Robot umpires are coming to MLB. Here’s how they work

NEW YORK (AP) — Robot umpires are coming to the big leagues in 2026 after Major League Baseball’s 11-man competition committee on Tuesday approved use of the Automated Ball/Strike System.

ABS will be introduced in the form of a challenge system in which the human umpire makes each call, which can be appealed to the computer. Robot umpires have been tested in the minor leagues since 2019, with recent testing done at Triple-A since 2022, MLB spring training this year and at this summer's All-Star Game in Atlanta.

Here's what to know about MLB's robot umps.

How does the Automated Ball-Strike System work?

Another subdivision, another city problem

So, here we go again folks. We just get the protection of the Lemay Forest done and dusted and bingo, there’s another proposed subdivision for 23 homes on two-acre flood plain lots right across the Red River from the Lemay on the old Daman Farm site.

Rogers wins gold, sets Canadian record in hammer throw at world championships

TOKYO - Camryn Rogers set the tone early in the women's hammer throw at the world athletics championships Monday with an impressive opening toss of 78.09 metres.

Good enough for a world title. Not good enough for Rogers.

The 26-year-old from Richmond, B.C., put the competition out of reach with her second throw of 80.51 metres to claim her second straight world championship gold medal in dominant fashion.

Rogers's winning throw broke her own Canadian record and is the second longest ever behind the world record of 82.98 set by Poland's Anita Wlodarczyk in 2016. Rogers's previous personal best was 78.88 metres.

‘As we grow, our roots only grow deeper’: Red River Mutual insurance company celebrates 150 years

If Red River Mutual was an ice cream flavour, it would be rhubarb.

Scratch that. Red River Mutual has an ice cream flavour — and it is rhubarb.

Earlier this year, the mutual insurance company — which is headquartered in Altona and has a regional office in Winnipeg — partnered with Chaeban Ice Cream to create a special, limited edition flavour. Red River Mutual Rhubarb includes fresh pieces of the titular vegetable along with crisp clusters made using rolled oats, flour, brown sugar, butter and almonds.

The collaboration is part of Red River Mutual’s ongoing 150th anniversary celebrations, and the rhubarb is a nod to the company’s roots in southern Manitoba’s Pembina Valley.

Running down Terry Fox’s dream

In an era when today’s endurance feats seemingly defy human limits, his accomplishments still marvel.

In 1980, a curly-haired young man dipped a prosthetic right leg in the Atlantic Ocean in St. John’s, Nlfd., before embarking on a cross-country journey to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

With his signature hop-step running gait, Terry Fox, often only wearing grey shorts, a white cotton T-shirt with the words Marathon of Hope stencilled on the front, and blue adidas shoes, ran an average of 42 kilometres, or the equivalent of a full marathon, for 143 days. In total, he tallied 5,373 kilometres spanning six provinces.

His physical journey ended Sept. 1 of that year just shy of Thunder Bay when the cancer that had claimed his leg at age 18 had returned in his lungs. He died 10 months later, shortly before his 23rd birthday. However, his dream of raising millions of dollars for cancer research never faded.

Winnipeg’s transit system has changed. Here’s your survival guide.

Winnipeg Transit's bus network is undergoing a complete transformation on June 29. The Free Press has created a survival guide to help you navigate the new system.

‘I hope that we don’t lose the town’: Snow Lake residents get mandatory evacuation order

Another wildfire-threatened town in northern Manitoba began a mandatory evacuation Friday, while a 140-kilometre-long blaze threatened multiple communities in two provinces and put evacuees on tenterhooks.

Snow Lake, home to about 1,100 people, ordered residents to get out before noon Saturday and head to an evacuation reception centre in Winnipeg if they need a place to stay.

“I put the sprinkler on my home, and locked the door and left,” resident Caroline Denby told the Free Press during her roughly seven-hour drive to Winnipeg. “I hope that we don’t lose the town. Everybody getting out is the main thing. I really trust our (fire) crew, and believe they’re really wonderful at what they do.”

Town officials started planning for a potential evacuation as early as about two weeks ago. A voluntary evacuation began Tuesday. Denby was ready to go when it became mandatory.

‘Pray for rain’: wildfire races toward Flin Flon

Premier Wab Kinew urged Manitobans to remain calm Friday, a pivotal day in the war on wildfires in which shifting winds sent flames bearing down on Flin Flon, more people had to be evacuated from more communities and desperately needed resources were promised by the United States.

“Keep calm and carry on,” Kinew told an afternoon news conference at the legislature.

