Students compete to be ‘Reality Champion’

Middle school competitors deferred to their digital magnifying glass as they tried to determine whether King Charles was, in fact, pictured with a greasy plate of pepperoni pizza last month.

Health advice is all over social media. Here’s how to vet claims

Health and wellness advice is available in abundance on social media — from trendy to informative to straight-up disinformation — and you're far from alone in seeing it.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults — and around half of those under 50 — get health information from social media or podcasts.

Researchers also looked at the social media profiles of 6,828 health and wellness influencers with at least 100,000 followers. Only about 4 in 10 list a background as a health professional. About one-third called themselves coaches, about 3 in 10 described themselves as entrepreneurs and about 1 in 10 cited their own life experience, like being a parent.

Despite the wide range of expertise, about half of people who get health and wellness information from influencers said the influencers help them better understand their own health, while about one-third said it hasn't made much difference. About 1 in 10 said it made them more confused.

Kinew threatens billion-dollar fines for tech giants ignoring social-media ban for youths

Manitoba may impose billion-dollar fines on tech companies that violate a proposed ban on social media and AI chatbots for youths under the age 16.

Youth social media ban likely to begin in schools, provincial education minister says

The first phase of a provincial social media ban for youth will likely start with Manitoba schools, which already restrict cellphone use, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said Monday.

Child advocates call for online harms bill covering AI chatbots, gaming

OTTAWA -

Ottawa can't afford to wait any longer to introduce new online harms legislation that covers AI chatbots and video games, children’s advocates and about a dozen kids told a press conference on Parliament Hill Monday.

They urged the government to move quickly to introduce its promised online harms bill.

"This is a David and Goliath battle — kids and parents up against a multi-billion dollar tech industry that is profiting off of harming our children," Sara Austin, founder and CEO of Children First Canada, told reporters.

Bird Lake man says freeing moose from ice a ‘rush’

A Manitoba man says he’s honoured to have been able to help rescue a moose stranded in the ice in Nopiming Provincial Park.

Former chief psychiatrist legally challenges Manitoba’s detox detention laws

Manitoba’s former chief psychiatrist is challenging the constitutionality of a controversial law allowing the province to incarcerate intoxicated people for up to 72 hours, claiming that it will harm those suffering from mental illness or disabilities.

Dr. Jim Simm, an outspoken critic of the Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act, said in an exclusive interview on Sunday that he is seeking leave from the Court of King’s Bench to challenge the law violates provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“We’re talking about human beings who are suffering,” Simm said. “They may be acting badly but to be putting them in solitary confinement — it’s just wrong.”

As it stands now, the legislation allows someone who appears intoxicated to be held for 24 hours at a “detention location,” and then held for up to 72 additional hours at a “preventative care centre.”

Meet neffy: Health Canada approves epinephrine nasal spray for anaphylaxis

TORONTO - Health Canada has approved the first needle-free epinephrine treatment for severe allergic reactions: a nasal spray called neffy.

ALK Canada, which purchased the rights to distribute the drug, says the two-milligram treatment could be on the market as soon as this summer.

The drug was approved for adults and pediatric patients who weigh at least 30 kilograms, which is roughly 66 pounds. A one-milligram dose has been approved in the United States for kids between 15 and 30 kilograms, but not in Canada.

As it stands, epinephrine auto-injectors — a single-use pre-filled device known by the brand name EpiPen — are the only emergency treatment option available for allergic reactions.

‘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.

Pioneering female NFL official sues league over her treatment and firing

NEW YORK (AP) — In a new lawsuit, one of the first three women to officiate an NFL game describes her three years at the pinnacle of her profession as a descent into the grip of a sexist institution unable to treat a woman as an equal.

Robin DeLorenzo cited gender-based scrutiny, humiliation and open hostility among the indignities she suffered from 2022 to 2025 as a league official.

The lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, filed Friday, sought reinstatement along with unspecified damages.

Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesperson, said in an email that DeLorenzo was terminated after three seasons of documented underperformance.

