congregation that owns a red brick church building in South Osborne has found a creative way to keep its doors open while meeting a vital need in the neighbourhood.

If all goes according to plan, the sanctuary of Churchill Park United Church will be echoing with the cries and laughter of children by next fall.

The $4.4-million construction project will transform the main floor of the church, at the corner of Beresford Avenue and Nassau Street, into a 112-space daycare centre, while the second floor will become a community hub with meeting space for congregants and other community groups.

A few years ago, the aging congregation — which averaged 30 or 40 people on a Sunday — came to the painful conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to keep managing their building much longer.

Nova Scotia failing to properly oversee addictions, mental health care, says auditor

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia's auditor general says the Office of Addictions and Mental Health has failed to provide effective oversight of mental health and addiction services and its staff were not aware of all provincially funded centres offering care.

In response to a rise in mental health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government created the office with a dedicated minister in 2021. Five years later, auditor general Kim Adair said the office has insufficient oversight and responsibility for mental health and addiction services — despite its role in setting policy direction and care standards.

"We're concerned that five years in, some of these fundamental aspects which we would expect to be in place by now are not there," Adair told reporters Tuesday.

The audit found the province has spent close to $1 billion on mental health addiction services over the past three years; however, Adair found that the office did not set up standards for access to services to ensure consistent and equitable mental health and addictions care.

No evidence of generalized inflation despite May price hikes: BoC’s Macklem

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says he's not seeing evidence of generalized inflation even as price pressures surged in May.

Statistics Canada said Monday that inflation jumped to 3.2 per cent last month, reaching its highest level since late 2023 and rising past the central bank's target band of one to three per cent.

The energy price spike from the war in Iran has been the primary driver of inflation over the past three months in Canada.

Macklem has said previously that the central bank will look through the initial bout of inflation tied to higher gas prices, but will act to make sure inflation doesn’t spread to other parts of the consumer basket and become entrenched.

As Native American boarding schools project ends, survivors describe feeling honored and restored

Hundreds of Indigenous people have testified. They’ve sobbed, cursed and laughed in spite of it all. Many told stories about their time in boarding schools that they’ve kept inside for decades, finally able to begin recovering from childhood trauma.

An oral history project led by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition is wrapping up in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday. To date, the nonprofit’s historians have collected video testimony from more than 360 Indigenous survivors in 19 states — stories set to be preserved in the Library of Congress for years to come.

Iona Mad Plume, who is Blackfeet and grew up on her tribe’s reservation in Montana, said she “can’t emphasize enough” how healing her experience was. She testified in front of a video camera last month in Billings about her time in the Pierre Indian School in South Dakota, where she was sent at age 14.

Mad Plume, now 74, said since her interview she’s been more grounded and has been able to let go of some of the haunting memories: a dusty blue Greyhound bus driving her away from her parents’ red pickup truck. School staff beating her with a wooden dowel as she cowered on a bunk bed in her dorm room. Eating corn meal or cereal littered with weevil bugs.

AI chatbots hit the dating scene, becoming the lovelorn’s modern-day Cyrano

Marie Lansley recently started a new job in a new city while searching for a new partner. In her dating pursuits, the freshly minted San Franciscan said she’s been “trying everything”— including some help from artificial intelligence.

AI chatbots have become — for her and many others — de facto dating coaches and relationship experts.

Lansley, 36, consults AI chatbots for help in starting conversations, something she said she finds difficult on dating apps despite being comfortable doing so in person. Although she’s optimistic about the possibilities, she acknowledges the incongruency between the art of romance and the precision of technology.

“I am open to AI finding me the love of my life, but I’m also not fully convinced that it can,” Lansley said. “AI is great at making dating more efficient. But the chemistry — that’s always going to be analog.”

May food inflation outpaces overall inflation as fruits and vegetables get pricier

Rising food prices continued to outpace headline inflation for the 16th straight month, Statistics Canada data showed, with no relief in sight for consumers as higher gas prices weigh on grocery bills.

Many hands feed many mouths at Siloam Mission

It takes many willing hands to prepare the quantities of food required to serve community members accessing Siloam Mission’s meal services.

One of these hands belong to Kishwar Mirza, a recently retired nurse who has been volunteering every Tuesday morning for the 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. breakfast shift in Siloam’s kitchen.

Led by Siloam Mission’s kitchen staff, Mirza and the volunteer crew — who number between 12 to 16 — prep 700 pieces of toast, 576 eggs, 150 pounds of fruit, 120 litres of soup and 80 pounds of meat daily for the approximately 600 people who turn up for breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Princess Street drop-in.

