UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday endorsed a new world map that represents Africa more accurately in its larger size, a culmination of a recent campaign led by African countries and advocacy groups.

Friday’s resolution, which was sponsored by Togo and backed by members of the African Union, was passed with 164 member states voting in favor. Only the U.S. voted against it while six other countries — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine — abstained.

The vote encourages governments and institutions around the world to replace the traditional Mercator map, commonly used since the 16th Century, with the Equal Earth projection that advocates and geographers say shows locations more accurately.

The Mercator projection shows Greenland and Africa as appearing to be about the same size whereas in the Equal Earth projection that shows continents in their true proportions, Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland.

‘Quite a journey’: dozens move into transitional housing downtown

Dozens of residents have moved into transitional housing units in a former university building in downtown Winnipeg.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said 42 residents have moved into suites on the third and fourth floors of a seven-storey building previously owned by Providence University College and Theological Seminary. There will be space for as many as 118 people who were in encampments or otherwise homeless.

The remaining units under renovation are expected to be ready and occupied in the coming weeks, Smith said.

“This has been two years in the making,” the minister said at a media event with residents, staff, neighbours and supporters. The building cost the province $24.4 million to purchase and renovate.

Councillors want city to revamp homeless camp approach

Three Winnipeg councillors say the city uses lack of housing as an excuse to drop the ball on managing public spaces affected by the homeless crisis.

Sherri Rollins, Cindy Gilroy and John Orlikow want bureaucrats to develop a co-ordinated, proportionate and measured approach to maintaining safe, accessible and usable public spaces.

On Friday, they put forward a motion at the final city centre committee meeting before the Oct. 28 election. Gilroy is the only one seeking re-election, in the Daniel McIntyre ward.

“Right now, we have de facto designated encampments. We have increasing social disorder that much of the sector is pointing toward our own policy and blaming it for causing the disruption to the whole entirety of the city and spreading the problem,” said Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry).

Insurance money spent, family waits for provincial flood aid

Three months after a once-in-a-lifetime rainstorm battered her home and caused extensive flooding, J’aime Killbery is still picking up the pieces while she waits for financial relief from the provincial government.

Killbery lives in Balmoral, north of Stonewall, in the rural municipality of Rockwood, one of the communities hardest-hit by the June 9 deluge. The RM declared a state of emergency after a record-breaking 250 mm of rainfall caused sewer backups and overland flooding.

The damage to the family home was immense. Their fully finished basement was destroyed by sewage water, meaning the walls and flooring needed to be ripped out and replaced.

While family is handling some repairs themselves to cut costs, every repair is expensive, Killbery said.

Changes to Canada’s climate now ‘irreversible,’ federal report says

OTTAWA - The impacts of climate change in Canada are now largely irreversible and average temperatures are expected to rise by at least 3.5 C by the end of the century, a new government report warns.

The report, published Thursday, is the second released by Environment and Climate Change Canada examining changes to Canada's climate. It was authored by nearly two dozen government and climate science experts.

It says that even if the world reaches net-zero emissions by 2075 — which would mean any greenhouse gases would be captured by nature or technology — the effects in Canada will be stark.

The report says those effects include a nearly 50 per cent increase in the area burned by wildfires and glaciers in Western Canada losing more than 75 per cent of their mass.

Manitoba expanding rent control threshold to $2,000 a month

WINNIPEG - The Manitoba government says it's following through on a commitment to expand rent control in the province.

It says renters paying up to $2,000 per month will be included in the province's rent-control program starting next year, up from the existing threshold of $1,670.

It says the expansion should mean at least 2,000 additional rental units will be covered by the program.

Landlords can only increase rents by three per cent next year for rent-control units, while the limit is 1.8 per cent this year.

Manitoba association pitches CentrePort for national food terminal

A Manitoba association is vying for federal dollars to build a major food terminal as Ottawa unrolls its national food security strategy.

Michael Mikulak, head of industry advocate group Food & Beverage Manitoba, said he’s in talks with several federal departments.