Verdicts against Meta, YouTube validate concerns long raised by parents, child safety advocates

For years, parents, teenagers, pediatricians, educators and whistleblowers have pushed the idea that social media is detrimental to young people's mental health and can lead to addiction, eating disorders, sexual exploitation and suicide.

For the first time, juries in two states took their side.

In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for harms to children using their services. In New Mexico, a jury determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Tech watchdog groups, families and children’s advocates cheered the jury decisions.

Teenagers sue Musk’s xAI claiming image-generator made sexually explicit images of them as minors

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Three teenagers in Tennessee sued Elon Musk's xAI this week, claiming the company's image-generation tools were used to morph real photos of them into explicitly sexual images.

The high school students, who are seeking to proceed under pseudonyms, filed the lawsuit in California, where xAI — Musk's artificial intelligence company — has its headquarters. They are seeking class-action status in order to represent what the lawsuit says are thousands of victims like themselves who either are minors or were minors when sexually explicit images of them were created.

According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe 1 was alerted anonymously in December that someone was distributing sexually explicit images of her on a social media website.

“At least five of these files, one video and four images, depicted her actual face and body in settings with which she was familiar, but morphed into sexually explicit poses," the lawsuit states. It claims the person distributing the images knew Doe and used xAI's image generation tools to turn real photos of her into sexually abusive ones. One of the images was taken from a homecoming photo. Another was taken from a high school yearbook.

‘Extreme’ workouts drive spike in ‘rhabdo’ cases among young N.L. women, says doctor

ST. JOHN'S - Intense workouts and social media pressure are driving a spike in rhabdomyolysis cases in young women in Newfoundland and Labrador, a physician with the province's health authority said Thursday.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services said it confirmed about 20 cases in the eastern part of the province in the past six months. Doctors typically expect to see a few cases a year, said Dr. Richard Barter, the clinical chief of emergency medicine in the authority's eastern urban zone.

"The cases that we've seen have been exclusively exertional rhabdomyolysis, and this is when a person takes their physical workouts to an extreme level," Barter said in an interview.

Rhabdomyolysis, or "rhabdo," occurs when muscle tissue is severely damaged and breaks down, leaking enzymes and other substances into the blood. The painful condition can cause urine to turn the colour of black tea and it can lead to kidney damage, Barter said.

Accessible, inclusive sports giving elementary-age phys-ed students a lesson in empathy

Beaverlodge School phys-ed teacher Jordan Adam has launched a new inclusive sports program to expose students to lesser-known activities and spark discussion about accessibility.

New football chinstrap designed to lessen force of blows to facemask

Erin Hanson wants to make taking it on the chin in football much safer in Canada.

Guardian Sports officially launched the Guardian Flex chinstrap on Thursday for individual and team sale, with the CFL being among the leagues to have reviewed the item. The product has been engineered to reduce the impact of blows to the facemask.

According to the company, the chinstrap reduces Head Acceleration Response Metric (HARM) scores by up to 35 per cent and targets facemask impacts, which research suggests account for about half of all hits and are an area where traditional helmets underperform.

The chinstrap will be far less noticeable to fans than the Atlanta-based company’s Guardian Cap. Introduced 14 years ago, the soft padded shell fits over a football helmet and is secured by elastic straps attached to the facemask.

Making the most of Winnipeg’s biggest opportunity

The critical moral test for any community is the world it leaves for its children.

Without a doubt, Winnipeggers want all their city’s young people to have successful lives. Here are things we know make success possible: graduating from high school and avoiding disasters like addiction to drugs, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and becoming involved with the criminal justice system.

Most citizens understand this. And if they were told there are proven ways to make it much more likely for our wishes for Winnipeg’s young people to come true, they would probably say “Hey, let’s do more of that!”

But mostly, we don’t.

Google, Meta, push back on addiction claims in landmark social media trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors in a landmark social media case that seeks to hold tech companies responsible for harms to children got their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining defendants, Meta and YouTube.

