Brazilian players from a Rio de Janeiro favela find hope and opportunities thanks to soccer

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When Brazilian João Victor Gonçalves began playing soccer in one of Rio de Janeiro ’s poorest and most violent favelas, little did he know the game would one day allow him to travel abroad and play in an international competition.

Last month, along with nine other young boys, he flew to Mexico to represent Brazil in the Street Child World Cup, a tournament with teams from 30 countries composed of boys from impoverished backgrounds, organized ahead of this year’s FIFA World Cup.

“I never could have imagined that one day this would happen, that I would represent my country, doing what I most love — playing soccer — in another country,” said Gonçalves, who is 18. The Brazil team went undefeated and won the tournament, enhancing the thrill of the experience.

Like many Brazilians, Gonçalves and his teammates grew up kicking a ball around and closely following members of the Seleção, Brazil’s national soccer team. They dream of one day becoming professional soccer players like their heroes.

Goldeyes hosted second school game of the season Wednesday

A sizeable chunk of inhabiting schools from around Friendly Manitoba came out to the Blue Cross Park to get a taste of what baseball is all about Wednesday.

The Winnipeg Goldeyes hosted their second school day of the year, filling the crowd with students from 78 different schools located throughout the province.

Goldeyes general manager Andrew Collier looks forward to these events every year as the stands are filled with smiling kids, whether they have a deep love for the sport or are just being introduced to it.

“They are really successful days of the year. Kids have a great time,” Collier said. “It’s nice to have a field trip and get out of school.”

Heat wave leaves schools sweltering

Classes are being cancelled as thermostats spike — up to 42 C, in one case reported to the teachers union — in schools without building-wide air conditioning.

Life at the speed of sound

I was only five years old when the Beatles broke up and yet their music has been the overarching soundtrack of my life.

Families department criticized for 2024 cyberattack

The Manitoba ombudsman is criticizing the families department’s service provider and security policies after data involving vulnerable Manitobans was accessed in a 2024 cyberattack.

Paramedic team to focus on overdoses in city’s core

With opioid-related emergencies overtaking alcohol-related calls for service in Winnipeg, the province is investing more than $1 million to ease pressure on front-line responders and improve overdose care.

The funding includes $802,000 for a three-month pilot project that will see a 24-7, two-person paramedic team respond to overdose calls in high-demand areas, including the downtown core, where many of the city’s shelters and support agencies are located. The pilot will start this month, the province said.

The province will also spend $150,000 on approximately 20 oxygen delivery devices to be managed by Main Street Project, which help when overdoses don’t respond to naloxone. Another $100,000 will be given to provide first aid and overdose response training for workers through St. John’s Ambulance and Manitoba Harm Reduction Network.

“We’ve been meeting quite regularly with the front-line organizations and this really came from them, and what they wanted and they need,” Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith told the Free Press Tuesday. “This was something that we could immediately respond to.”

Advocates call on Ottawa to limit nicotine use among youth, demand stricter measures

OTTAWA - Several health organizations are urging the federal government to bring down nicotine use among Canadians to less than five per cent of the population by 2045, as vaping among youth rises.

Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, says nicotine use has grown exponentially among Canadians aged 25 and under, which he says is a "huge concern."

Hagen said several published systematic reviews have shown that vaping creates a nicotine pathway in the brain — making them addicted to the substance, which makes youth more susceptible to starting smoking cigarettes.

"If that can't be satisfied by nicotine products like vaping products, they will find other ways to satisfy those cravings, including smoking."

Think you can beat the game? Don’t bet on it

Trying to watch sports on television these days means accepting a basic and deeply annoying reality: the game itself is no longer the main event.

No, the main event is the endless parade of ads for gambling apps marching across every commercial break, crammed into every spare inch of space not occupied by actual hockey players.

And man, are these ads terrible. Not morally — well, yes, morally too — but we’ll come back to that. I mean esthetically. These things are obnoxious.

If you’ve watched any amount of hockey lately, you know the drill: betting on games can turn you into a legend, a hero, the life of the party.

Bruno Van Bewer dribble vers les Bisons

Depuis l’âge de sept ans, la vie de Bruno Van Bewer tourne autour du basketball.

“Ma mère m’a inscrit dans un camp, et je suis tombé en amour avec le sport,” explique-t-il. Capitaine des Olympiens du Collège Jeanne-Sauvé, c’est alors qu’il évoluait au sein de l’équipe manitobaine aux Jeux du Canada l’été dernier qu’il a été approché par l’entraîneur des Bisons.