He said the threat to Flin Flon, about 830 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, had become so severe that the mayor, council and the few others who remained after a citywide evacuation order issued Wednesday afternoon had no choice but to leave Friday.

“We had our health-care workers leave this morning… the only folks remaining on the ground are the firefighters and folks in the office of the fire commissioner and RCMP who are there to battle the blaze,” Kinew said.

Biking to the Viking (statue) a great way to burn off tasty local treats

GIMLI — There are many things I enjoy about travel: learning about different cultures, seeing historic sites, experiencing varieties of natural beauty and meeting people from around the world, to list just a few.

Heavy hearts, happy hearts

The marchers arrive at St. John's Park at almost exactly the minute predicted. They arrive in a great orange wave, all wearing shirts the same colour. They arrive led by the drum, and the riders on horseback, and the tendrils of smudge that curl over Main Street, cleansing the path to the park where the powwow is underway.

"Are we all going to fit into the park, guys?" one young woman gasps, laughing as she surveys the scene.

In a way they do, in a way they don't. For hours, the people flow into the park from all directions. They flow by the hundreds, and then the thousands. They flow until the fields show less green than orange, until lines for the porta-potties stretch into the dozens, until the whole park is alive with laughter and conversation.

The crowd looks like Manitoba. It contains faces of all ages, all races. Most of the people here are Indigenous, but on this day they are joined in solidarity by people of all nations; a movement, generations in the making, to call for a way forward, to call for action on reconciliation, to call for justice for Indigenous people.

WAG's angular architecture combines form, function in a building both timeless and of its time

Asked to talk about the Winnipeg Art Gallery building, Stephen Borys pauses for a moment.

“If I had to describe it in one word, it would be ‘timeless,’” says Borys, current director and CEO of the WAG.

Over the course of the Qaumajuq project, Borys found himself looking at photographs of the original WAG structure, designed by Hong Kong-born Canadian architect Gustavo da Roza, from its 1971 opening right up to the present.

“It’s one of Canada’s significant late modernist buildings,” Borys states. “But you look at these photos, and other than the make of cars and the way people dress, it’s hard to put a date on. And that is something that speaks not just of great architecture. It has a resonance beyond a style or a period.”

Custom-crafted dog kennels more plush than penal

SELKIRK — One of late, standup comedian George Carlin’s best-loved shticks revolved around how, as a kid, his parents would command him to his bedroom for hours on end whenever he misbehaved. That never seemed like much of a punishment, he’d explain in his trademark, wry tone, given that’s where all his “stuff” was, the punch line being if his mom and dad really wanted to teach him a lesson, they would have banished him to their room, instead.

Carlin’s bit came to mind recently during an interview with Matt and Kaelyn Proutt, owners of M+K Wood Co., a Selkirk-based enterprise that turns out hand-crafted, wooden dog kennels that, at first glance, could easily be mistaken for a fashionable end table or armoire.

Three years ago, the married couple brought home Callie, a Labrador-English bulldog mix. They purchased a conventional, wire crate during her puppy phase, which they placed her inside as a form of discipline if she nabbed something from a dinner plate or destroyed a throw pillow. Except after they replaced her metal lair with one Matt fashioned out of spruce wood, which Kaelyn subsequently stained to match their living room decor, they discovered it no longer served its intended, penal purpose.

“Originally, the kennel was for when she was naughty. But because she seemed to enjoy the new one so much, we had to start leaving the door open all the time, so she could go inside whenever she felt like it,” Kaelyn says with a chuckle, seated next to Matt on a couch steps away from their pooch’s hideaway.

Winnipeg teen representing Canada at World Amateur Long Drive Championship

A Winnipeg teen known for her prowess on the tee box will be launching bombs on behalf of Canada next month in Chicago.

Hannah Penner, 18, will don the red and white as part of a contingent of 20 golfers set to represent the nation at the 2021 World Amateur Long Drive Championship, set for Sept. 11-19.

She's headed to the Windy City but doesn't require a strong breeze at her back to routinely crush the ball well over 250 yards or, occasionally, eclipse the 300-yard mark.

Penner, one of four women in the group, said she's thrilled about the chance to compete against others with the same unique skillset.

Charleswood residents fume over destroyed trees

Frustrated residents are calling on the city and province to get to the root of the problem that led to the destruction of nearly two dozen mature trees in Charleswood on the weekend.

Early Saturday morning, a building moving company began to move a display home near the corner of Roblin Boulevard and Scotswood Drive. The home was too wide to clear mature trees along Roblin’s median.

