First Nation evacuees fleeing wildfire face safety risks in Toronto, leaders say

TORONTO - In a Toronto hotel off Highway 401, a bag check station screening for alcohol greets people in the lobby.

Cat Lake First Nation operations manager Derek Spence said it’s to limit drinking among residents who evacuated from the community north of Sioux Lookout, Ont., last week as wildfires closed in and downed power lines. Alcohol and drugs are much easier to come by in Toronto than the remote fly-in community residents call home, Spence explained.

Substance use and fears of suspicious people hanging around the hotel where Cat Lake residents are sheltering have been fuelling some residents’ desire to return home as soon as possible, even as nearly 180 wildfires continue to burn in Ontario’s north.

“It is a scary city for some people, and there (were) people hanging around here trying to abduct some of the ladies,” Spence said. “Someone's gonna get lost, someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get killed.”

Giant metal roosters spread autism acceptance in Maine after town zoning spat

OGUNQUIT, Maine (AP) — Giant metal roosters are popping up on lawns in and around a community in southern Maine and as far away as New Zealand in support of a 6-year-old autistic girl and her love of the colorful creations.

David and Sara LeBlanc had a rotating display of the roughly 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) ornaments decorating their Ogunquit lawn until officials in the small coastal town deemed them to be impermissible advertising for their attached restaurant, The Omelette Factory.

The couple initially resisted the town's removal order, insisting the roosters were meant to comfort their daughter Pyper, not advertise their business.

“Roosters don’t lay eggs,” David LeBlanc told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

A foodborne parasite and government efficiency

Week-long explosive diarrhea. There. Now that we’ve got your attention, here’s a cautionary tale about red-tape reduction and public health.

New graphic images are rolling out on cigarette packs in Canada. Could more be done?

TORONTO - A baby swarmed by smoke. A toilet of bloody urine. A cancerous colon.

These are among the new series of 13 graphic images that are required to be printed on cigarette packages across Canada by Aug. 1.

This is the fourth set of warnings mandated by Health Canada since 2000, aiming to reduce tobacco use to less than 5 per cent by 2035.

According to the federal health agency’s latest projections, Canada appears on track to reach that goal. Tobacco use was down to an estimated 13 per cent in 2024, compared to 29 per cent in 2001. Approximately 300,000 Canadians who smoked in 2023 quit in 2024.

Tariffs threaten Canadian retailers and their U.S. sales — again

TORONTO - When customers in the United States place orders with Toronto jewelry company Suetables, Sue Henderson does something unconventional for a business owner: she asks them if they're really sure they want to make the purchase.

Henderson double checks because on-and-off again tariffs have driven up fees on products crossing the border.

"Just to give you an example, someone would order a $200 pair of earrings and click through saying yes, I'll pay the tariffs, yes, I'll pay the tariffs, yes, I'll pay the tariffs, but then the order would arrive to the concierge and you've got a $70 tariff on a $200 pair of earrings," Henderson said.

"They'd say, 'Well, I don't want them.'"

Blueberry First Nations says native plant orchard to help restore B.C. industry sites

FORT ST. JOHN - A First Nation in British Columbia says a new native plant orchard established in its territory could help reclaim and restore thousands of industrial sites around northeastern B.C.

The Blueberry First Nations near Fort St. John unveiled the orchard last week, and Chief Sherry Dominic said it will produce native plants for sale to industry partners in the oil and gas sector, as well as Indigenous communities.

The nation says in a statement the garden will eventually have 1.7 million seedlings from a representative supply of grasses, shrubs, wildflowers and trees to reflect various layers of a healthy forest system.

"So, eventually, (the orchard) will be putting the land back to its natural form," Dominic said in an interview.

Court orders Alberta prison to take steps to protect inmates from extreme heat

OTTAWA - As the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal prepares to hear a separate case about extreme heat in prisons, the Federal Court has directed an Alberta prison to take steps to install air conditioning to protect inmates.

The court said Correctional Service Canada has failed to put an effective solution in place at the Edmonton Institution for Women's secure unit, despite complaints about extreme heat that go back two decades.

"The excessively high temperatures have caused inmates to suffer panic attacks, psychological distress, and sleep deprivation. It is a long-standing problem: CSC has known of design problems with the temperature regulation equipment in Secure since as early as 2012," Justice Meaghan Conroy wrote in the July 16 decision.

One affidavit from an inmate housed in 2018 in a corner cell nicknamed "the oven" said a maintenance worker recorded a temperature of over 40 C in her cell.

Parents praise water-safety education

Winnipeggers at Kildonan Park Pool were offered education about water safety on Sunday and one parent who had a previous drowning scare said the lessons could save a life.

One of several events this summer hosted by the Manitoba Coalition for Water Safety as part of National Drowning Prevention Week, the poolside event saw volunteers from the Lifesaving Society educating people on things like how to throw a rescue line and how to “swim to survive” which requires participants to fall in a pool, tread water for one minute and then swim 50 metres to safety.

