Record-setting volunteer army invades downtown to clean up trash

An annual event to clear away downtown trash attracted more than 1,200 volunteers Thursday and also sparked a new program that will offer additional cleanups.

The single-day Downtown Winnipeg BIZ spring cleanup attracted about 1,265 participants, setting a record. About 900 volunteers participated last year.

The agency cut off registration early this year to ensure there weren’t more volunteers than available supplies.

Due to the surge in interest, the BIZ is now offering to help set up smaller community cleanups over the next few months to keep the work going.

Discount stores drive Loblaw’s Q1 profit and sales, raises quarterly dividend

An emphasis on discount stores continues to pay off for Loblaw Cos. Ltd. as shoppers search for affordable groceries amid intensifying economic headwinds.

"The ongoing outperformance of our hard-discount banners — Maxi and No Frills — was a key driver of (the) success, reinforcing their vital role in helping Canadians manage affordability," chief executive Per Bank told financial analysts on Wednesday after the retailer reported its first-quarter results.

The earnings report noted that the discount grocery banners outperformed for the owner of Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart, while its drugstore business saw growth in prescription drugs, particularly in sales of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic.

Loblaw also raised its quarterly dividend by 10 per cent to 15.5 cents per common share.

Astronomers believe they’ve detected an atmosphere around a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike.

Just 300 miles (500 kilometers) or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system's smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

“This is an amazing development, but it sorely needs independent verification. The implications are profound if verified,” said Southwest Research Institute's Alan Stern, the lead scientist behind NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond. He was not involved in the study.

The finding offers fresh insight into our solar system’s farthest, coldest objects in a region known as the Kuiper Belt. Researchers used three telescopes in Japan to observe the object in 2024 as it passed in front of a background star, briefly dimming the starlight.

Census data does much more than determine population

The children of families who live in public housing in Tuxedo are more likely to graduate from high school, go to college or university, and less likely to need income assistance when they become adults than their counterparts who live just off Main Street in the North End.

How do we know this? The national census.

Officially known as the Census of Population, in the next few weeks, an estimated 41 million Canadians will receive this year’s census to fill in the boxes that reflect their lives. Most will receive the short form, which census officials say should take only five to 10 minutes to fill out. But 25 per cent of Canadians will receive the lengthier long-form census, which includes more demographic questions, and takes about a half-hour or so to complete, depending on the size of the household.

It’s only when the numbers are tallied that we will know exactly how many people there are in the country.

Innocuous critter or varmint to vanquish? Debating best approach to Richardson’s ground squirrel long a Prairie predicament

A peculiar debate brewed in the pages of Saskatchewan’s newspapers in 2001.

It did not concern post-9/11 security or squabbles over federal gun and environmental policies, though it did evoke other perennial Canadian political tensions.

It had to do with gophers.

Saskatchewan’s NDP government was choosing an animal to symbolize the province, and the suggestion of a gopher was driving some squirrelly.

Antisemitism on the rise, becoming normalized, B’nai Brith warns

Canada is in the throes of a national antisemitism crisis, says B’nai Brith Canada.

The organization’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents reports 6,800 in 2025, 6,248 of which involved online hate.

That is a 9.3 per cent increase over 2024, when the total was 6,219, and it represents the highest total since 1995, said B’nai Brith, the country’s oldest human rights organization dedicated to eradicating racism, antisemitism and hatred.

The biggest spike in antisemitism occurred in 2023, when the number of incidents rose from 2,769 in 2022 to 5,791 following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Shortage of housing for Indigenous seniors in city raising concerns ahead of northern flood, fire evacuations

A small group of women elders is expressing concerns about a lack of urban housing for Indigenous seniors, warning the crisis will only worsen as flood and wildfire evacuations uproot more from their communities.

Manitoba crypto companies say provincial plans would put them out of business

WINNIPEG - Manitoba's plan to charge cryptocurrency operations higher electricity rates and curtail power at peak times will drive businesses under, officials with two companies told a legislature committee.

"If this goes through, our business goes bankrupt and a lot of families will be impacted," Guildo Theriault, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gator Mining, told a committee hearing Wednesday night.

The government has introduced two bills in the legislature that are aimed at controlling the growing demand on Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro's electrical grid.

One bill would charge cryptocurrency operations and data centres up to 100 per cent higher rates for electricity. The other would allow Manitoba Hydro to temporarily reduce power to cryptocurrency operators at peak times in order to ensure stability of the grid.

Report on state of rural Manitoba’s economy ‘exciting work’

Declining municipal populations and workforce-bound immigrants are highlighted in a first-of-its-kind report detailing Manitoba’s rural communities.

High fuel prices driving up shipping costs for northern grocers

Whether it's Florida oranges, Colombian coffee or even homegrown items from another province, food has often travelled a long way before it reaches grocery stores in Canada.

The supply chain gets even longer for communities in the Far North.

Typically, groceries are loaded onto a truck and taken to a launch point in cities like Ottawa or Winnipeg. They're then flown, or shipped by sea, to finally reach the shelves of remote northern grocery stores.