Breakfast is served from 9 to 10 a.m., plated up assembly-line style as community members queue to receive their food through the service window.

Iran war ripple effects drive inflation to its highest level since 2023

OTTAWA - Inflation accelerated to its highest level in more than two years in May as price pressures from the war in Iran started to crop up outside the gas pumps.

But most economists weighing in Monday saw little cause for panic in Statistics Canada's latest consumer price data with oil prices already receding and the Bank of Canada unlikely to move from the sidelines anytime soon.

Statistics Canada said Monday that the annual rate of inflation jumped to 3.2 per cent in May, up from 2.8 per cent in April and notching the highest headline inflation rate since December 2023.

StatCan said gas prices rose 33.2 per cent year-over-year last month as conflict in the Middle East continued to shutter the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. The agency said last month marks the most consumers have paid for gasoline since June 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove supply uncertainty.

Thousands celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day

Drums and song filled Winnipeg’s downtown Sunday as thousands gathered at The Forks to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day and while festivities continued late into the evening, some in attendance said the event’s importance spans generations.

Braiding her daughter Sofia Ducharme’s hair in preparation for the Wáhkóhtowin Powwow — one of the day’s numerous celebrations — Alea Elliott said the powwow was one of the first for the 11-year-old. Watching his daughter get ready was Derek Ducharme, who is originally from the Waywayseecappo First Nation.

“It’s nice she gets to do this, because Derek didn’t get to learn about his culture,” said Alea, saying the family came into the city from Landmark.

Wearing a stunning jingle dress that shines in the summer sun, both Alea and Derek said they were proud to see their daughter participate in Sunday’s celebration, as Derek’s father was a victim of Canada’s colonial systems that separated Indigenous families from their children.

AI safety advocates say bill a good ‘first step’ on regulation, but more needed

The federal government’s proposed online safety legislation is a good start on regulating artificial intelligence chatbots — but more work will be needed to protect Canadians from their potential harms, a pair of advocates say.

Bill C-34, introduced earlier this month in the House of Commons, would regulate the companies behind AI chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act “responsibly.”

It includes measures to lower the risk of chatbots communicating harmful content and would put in place crisis intervention protocols for cases involving self-harm, suicide or violence.

Wyatt Tessari L’Allié, founder of Artificial Intelligence Governance and Safety Canada, said the bill’s effectiveness depends on how the details are worked out.

Happy feet: Students get outfitted with donated running shoes ahead of Manitoba Marathon

About 250 kids from remote and inner city communities were fitted for happy feet Saturday afternoon ahead of Sunday’s Manitoba Marathon events.

Zoe Yanke, 16, bused from her home community of Gillam to run in the Manitoba Marathon 10-kilometre race Sunday morning. She and about a dozen of her peers are participating in several of the events and were gifted a new pair of shoes ahead of race day through the Soles4Souls program.

The program hosts events across North America and donates shoes, socks and active wear to kids in need.

At the University of Manitoba’s student centre, not far from Sunday’s starting line, students trickled in by the busload and were met by a volunteer who fitted them for shoes. From there, a “runner” volunteer fetched a few options for them to try on for size, fit and style.

Rise in female chiefs ‘a beautiful resurgence’

BRANDON — One month after Birdtail Sioux First Nation member Tréchelle Bunn was elected chief of her community, she was described on the Matriarch Movement podcast as a woman “who truly embodies what this movement is all about.”

“At just 25 years old, Tréchelle is making history while balancing law school, community leadership and national advocacy,” wrote podcast host and founder Shayla Oulette Stonechild. “Her journey reminds us that the next generation isn’t just preparing to lead — they are leading.”

Bunn was the first woman and youngest person to be elected chief of the First Nation in western Manitoba. It was a historic moment in her community and part of a larger story of the changing role of women in First Nations today.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak noted earlier this year that a record number of female chiefs — 164 — were leading First Nations across the country.

Close encounters of the amphibian kind

Frogs, snakes and horses, oh my!

Liam Peterson, an 11-year-old outdoor enthusiast, encountered all of those during summer camp last year at Circle Square Ranch.

“There were always frogs hopping around our cabin, and I let one in because I wanted it to have company because it was bored — it was just sitting there,” recalled Liam.

“And then my friend freaked out because it was on top of (his foot) in the morning. Everyone in the cabin woke up and he woke up with a red bump on his head after hitting his head on his bunk.”