When Winnipeg Police Service officers arrived to provide a previously scheduled escort for the movers at about 7 a.m. they discovered 17 trees had been cut down, allegedly by the driver of the vehicle hauling the house, police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said.

“Immediately, upon determining that the trees had been cut and linking it to this move, the move was halted and, ultimately, the driver (was) arrested,” said Carver.

Treating the fever while ignoring the infection

At any moment in Manitoba’s hospital system, three patients may be waiting.

One is in the emergency room, waiting to be assessed.

A second has been assessed, admitted to hospital, and is waiting in the emergency department for an upstairs bed.

A third sits upstairs in that hospital bed. Their acute problem has resolved, but they cannot safely go home because home care, supportive housing, rehabilitation or long-term care is not ready.

Councillors identify weakness in homeless camp enforcement

Two Winnipeg councillors say there must be close co-ordination with railways to deal with homeless camps on rail property because the sites fall outside city jurisdiction.

“Despite our encampment policy clearly identifying these locations as unsafe and requiring action, there was a lack of response from the city, including limited participation in efforts to connect individuals with appropriate supports and services,” said Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre).

The city centre committee passed a joint motion by Gilroy and Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge - East Fort Garry) last week that calls for a review of the city’s response to camps on railway-owned land.

While the encampment bylaw prohibits camps from being located within 50 metres of a rail line, the city has limited authority to act when those encampments are on railway property, which is considered private land.

Unintended consequences of bike-safety policy

Remember the law of unintended consequences in the future, when we discover that cyclist deaths rise despite investments in bike safety.

Ruling against Aboriginal title on private land is allowed to stand by high court

A New Brunswick ruling that Aboriginal title cannot be declared over private land has been allowed to stand by the Supreme Court of Canada, giving British Columbia an avenue to win its appeal in the landmark Cowichan Tribes case, B.C.'s attorney general said Thursday.

Niki Sharma said the high court's refusal to hear an appeal by the Wolastoqey First Nation in the case involving Aboriginal title in New Brunswick gives B.C. a "clear path" for an appeal in the Cowichan case, which has cast doubt on the primacy of private property rights.

"When it's the same legal issues that we are dealing with here, I think that bodes well for our arguments, and the appeals that we are seeking in B.C.," she said.

The mayor of Richmond, B.C., meanwhile said private property owners in the Cowichan Tribes title area should "breathe a little easier" in light of the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling.

Bear rescue takes RM to court over quarries

Manitoba’s only black bear rescue is asking the court to quash a pair of quarry approvals in the Rural Municipality of Rockwood, saying the operations will have devastating effects on its operation.

Manitoba Bear Rehabilitation Centre Inc. and its owners have asked the Court of King’s Bench to declare the RM approvals invalid. It also seeks an injunction to prevent extraction at the site, pending the court’s decision.

The application claims the limestone quarry approvals were unlawful and the municipality failed to conduct a fair, transparent, and procedurally adequate decision-making process.

In March, the RM held a public hearing for two quarry applications by Amrize Canada. Hundreds of letters opposing the operations were submitted to the RM and dozens of people attended the meeting to voice their concerns, Black Bear Rescue Manitoba co-owner Judy Stearns said at the time.

Vast marine conservation reserve, bigger than P.E.I., to protect B.C. central coast

An enormous national marine conservation reserve is being established on British Columbia's central coast, spanning an area larger than Prince Edward Island.

The protected area, named Mia-yaltwa Ha’lidzogm hoon, is the result of an agreement between six coastal First Nations and the provincial and federal governments.

An official says the area is around 6700 sq. km and will be operated by Parks Canada along with its Indigenous and federal partners.

The reserve is within the Great Bear Sea, a diverse marine ecosystem that covers more than half of B.C.'s coast and includes glass sponge reefs, salmon, killer whales and migrating humpbacks.

Coming up roses: City gardeners put ‘petal’ to the metal every spring to help Winnipeg blossom

They get little recognition, but the work they do every summer is admired by thousands across Winnipeg.

As the overnight frost clears for the season, flower beds and pots across the city will be filled and refreshed. Behind the effort is a team of 40 gardeners, injecting splashes of purple, gold, yellow and red into the cityscape.

David Domke, the city’s manager of parks and open space, said like the gardens they tend to, the team of green thumbs is diverse.

“It’s really a mixture of experienced and inexperienced people. A lot of the time, we’ve got some pretty serious gardeners,” he said. “We get them all over the place really, but they all have one thing in common; and that’s a real love of plants.”

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.