He’s envisioning a 120,000-square-foot site at CentrePort Canada, the trimodal inland port spanning parts of Winnipeg and the Rural Municipality of Rosser.

About 15,000 sq. ft. would become a production-focused commercial kitchen for Manitoba companies to rent as they grow. A warehouse to store and distribute food — from Manitoba and elsewhere — would consume most of the building, Mikulak said.

‘One-stop powwow shop’: Trail Creations opens doors to traditional, ceremonial clothing

Spoons hang on the wall — small, silver and, unlike most items in the shop, not for sale.

One from Saskatchewan, another from Florida. Each represents a place Jessica Lavallee and her family visited during a powwow circuit. The 32,000-kilometre trek led Jessica to 3096 Portage Ave.

She opened Trail Creations, a Winnipeg store selling materials to make traditional Indigenous garb, in the space last month.

“We want it to be a one-stop powwow shop,” Lavallee said.

Schwartz’s Deli swaps black cherry soda for local alternative as U.S. tariffs bite

On a typical summer day at Schwartz’s Deli, in Montreal, there's a lineup at the door as tourists and locals wait to get their smoked-meat sandwich. But now, something has changed.

Recognizing the value of phys-ed for kids

The message from Premier Wab Kinew and Education Minister Tracy Schmidt last week about the importance of exercise for young people was timely and important — but it is not new.

Committee vote brings outdoor learning facility one step closer for Riel school division

Plans for an outdoor education facility that would host Indigenous and land-based learning for the Louis Riel School Division are moving forward.

Bank of Canada set to grapple with renewed trade war pressures in rate decision

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada finds itself in a familiar dilemma this week as the escalating trade war with the United States casts an uncertain light over Wednesday's interest rate decision.

The central bank has kept its benchmark rate on hold at 2.25 per cent for nearly a year now.

Before trade talks between Canada and the United States fell apart earlier this month, economists and financial markets alike had widely expected the Bank of Canada would stick to the sidelines for the rest of the year and into 2027.

Recent tariff volleys have changed the economic context.

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

BRANDON — The Manitoba Labour Board has ordered the Western Star All Suites Hotel to pay nearly $138,000 in unpaid wages and administrative fees after it dismissed the appeals involving three foreign workers employed by the company.

In a decision dated Aug. 25, the board ordered 6692452 Manitoba Ltd. (doing business as Western Star All Suites Hotel), 1638185 Alberta Ltd. and company director P.X. to pay a total of $137,915.79 to the Employment Standards Branch for wages owed to foreign workers S.J., J.B. and G.R.

The decision was edited to protect the personal information of the employees, who worked at a hotel, reportedly in Melita, at different times and also lived there during their employment.

The board stated the employees were owed wages after hearing evidence about long working hours, irregular payments, inadequate employment records and working conditions.

Immigration board asks feds to better track temporary residents

OTTAWA - Canada needs to make further cuts to the number of temporary residents in the country and generate better tracking data when they leave the country, the head of an expert panel on immigration said.

Parisa Mahboubi chairs the C.D. Howe Institute's immigration targets council, which includes former immigration minister Jason Kenney and top academics in the field in its membership. The council is preparing a submission for the government's annual immigration levels consultation period.

The report comes two years after Canada began moving to cut down on the number of temporary residents, including foreign students and workers, as soaring immigration contributed to significant issues, including housing shortages and overburdened social services.

In July, Prime Minister Mark Carney said immigration was too high when he took office in 2025, and specifically blamed a loss of control of the intake of international students and temporary workers.

Icelandic voters reject a proposal to restart negotiations to join the European Union

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland's voters rejected restarting negotiations to join the European Union in a referendum that pitted concerns about geopolitical stability against keeping national control of Iceland’s prized fisheries, officials said Sunday.

Opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, the National Electoral Commission said. The result puts the divisive issue to rest for now — more than a decade after a euroskeptic government ended EU talks that had begun after the 2008 financial crisis.