Pill, bills, budgetary aches

We’re a nation of drug users. Well, not those drugs.

Rather, many Canadians have their health supported by pharmaceutical medications prescribed by a physician.

In our universal health-care system, medication can come with a big additional cost.

The federal government introduced a national pharmacare program in 2024. Manitoba was among the first to sign on, partly leading to its Enhanced Pharmacare Program, which now offers birth control, diabetes and a few other medications at no cost to Manitobans.

In choosing each other, same-sex couple in 19th-century Vermont defied convention

The front cover of Charity & Sylvia, the new graphic biography by acclaimed American cartoonist Tillie Walden, recreates the striking 19th-century portrait of two women, silhouetted in profile and framed by braided human hair carefully arranged in a heart-shaped detail, that inspired this volume. They are the eponymous Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, an openly lesbian couple who quietly made a life for themselves in rural 1800s Vermont.

Stitched together from an extensive archive of letters, journals and poetry, Walden’s moving, sepia-toned volume is narrated through both women during their time together as they navigate questions of identity, community and faith.

The story begins when Charity, a family friend of the Drakes, arrives from Massachusetts to rural Vermont. As the relationship between Charity and Sylvia develops, Walden infuses the book with a visual language of the mundane, drawing the reader’s eye to household sundries and everyday minutiae as she builds the story world through wordless panels of homesteading, domestic tasks, sewing patterns (both Charity and Sylvia earn their living as tailors) and impending weather as the seasons change.

She also builds out family trees for both women through backstories (including standout sections chronicling their childhoods) and daily conversations that provide context for those appearing in later scenes. Through an array of vignettes locked into a 12-panel grid, the characters move from church pews to kitchens, bedrooms, dinner tables, gardens and carriages travelling to and from neighbouring towns and states.

Ottawa adding $5.4B for child care; provinces, advocates had warned progress at risk

The federal government is giving provinces and territories an additional $5.4 billion over two years for the national $10-a-day child-care program, money the minister is framing as stabilizing the program.

The program that started rolling out across the country in 2021 set ambitious targets for reducing the fees parents pay and creating hundreds of thousands of new spaces by this year, but those targets have not yet been met in many jurisdictions.

Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu said Friday in an interview that she has heard the provinces' calls for more federal money, as many struggle to reduce fees, add spaces and recruit and retain enough early childhood educators in the face of rising costs and demand.

"Certainly, money has been part of the challenge," Hajdu said ahead of a meeting with provincial and territorial ministers.

Elementary students develop friendships with care home residents

Nine-year-olds and seniors in their ’90s regularly bond over bocce in Tuxedo.

École Tuxedo Park and Extendicare Tuxedo Villa are marking a decade of Senior Buddies, a partnership that began to build intergenerational friendship and understanding in their neighbourhood.

“It’s opening (students’) eyes to different parts of being a human and humanity and the community that they live in,” said Diana Stahl, a school counsellor at the kindergarten-to-Grade 4 building in Winnipeg.

Stahl and her students made the 350-metre trek to the long-term care home on Thursday for their final visit of the school year.

For nimble nonagenarian, there’s been no looking back since exercise epiphany six decades ago

It’s been 46 years since Ray Elliott completed his first Manitoba Marathon but the spry-looking 91-year-old father of three, grandfather of four and great-grandfather of two remembers the occasion like it was yesterday.

Back then, the annual Father’s Day race ended at Winnipeg Stadium near Polo Park. Elliott vividly recalls turning right as he entered the venue and hearing a thunderous roar erupt from the thousands of onlookers who had packed the stands to encourage participants to the finish line.

“It was quite the experience being cheered on by a crowd that large and after witnessing that I got really serious about running, maybe because I wanted to recreate the moment again,” Elliott says, seated in his third-floor Henderson Highway condo, which overlooks a meandering section of the Red River.

Elliott’s marathon days are long gone. Still, he reserves time for physical activity of some sort, every single day. The former Great-West Life manager typically gets up at 5:45 a.m. to go for a brisk walk through his neighbourhood. Then, after he has breakfast with his wife Lillian at her personal care home next door to where he lives, he heads to the YMCA-YWCA to jog around the track for an hour or so. He also bikes, swims and golfs — last week he shot one stroke better than his age at Kildonan Golf Course — and in April set a new provincial record for men ages 90 to 94, when he bench-pressed 42.5 kilograms at a powerlifting competition held at Glenlawn Collegiate.