Il a donc commencé à assister à plusieurs entraînements de la formation de basketball avant que l’offre lui soit confirmée.

“Ils m’ont vu jouer et ils ont vraiment aimé. Après un bout de temps, ils m’ont dit qu’ils aimaient mon style et avaient une place pour moi dans leur équipe. C’est comme ça que ça s’est déroulé.”

Overcoming workplace conflicts, setting boundaries can create professional resilience

One of the clearest signs of professional maturity is the ability to continue working effectively with someone after a disagreement, misunderstanding or difficult chapter in the relationship.

Impulsive kids easy prey for addictive-by-design content

The allure of the screen is powerful, and despite working full-time in the realm of media literacy education, my home is not immune to the siren song of social media.

Gov. Gen. Simon launches mental health project for North, Indigenous communities

OTTAWA - Outgoing Gov. Gen. Mary Simon has launched a project to fund community-based mental health services in Northern and Indigenous communities.

The legacy project will be run with support from the Rideau Hall Foundation.

It is called Ajuinnata, an Inuktitut word that means "never give up." The project will begin in Inuit Nunangat.

Simon launched a mental health learning and listening tour in 2024 as one of her priorities in the viceregal office. She said the people she met made it clear the shortage of stable services in the North is an acute problem.

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.

Wilderness committee draws up plan to restore Nopiming after 2025 wildfire

One year ago, wildfires severely damaged cottage communities, backcountry campgrounds and popular canoe routes in Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba.

Manitoba Wilderness Committee campaigner Eric Reder says as the park and its boreal ecosystem recover, which will take decades, the province should embrace the opportunity to curtail industrial activity in the park and establish more robust protection for its natural and recreational assets.

“The Nopiming Provincial Park that existed prior to 2025 is gone,” a Wilderness Committee report released Thursday said. “Only an all-of-society recovery solution can bring back what we’ve lost.”

The wilderness committee says that solution involves a moratorium on new industrial activity, a commitment to conserve habitat for caribou herds, increased engagement with First Nations whose land overlaps with the park and investment in recreational infrastructure, including backcountry trails and canoe routes.

Chinese online retailer Temu hit with $232 million fine over unsafe toys and electronics

LONDON (AP) — Temu was hit with a 200 million euro ($232 million) fine Thursday after a European Union investigation found the Chinese online retailer failed to protect consumers from illegal products like toxic or hazardous toys and unsafe electronics.

The 27-nation EU's fine follows preliminary findings last year that Temu was exposing consumers to a high risk of products sold on its platform like baby toys and small electronics that didn't comply with EU consumer safety rules.

The bloc's executive arm issued the penalty under the Digital Services Act, or DSA, a wide-ranging rulebook that requires online platforms to do more to keep internet users safe from harmful content or dodgy goods, under the threat of hefty fines.

It's the second time Brussels has issued a fine under three-year-old DSA, following a $120 million penalty last year for Elon Musk's social media site X.

Gamification and memes lure young people to sports wagering apps, prediction markets

When Rory McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row, Kalshi shared a photo of him on Instagram with the words, “Wait he’s goated.” When a video of NBA player Damian Lillard recovering from an injury circulated online, Kalshi’s main competitor Polymarket posted, “The league is cooked.”

If you don’t know what either of those phrases mean, it's because you may not be the target audience.

The posts and hundreds of others like it are exposing younger people to prediction market platforms, where users can put money on the line for the outcomes of real-world events — or absurd ones like when the U.S. will confirm that aliens exist or whether Jesus Christ will return before 2027.

Once on the platforms, companies keep users hooked with what they market as low-stakes, casual opportunities to make an easy buck, creating an environment that some say feels more like a game and less like a risky financial transaction with potentially harmful consequences. Indeed, recent academic research looking at 588 million trades on Polymarket found that profits were concentrated to just a very small group of top traders while the majority of users — 69% — lost money.

Think it’s hot now? The next five years will smash records, UN says

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the next five years, the Earth is overwhelmingly likely to surge again and again past the international climate threshold set as safe and shatter its hottest-year record along the way, according to new United Nations climate projections.