The vote Saturday was held in the shadow of repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of nearby Greenland. Although Iceland is a NATO member, supporters said European solidarity would provide greater protection if Trump ever made similar threats toward the volcanic island.

Iceland’s left-leaning coalition government, elected in 2024, moved up the EU referendum it had planned for next year after Trump mistakenly named Iceland four times while speaking about his designs on Greenland.

Money struggle is real

You likely don’t need a survey to know Canada is a nation of stressed-out citizens.

We have plenty to worry about, and money is often among the leading stressors.

And yes, there are always surveys measuring our collective money-driven concerns, including the recent, inaugural Global Retirement Savers Study by T. Rowe Price.

The U.S.-based asset manager of more than $2 trillion globally found that more than four in 10 surveyed Canadians are financially stressed.

City advised 275 people in 72 camps as of July

A tally by the City of Winnipeg shows the number of people in encampments has fallen by a few hundred since last September.

A Friday presentation to city council members shows 245 people lived in 72 encampments across the city in July, compared with about 100 encampments with 700 people in September 2025.

“There’s some good progress that’s being made … The number of people in encampments is less than half of what it was last year,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The city did not provide numbers for July 2025. It has previously noted the number of encampments tends to increase in warmer months, which has happened each month since February 2026.

NDP trying to solve health-care problems from every angle — except the one likely to have the biggest impact

Winnipeg’s emergency-room wait times hit a record high in July, according to the latest data released Thursday by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The 90th-percentile wait for all emergency rooms and urgent-care sites hit a staggering 13.02 hours last month, the longest wait ever recorded since the WRHA began publishing monthly data.

Thirteen hours is not a wait, it’s an endurance test. And it’s getting worse.

The 90th percentile is the point at which nine out of 10 patients experienced a shorter wait and one in 10 waited even longer.

Using energy exports to punish U.S. would be unwise, Trans Mountain chief says

CALGARY - Disrupting southbound oil exports in retaliation for U.S. tariffs is not viable and would have serious consequences for Canada, said the chief executive of Trans Mountain Corp.

"Interdependencies between both countries are high," Mark Maki said in an interview Friday following the release of the Crown corporation's second-quarter results, which saw its pipeline to the Vancouver area running 94 per cent full.

"I hope people put down the shovels here pretty quick. We're hitting each other and we've got to stop that."

There have been calls to keep the option open of using Canada's natural resources as leverage in the latest trade flare-up. U.S. tariffs of 50 per cent on an array of Canadian goods worth $28 billion are in effect after Canada walked away from talks last week. Canada has since announced plans to hit back with countertarrifs and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened further levies.

United Nations talks in Mongolia expose growing drought crisis as climate impacts worsen

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Representatives from nearly 200 countries wrapped up United Nations desertification talks in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Friday, seeking ways to keep land productive as climate change heats the planet and degraded soils and landscapes lose their ability to hold water, produce food and support livelihoods.

Up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which organizes the biennial talks. Droughts are also emerging in areas that were not considered highly vulnerable a decade ago, said Yasmine Fouad, the convention’s executive secretary.

“Drought is coming coupled with the impact of climate change,” Fouad said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s becoming more frequent, more intense and more prolonged."

Countries left Ulaanbaatar without resolving one of the talks' key issues — whether to create a legally binding global drought agreement — postponing a decision until the next round of talks in Egypt in two years. The issue had already been deferred at the previous meeting two years ago.

At the city’s busiest fire and paramedic hall, first responders face a relentless workload

As a soft rain begins to fall between the concrete walls of “Hope Alley,” little feels further away than the place’s namesake.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews have been called to the narrow downtown passage, named by Al Wiebe, a formerly homeless man turned advocate. People regularly pass through here, moving between the shelters, drop-ins and resource centres clustered around Main Street between Logan and Higgins avenues.

Against a wall, as the sky switches into night mode, a man sits bleeding from his nose, seemingly unaware of how he ended up with blood running down his T-shirt.

His situation has already set Winnipeg’s emergency response network in motion.