Ashley Shepherd said she and her six-year-old son Logan, who was taking part in some of the exercises Sunday, had a close call at Birds Hill Park in 2024, with the incident happening in seconds.

She recalled how she turned around to help her young daughter who had lost her footing. A second later, her son fell off a floaty into the water and was quickly swept away. She went after the boy in a flash, but found herself tangled in seaweed and panicked, going under herself, a nearby couple coming to their rescue.

Restorative justice program helps newcomers find their way

The Masjid Bilal is a chunky grey building just off Logan Avenue surrounded by warehouses and railyards. It looks more like a bunker than a mosque.

But on a summer Friday afternoon, its green-and-white carpeted interior is humming with activity. Two men in white robes and flat woolen caps are seated on the carpet poring over a copy of the Qur’an. A few young boys dodge through hallways, poking curious noses into open doors. At the back, next to a table piled with prayer mats, two girls in hijabs share schoolyard gossip. In the kitchen, women are cooking up pots of rice and chicken for people who will soon arrive for Friday prayers.

The Masjid Bilal is a community hub for members of Winnipeg’s African diaspora as well as Muslims from many other countries.

It’s also home to the Bilal Community and Family Centre, an innovative, community-centred nonprofit that is meeting vital needs for newcomers in this city.

A Life's Story: Advocate Lucien Loiselle celebrated the French connection in Manitoba

A pillar in the local French community, Lucien Loiselle wanted francophone culture to be shared as widely as possible.

“I remember him telling us to be proud of being francophones and of our culture, to never let anyone speak negatively of francophones or make fun of the French language,” said his middle son, Richard, who shares his father’s passion for French language and culture and served for 20 years as the French language services co-ordinator for Manitoba Health.

“He helped us appreciate and keep francophone music, movies, books and comic books in our lives,” eldest son Michel added. “I have an MP3 player full of French music, and shelves loaded with French-language comic books.

“I passed that love on to my five kids, one of whom works in French media and another who intends to become a teacher in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine.”

Opposition brewing as data centre capacity is set to explode across Canada

OTTAWA - Across Canada, plans are underway for a massive boom in construction of the huge new data centres needed for artificial intelligence technology.

But opposition is also building as residents worry about how the facilities will affect their communities — and as the data centres themselves become a symbol of the anxieties swirling around AI.

"An AI data centre is like the physical avatar of AI. And so it's just like concrete and steel, physical space of a technology that increasingly I think Canadians are worried is going to have a really disruptive impact on their lives," said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.

"The local concerns are tied to the resources that these data centres consume. So it's about electricity, it's about water, it’s about noise."

Drug court helps break addiction’s bleak cycle

BRANDON — Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta often finds herself scanning the court docket to see who could be a candidate for the Westman drug treatment court.

“We have quite a revolving door in terms of substance abuse and addiction, criminal behaviour, incarceration and then the cycle repeats,” she said.

The drug treatment court aims to break that cycle.

“The best chance of long-term protection of the public is the rehabilitation of offenders, and at the end of the day, I think that’s what this is all about — trying to get down to those root causes of crime and hopefully, helping people break the cycle,” she said.

Popular low-price grocery program celebrates first year

When Audrey Foley runs out of food for her four cats, or struggles to pay for groceries for her and her mother, she turns to a community-managed store in her neighbourhood.

Her list contains the staples: bread, pasta, juice — all sold through the the Jason Schreyer Memorial Grocery Affordable Access Program, at prices far below what you’d find at a supermarket.

Foley said the program has made a substantial difference in her family’s ability to get by as the cost of living continues to rise.

“I would do without things if I had to,” Foley, 52, said Friday. “It’s very beneficial, overall, because the prices are very reasonable.”

Lettuce at Taco Bell in 5 states confirmed as a source of diarrhea-causing parasite

ATLANTA (AP) — Federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations across five U.S. states as a source of a widespread outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday warned consumers not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. A record number of cyclospora cases have been reported in more than 30 states, and experts have said not every recent U.S. illness might be caused by a single source.

A Food and Drug Administration investigation so far has identified a single supplier of the lettuce. The federal warnings to consumers did not identify the company, but Taylor Fresh Foods, of Salinas, California, said FDA testing indicated it was “a specific independent farm” affiliated with the company.

The FDA was working with the supplier “to determine if potentially contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce remains on the market,” including in other states, the CDC said. “Taco Bell has committed to stop using any lettuce from the supplier identified by FDA’s traceback investigation.”

What happened to public service?

What I’m referring to when I talk about public service is that rare and courageous individual who enters public life to do good.

Long-held core values of openness, inclusion, empathy set Convalescent Home apart from the personal care home pack

Life in a personal care home isn’t something many dream of. In fact, these days, it’s more common to dread the idea.