At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. KGM and the cases of two other plaintiffs have been selected to be bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.

Comparing social media platforms to casinos and addictive drugs, lawyer Mark Lanier delivered opening statements Monday in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial that seeks to hold Instagram owner Meta and Google's YouTube responsible for addictive features and harms to children who use their products. Two other defendants, TikTok and Snap, have settled the case.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt spoke of the disagreement within the scientific community over social media addiction, with some researchers believing it doesn’t exist, or that addiction is not the most appropriate way to describe heavy social media use.

Creating a city where kids can safely walk, bike to school

If there’s one thing that all Winnipeggers can agree on, other than potholes, it’s the chaos of getting kids to and from school. The frustration extends to households without children who live a short distance to local schools and must deal with traffic jams twice a day.

Coun. Markus Chambers brought the fury of his ward residents into the public eye in early January when he made the first moves on a “stop-drop-go” motion to limit parking to one minute in designated school zones.

How did we get here? Local news outlets asked on their social media for stories from Winnipeggers about their school travel experiences. Comments flowed in about childhoods spent walking and biking to school with friends, and how that has been replaced with door-to-door drives. Meanwhile, MPI reported in October that 36 kids were hit by drivers in the last year. So what changed in the last few decades?

First, there are far more vehicles on our roads, and those vehicles are much bigger and heavier than cars of the past.

Cold ice, warm hearts at WASAC youth camp

Even the frigid weather couldn’t chill the warm smiles on Saturday morning, as Indigenous youth from across Manitoba got to take a spin over the ice with some former NHL stars.

That was just one of the weekend highlights at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre’s (WASAC) camp, which brought dozens of First Nations and Metis youth from Duck Bay, Pauingassi, Lac Brochet, Shamattawa, Bunibonibee Cree Nation and Pine Creek to Camp Manitou for a day of fun and education around sport and healthy living.

The eighth-annual camp kicked off Friday night, when campers attended the Murray Sinclair Memorial Round Dance at the convention centre.

Saturday’s busy activity slate included yoga classes, a cooking workshop with chefs from Indigenous-owned local restaurant Feast, and a casual skate with local Jets alumni and friends, including Winkler’s Ray Neufeld, Winnipeg’s Derek Meech, and longtime NHL goalie Trevor Kidd.

Sexual extortion of children for money is on the rise: financial intelligence agency

OTTAWA - Canada's financial intelligence agency is warning of an increase in cases of sexual extortion of children for profit — acts that often are linked to organized crime.

This type of online blackmail involves threats to distribute sexual images or videos of a victim if they don't send the perpetrators cash or, in some cases, more pictures.

In a newly published alert, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada advises banks and other businesses to be on the lookout for specific dealings and patterns that could point to extortion or other forms of child sexual exploitation.

The federal centre, known as Fintrac, identifies cash linked to money laundering by analyzing millions of pieces of information each year from banks, insurance companies, securities dealers, money service businesses, real estate brokers, casinos and others.

Australia will enforce a social media ban for children under 16 despite a court challenge

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court.

The Sydney-based Digital Freedom Project said it had filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on Wednesday to a law due to take effect on Dec. 10 banning Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on specified platforms.

Communications Minister Anika Wells referred to the challenge when she later told Parliament her government remained committed to the ban taking effect on schedule.

“We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by Big Tech. On behalf of Australian parents, we stand firm,” Wells told Parliament.

Trustees want say in school zone redesign

Trustees are calling on Winnipeg City Council to redesign 30 km/h school zones to better protect everyone who lives, learns and works in their wards — and they want a say in an infrastructure makeover.

For Ryan Palmquist, an active cyclist, dad and first-term trustee, road safety is both a passion and frequent source of frustration.

His son’s trek to École Varennes serves as a daily reminder of why he remains committed to the cause.

“My oldest son crosses a crosswalk — every single day, twice a day, to go to school — where a kid died,” the father of three said.