It's an expensive journey. By the time groceries reach northern communities, the added transport costs mean items are priced significantly higher than what most Canadians pay at the grocery store — and even more for fresh and perishable produce.

In praise of the deliberately slower lane

Before I begin this story, I should first confess that I once suffered from a serious affliction — that nasty urban disease known as road rage.

Wooden elevator reduced to rubble after towering over Austin for 75 years

With the demolition of the wooden grain elevator in Austin, a community about 130 kilometres west of Winnipeg, the Manitoba Historical Society estimates there are only 114 such structures remaining in the province.

Indigenous Winnipeggers undercounted, underserved: report

Winnipeg’s First Nations and Métis population may be vastly undercounted, raising questions about how governments fund services for Indigenous communities, a new report says.

The new estimate, contained in the “Our Health Counts First Nations & Métis Winnipeg” report, says the population could be four times larger than what was recorded by the 2021 census. The report pegs the population of First Nations and Métis people in Winnipeg at between 248,000 and 379,000 people based on its survey of 1,090 adults and 306 children, most of whom identified as First Nations or Métis.

In contrast, the 2021 census recorded 90,000 Indigenous people in the city.

The study was produced by a partnership of the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre of Winnipeg, the Well Living House Action Research Centre, and Indigenous health organizations.

U.S. leads spike in applications for Canadian citizenship by descent

OTTAWA - Interest in Canadian citizenship by descent among citizens in a handful of countries — especially the United States — surged after the federal government passed a new law clarifying the rules.

C-3, which took effect on Dec. 15, 2025, allows someone born outside Canada before that date to a Canadian parent who also was born outside Canada to file a citizenship claim. Anyone born or adopted on or after Dec. 15, 2025 can make a claim as long as the parent, who was also born or adopted abroad, spent at least three years in Canada before their child's birth or adoption.

The law was drafted and passed in response to a 2023 Ontario Superior Court order that found a law on citizenship by descent passed by Stephen Harper's government was unconstitutional.

That Harper-era law said Canadians who were born abroad could only pass down their citizenship if their children were born in Canada.

Jury finds that Ticketmaster and Live Nation had an anticompetitive monopoly over big concert venues

NEW YORK (AP) — A jury found Wednesday that entertainment giant Live Nation, which hosts tens of thousands of concerts a year, and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big venues.

The ruling, in a lawsuit brought by dozens of states, won’t immediately bring relief for concertgoers who have long complained about high ticket prices. But it could cost Live Nation hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps force the company to sell some of its concert venues when the judge hands out penalties later.

Among other things, the jury found Ticketmaster's anticompetitive practices led to people in 22 states paying an extra $1.72 per ticket, which the judge could order the companies to pay back.

A jury in New York deliberated for four days before reaching its decision. State attorneys general who sued Live Nation said the verdict could potentially lead to lower ticket prices for music fans.

Province boosts CFS funding by $29M

The Manitoba government has earmarked an additional $29.2 million to bolster supports for children, youth and families in the child welfare system, but critics say it isn’t enough.

‘Desperately missed’ victims honoured as B.C. marks 10 years of toxic drug emergency

VICTORIA -

Paula Beardy said her grandson Sheldon Beardy was a good kid.

He would have turned 28 on Monday. But his mother died last year, and after attending her memorial service in August, Sheldon also died of a drug overdose.

Paula Beardy said Sheldon used to stay with her a lot and she misses his happy smile.

‘Just staggering’: city’s homelessness crisis worsening, new data reveals

Winnipeg’s homelessness crisis is accelerating, not easing, as new data released Monday shows more people are falling into homelessness than are finding a way out.

Statistics Canada reports wealth and income gaps grew in 2025

The gap between Canada's richest and poorest grew last year as financial markets gained while interest payouts declined and the job market softened, said Statistics Canada on Monday.

The agency says the income gap, measuring the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent and those in the bottom 40 per cent, reached 46.7 percentage points in 2025.

The result compared with a gap of 46.4 percentage points a year earlier.

The wider gap came as the lowest-income households saw wages rise slower than the overall average, and saw their investment income fall because of lower interest payments on savings, the agency said.

Fireworks crackdown might be in Winnipeg’s future

A plan to crack down on some fireworks displays could be considered next year, amid concerns that many are done illegally.

“There are more fireworks complaints than permits issued for fireworks, leading to an understanding that many fireworks that generate complaints are set off illegally,” writes Lisa Gilmour, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s assistant chief of community risk reduction, in a new report.

WFPS received 306 calls about fireworks last year, while 144 consumer and professional permits were approved to set them off.

In Winnipeg, people who set off fireworks without a permit can presently be fined up to $500. To legally use fireworks, individuals must obtain the permit, be at least 18 years old and set off the devices at least 100 feet (30 metres) away from all buildings and trees.

Artemis II astronauts make long-distance call to the space station as they head home from the moon

HOUSTON (AP) — Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.