Manitoba has 124 licensed care homes. Some have been criticized for substandard care, chronic understaffing and depressing meals, or flagged for neglect, abuse and lack of transparency.

Though there are provincial standards in place, there is little consistency among them. More than a few are evasive, unwilling to communicate about issues of importance to residents and their families.

So, imagine finding a care home determined to do it right.

Manitoba documentary focuses lens on environmental defenders, beauty of prairies

Everything We Need Is Here is the latest sumptuously shot Manitoba film rooted in the Prairie landscape.

Though totally unrelated in subject matter, the documentary recalls the 2024 Daughters of the Sun with its saturated and slow-mo sweeps across boreal forests and limestone tinted lakes.

But while Daughters has much murmured narration and arthouse flair, Everything is a plucky film, a can-do sort of doc about the land and its grassroots defenders.

Their voices resonate strong and clear across storylines that weave together the joys of foraging and local environmental protests.

Demand for Naloxone training workshops grows as drug crisis intensifies

Melanie Leslie-Bernard was driving home two weeks ago and decided to pull over after seeing three people who appeared disoriented on a West-End street.

One was draped over the curb on Sargent Avenue near Dominion Street and appeared to be overdosing.

Leslie-Bernard and several other bystanders called 911, but no one knew how to help while they anxiously waited for emergency crews.

“In those first couple minutes when responding to an urgent situation, if you don’t know what to do and you don’t have that 911 operator helping you, it’s very scary and it’s very stressful,” said the 39-year-old social worker, who uses they/them pronouns.

Hegseth announces new policy to test troops for low testosterone

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that he is rolling out a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among troops, calling it necessary to allow them to operate at their "absolute best.”

The screenings will be conducted annually as part of service members' required medical screenings for those 30 and older, he said. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be tested. In a video on social media, Hegseth said receiving testosterone replacement therapy would be voluntary.

In the video, Hegseth simply refers to troops, though it appears he is talking about only testing men in uniform for hormone irregularities.

The move comes as other Trump administration officials have begun to advocate for men to have easier access to testosterone replacement therapies, but the messaging from Hegseth and others blends known science on the hormone with broader, and less substantiated, claims.

Bank of Canada says food inflation likely to remain high for rest of 2026

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada says food inflation is likely to remain high through the second half of the year as the war in Iran pushes the cost of fuel and farming higher.

In its monetary policy report, the central bank says higher energy prices will continue to weigh on the cost of fertilizer, which is highly dependent on natural gas, as well as other agricultural input costs.

Overall, the central bank is forecasting inflation will slow to 2.5 per cent over the second half of 2026, after hitting 3.2 per cent in May.

The central bank says its forecast for inflation is highly dependent on developments in the Middle East, and although oil prices have come down from their recent peak in April, they remain volatile as hostilities between the U.S. and Iran picked up again last weekend.

What a way to fly — if you’re rich

When my husband and I were catching a flight from Roatán, Honduras, to Toronto earlier this year, we shared a taxi to the airport with an acquaintance.

He was an amiable guy and we made small talk. I noticed he got jostled travelling over the bumpy island roads same as we did, even though he was one of those annoyingly well-put-together travellers who seemed unfazed by the crushing humidity that was making my hair stick to my neck and forehead. Perhaps he was wearing one of those breathable fabrics that wicks away moisture.

And though I had heard he had travelled to many parts of the world, I noticed his luggage wasn’t quite as “seasoned” as ours.

We shook hands at departures, and the light rhythmic whir of his pristine wheelie bag quickly faded as he melted into the throng at Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport while we were still gathering our bags.

Home residents turn to agency after operator lays off 70 staff who unionized

Residents of a Winnipeg retirement home have taken matters into their own hands after the majority of the facility’s home-care aides were laid off following their unionization.

A committee of residents have banded together to work with a private agency to staff Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence after many of its existing aides complete their final shift on Monday.

“It is heartbreaking because there are a lot of vulnerable people here who are not capable of advocating for themselves,” said Joelle Robinson, who has lived at the home since 2023 after she suffered a brain aneurysm. “We’re trying very hard to make it so that our residents aren’t completely up the creek.”

Robinson, a retired lawyer, joined Terry Hopkinson and several other residents of the South Tuxedo home to create a committee and send out a request for proposal to eight companies that specialized in seniors care.

Buckled concrete gives drivers the heave-ho

Highways, local roads and sidewalks have buckled and broken thanks to extreme heat in recent days, wreaking havoc with travel.

Garth Thomson was driving on the Perimeter Highway, just north of Assiniboia Downs, around 4 p.m. Sunday when he suddenly came upon a major gap in the road.

“There was a big break in the highway, which was the heaving. I had about four seconds to decide what I was going to do. So, I kind of hit my brakes and drove more towards the centre, where the big chunks weren’t (located),” said Thomson. “It happened so fast … there were big chunks (of concrete), probably a foot (per) square, sticking up.”

His convertible had bumper damage and a hole in its gas tank, he said.