The World Meteorological Organization also forecasts an overheating Arctic that warms nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.66 degrees Celsius) between now and 2030 and a dangerous drought with potential wildfires for the Amazon, a crucial part of Earth's natural defenses to lessen human-caused climate change. A hotter globe from the burning of coal, oil and gas means more extreme weather including floods, droughts and heat waves, scientists said.

The projections by the U.N. climate agency and the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office said there's a 75% chance that the average global temperature between 2026 and 2030 will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher compared to pre-industrial times. That threshold is the agreed-upon limit of warming — averaged over 20 years — set in 2015 by the Paris climate agreement.

A U.N. science report a few years later detailed how exceeding that 1.5 mark means more likely death, danger and species loss. Even though it's only a few tenths of a degree, some of the planet's ecosystems, such as coral and glaciers, can't handle the strain.

Manitoba bill would reduce availability of flavoured vapes; one group wants more

WINNIPEG - The Manitoba government plans to greatly reduce the number of locations where flavoured vaping products can be sold, but one group says the idea does not go far enough and lags behind efforts in many other provinces.

A bill introduced in the legislature Tuesday would forbid the sale of such products in businesses in urban areas that allow people under 18 to enter. The measure would not apply in rural areas.

The NDP government said the aim is to help reduce the risk that minors might see the products, be enticed by the flavouring, and get hooked.

"We know that (flavoured vapes) is a gateway for kids in particular (to) choosing more significant — like tobacco, cigarettes — substances later on," Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said.

Manitobans prefer later sunsets in time-change debate: poll

A new public opinion poll suggests year-round daylight time is the leading choice among Manitobans, as the provincial government considers ditching twice-annual clock changes.

The survey by Winnipeg-based Prairie Research Associates found roughly three in four Manitobans support an end to seasonal time changes, a move that would lead to the permanent use of standard or daylight time.

“There is a large group of people who say, ‘I don’t care what the change is as long as there is no (seasonal time) change.’ That group was larger than I expected,” PRA partner Nicholas Borodenko said about the survey results.

“The fact that more people are leaning toward wanting to have more summer daylight in the evening was expected.”

You should be dancing, yeah. Moving to music offers all kinds of benefits as you age

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Carol Ross can’t stop smiling at dance practice as she shouts out the steps of a routine to members of her tap and jazz troupe for women age 50 and older.

“I’ve been dancing my whole life, it’s the best,” said Ross, who founded the Rodeo City Wreckettes group 23 years ago at an age when many people are getting ready for retirement.

Now 87, Ross and her husband and lifelong dance partner John, also 87, have long known what more older adults are now discovering: Moving to music is one of the best ways to stay healthy. Medical professionals say it doesn’t matter if it’s Western line dancing, ballroom steps, salsa, tap, Zumba at the gym, or with a group like the Wreckettes.

“Dancing is one of the most powerful activities for older people,” said Julio Loya, a nurse and geriatric program coordinator at the Tucson Medical Center.

Camryn Thomas shooting for title with golf season in full swing

Being a dual-sport athlete allows Camryn Thomas the opportunity to experience the best of both worlds.

Following a strong season with the Rink Hockey Academy U18 Prep team that included a trip to the league semifinal, Thomas has shifted her attention to the links and is ready to attack the golf season.

“I like that it’s competitive, but it’s very different from hockey,” Thomas said on Monday at Pine Ridge Golf Club, where Golf Manitoba held its third annual media day. “(Golf) is very individual and you kind of have to rely on yourself. And you can push yourself as hard as you want to push.

“It provides a good balance. It’s nice to get outdoors. I really enjoy it.”

Manitoba doctors support provincial government’s proposed social media ban

WINNIPEG - The negative effects social media has on children and youth's mental and physical health is outweighing other health concerns like substance use and injuries prompting some Manitoba doctors to support a ban on these sites, a new report has found.

Doctors Manitoba, the organization representing roughly 5,000 physicians and students in the province, surveyed its members and found that social media and excessive screen time pose significant risks to the mental health, sleep and robust development in children and youth.

Of the 242 physicians who completed the survey, 90 per cent supported a ban on social media sites and artificial intelligence chatbots for children.

"The findings are quite clear. Doctors believe social media, screen time and chat bots are among the top risks to children's health and well-being, ranking higher than even smoking, drinking, injuries and sedentary lifestyles," Dr. Alon Altman, president of Doctors Manitoba, told reporters on Monday.