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.

What prediction market trading is and why it’s gaining popularity

Financial services company Wealthsimple announced Thursday that it will start offering a new form of investment based on real-world events.

The product is called prediction market trading and it's gaining increasing popularity around the world.

Here's a breakdown of how it works, what's driving its growth and what investors should beware of.

What are prediction markets?

FDA panel backs first-of-its-kind flu vaccine using mRNA technology

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new kind of flu vaccine moved a step closer to the U.S. market Thursday as federal health advisers recommended approval of the first made with the same mRNA technology that was key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Food and Drug Administration is evaluating Moderna's new shot, dubbed mFlusiva, for older Americans ahead of the winter flu season. Moderna is seeking full approval for the vaccine's use in people ages 50 to 64 — along with authorization for use in those 65 and older while it conducts additional testing.

The FDA's independent advisory committee evaluated Moderna's studies of the vaccine and voted unanimously that its benefits appear to outweigh any risks for both age groups. The FDA will consider that recommendation in making a final decision by early August.

Tens of thousands of Americans die from influenza every year, and older adults are among the most vulnerable. There are various types of flu vaccines already available in the U.S., including three specifically recommended for people 65 and older. But vaccines made with the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology are faster to manufacture than other types — something experts say might help if the shape-shifting flu virus mutates in a way that requires suddenly brewing new doses to match.

Radon in Newfoundland public housing a reminder of urgent national problem: experts

ST. JOHN'S - The Newfoundland and Labrador government recently found hazardous levels of a cancer-causing gas in some of its public housing units, prompting some experts to call for mandatory testing across the country.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corp. tested for radon in 172 of its housing units as part of a pilot program with Health Canada and found 23 had levels exceeding federal health guidelines and needing remediation, a spokesperson said.

The public housing authority included some of those test results in a post to the provincial procurement website last month, looking for tenders from contractors that could install mitigation systems.

Kelley Bush, manager of Health Canada's national radon outreach program, applauded Newfoundland and Labrador's efforts and said provinces are stepping up to test public housing for the deadly, odourless gas. But she said there is more work to be done.

School board’s plan violates rights of young people: children’s advocate

Backlash is mounting over the Steinbach school board’s plans to disregard “mature minor” status and recognize parents as primary decision makers in all student health matters.

Conservative MP’s bill on intimate partner violence becomes law

OTTAWA - Canada will take a harder stance on intimate partner violence after a Conservative MP’s private member’s bill became law Wednesday.

The Criminal Code will soon be updated to allow the killer of an intimate partner to be charged with first-degree murder regardless of whether the act was premeditated.

Bill C-225, which received royal assent in Parliament on Wednesday, will make first-degree murder applicable to killings that happen as part of a pattern of coercive or controlling conduct.

Frank Caputo, Conservative MP for Kamloops-Thomson-Nicola, put forward the private member's bill.

Federal Trade Commission sues leading transgender health group

The Federal Trade Commission and four states sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health on Wednesday, in the latest push by President Donald Trump’s administration and others to limit gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The suit alleges the group, known widely as WPATH, made deceptive claims about gender-affirming care for minors and its members profited off the claims. Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas filed along with the FTC.

“Parents have a right to make informed decisions about their children’s health,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said on X. “The FTC will not allow parents and children to be deceived by medical organizations and providers who are prioritizing profit over children’s health and safety.”

The suit also alleges the group didn't disclose the side effects of certain pediatric medical transition services, including those related to hormone treatments, and doctors then repeated to consumers "false, misleading or unsubstantiated statements about safety and efficacy found in WPATH guidelines.”

One of Canada’s most prominent MAID providers reflects on divisive decade

TORONTO - Dr. Ellen Wiebe has never been one to shy away from risk.

It started with the very first patient she provided with a medically assisted death: Hanne Schafer, a 66-year-old Calgary psychologist diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis three months before retiring in 2013.

MAID was three years away from legalization, but Schafer was quickly losing her ability to talk, walk, eat and drink and wanted the procedure as soon as she could get it. On Feb. 29, 2016, a judge approved her request, more than three months before MAID would become legal on June 17.

The next hurdle was finding a doctor prepared to do it, recalls Schafer’s husband Daniel Laurin. He credits Wiebe with helping his late wife when no one else would: "It was a very humane thing to do.”

Committee majority recommends against MAID for mental illness, four senators object

OTTAWA - A parliamentary committee is calling on the federal government to indefinitely exclude people with mental illness from becoming eligible for medical assistance in dying, after a process that some of the committee's members decried as flawed and biased.

Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament on the committee co-signed that single recommendation in a report Wednesday that included a number of dissenting opinions.

People with a mental illness as their sole underlying condition are set to become eligible to apply for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, next March.

The committee of MPs and senators was tasked with studying whether the country is ready for that to happen.

Directors Desk enters child care HR spotlight

A Manitoba company has released what is believed to be the first sector-specific human resources software for early learning centres and child care operations in Canada.

Manitoba-born 105-year-old in midst of four-day birthday extravaganza

Reaching a century (plus five) is a milestone so rare it deserves more than a single celebration.

And Edith Cecelia Lints Edmundson is marking her 105th birthday with a bang, returning to celebrate in the province where she lived for 100 years.

With the help of her children Vivian, Rhonda and Derrick, Edmundson organized a four-day cross-country tour that’s seen her party in Langley, B.C., Shoal Lake and Brandon.

She’ll be capping the festivities off in Winnipeg this weekend, joined by 80 of her nearest and dearest who will come to raise a glass to the matriarch of the family.

‘Fundamentally broken’ support system failing Manitobans with disabilities, scathing report concludes

Manitoba’s disability support system is “fundamentally broken” and routinely fails people as they transition into adulthood, according to a damning new report that calls for a sweeping overhaul of provincial services.

Justice minister says he will review MAID committee testimony before making decision

OTTAWA - Justice Minister Sean Fraser says he will take time over the summer to review the work of a committee tasked with determining whether Canada is ready to allow people with mental illness access to medically assisted dying.

Committee co-chair Marcus Powlowski said last week the report would be presented to Parliament on Wednesday to ensure it's in the government's hands before the House of Commons takes its summer break.

Fraser said Tuesday he will consider more than the committee's conclusions and recommendations.

"Importantly to me, I'm also going to be reviewing the witness testimony upon which those recommendations were based," he said.

MPs urge action to undercut ‘manosphere’ by tackling anti-women ideology

OTTAWA - MPs are calling on the government to tackle the rise of antifeminist ideology by funding programs that undercut the "manosphere" of online influencers who blame women for men's problems.

The House of Commons status of women committee tabled a report Tuesday warning "antifeminist ideologies are becoming increasingly prominent in Canada and internationally."

The committee says boys and young men who are isolated or struggling to find their place in society are being presented with extreme content online that glorifies dominating and dehumanizing women and amplifies gender-based violence.

At a news conference on Parliament Hill, Conservative MP Dominique Vien, the committee's chair, told reporters witnesses who spoke to the committee struggled to identify a single reason for the rise in antifeminism.

Ottawa’s new surveillance pricing rules not likely to take effect before 2028

OTTAWA - The federal government wants to be "super careful" as it tackles surveillance pricing, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said after tabling the government's new privacy bill.

Under the plan outlined by Solomon, those rules on surveillance pricing are unlikely to be in place before 2028.

"It's very easy to say just ban using personal information to give personal pricing, because we have to be super careful that we don't want to penalize people who are members of a rewards program," Solomon said Monday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The government introduced the bill Monday — its third attempt to update decades-old privacy laws covering the private sector.

Liberal government tables new First Nations drinking water legislation

New legislation tabled by the government on Tuesday will create a legislative framework to protect drinking water in First Nations communities, Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty said.

New First Nations water bill changes mention of ‘right’ to clean water access

OTTAWA - A new First Nations clean water bill set to be introduced by Prime Minister Mark Carney's government changes a provision in a previous bill that would have recognized First Nations have a human right to clean drinking water.

The Canadian Press has obtained a draft of the bill labelled "for consultation until June 11, 2026." It's not clear if any changes were made since the consultation period ended.

Some First Nations leaders had expected the bill to be introduced as early as Monday, but that didn't happen. It's now expected on Tuesday, and Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty is scheduled to hold a news conference.

The House of Commons is expected to rise by Friday for the summer break, which means the legislation likely won't be debated or voted on until the fall.