Generic semaglutide to hit Canadian pharmacies this week at a fraction of the cost of Ozempic

TORONTO - Two generic versions of Ozempic are set to start arriving in Canadian pharmacies this week, which means patients who use the drug to treat diabetes or for weight loss may have more options for a fraction of the cost.

Health Canada approved both Dr. Reddy's and Apotex's generic semaglutide — the active ingredient in brand-name Ozempic — about three weeks ago.

Apotex is based in Canada and said it began shipping its product on Tuesday.

India-based Dr. Reddy's said in an email that its semaglutide has already arrived in "select" Canadian pharmacies and will be available more widely across the country in the coming days.

May long weekend second-coldest on record

The May long weekend was one of the coldest on record in Winnipeg.

The average daily high for the three days failed to reach double digits, hovering between 9.3 C to 9.6 C, said Matt Loney, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

It’s the second-coldest on record, failing to topple the record average daily high of 6.3 C logged on May long 1882.

“It’s definitely abnormal,” said Loney of the preliminary figures. “You wouldn’t expect temperatures to be that low, but it can happen and it has happened before.”

Hands-on workshop guides process of making unique, custom silver jewellery

I know things aren’t going well when cracks keep forming on my clay — but not to worry. I’d been paying attention when instructors Jillian Sheedy and Joanne Roberts told me how to deal with this problem.

So I confidently dip my brush into the water and start moistening my clay to smooth it out. Except I’ve added a bit more water than I should have, and now the clay is wet and extremely sticky.

Beside me, Roberts smiles reassuringly.

“It’s a task that requires a little bit of patience,” she says, carefully removing the brush from my hand.

A mop, a broom and a calmer mind. Why some find mental health benefits in everyday tasks

NEW YORK (AP) — It's spring cleaning season, and for some people that can mean drudgery or anxiety.

But experts from Zen monks to psychologists say there are mental health benefits to be found in such manual chores as sweeping, mopping and clearing away clutter. These tasks can encourage mindfulness or permit the mind to wander, all while producing a concrete sense of achievement in accomplishing the basic tasks of daily life.

As one famous Zen saying goes:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

WHO chief concerned over ‘scale and speed’ of Ebola outbreak as Congo reports 134 dead

BUNIA, Congo (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization on Tuesday expressed concern over the “scale and speed” of an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola known as Bundibugyo in eastern Congo, where authorities reported 134 suspected deaths and more than 500 suspected cases.

The virus spread undetected for weeks after the first known death as authorities tested for a more common type of Ebola and came up negative, health experts and aid workers said. The Bundibugyo virus has no approved medicines or vaccines.

In Bunia, the site of the first known death, health workers in protective gear moved among residents wearing fabric masks. “I know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it’s like,” said a worried resident, Noëla Lumo.

Congo was expecting shipments from the United States and Britain of an experimental vaccine for different types of Ebola, developed by researchers at Oxford, said Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a virus expert at the National Institute of Biomedical Research.

Pair of bird books offer fascinating insight into the avian world

These two newly-released bird books couldn’t be more different. Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s The Book of Birds is artful and poetic; Louis Lefebvre’s A Bird’s IQ is analytical and academic. Each would make an attractive addition to the libraries of people interested in birds — but not without certain provisos.

The subtitle of The Book of Birds is deceptive — it’s not really a “Field Guide” in the usual sense, too substantial and beautiful to carry along on a bird outing. In hardback with a blue cloth spine and a blue-ribbon page-holder, it’s more like a church song missal than toteable identification helper. It’s best kept inside, protected from wind and weather and damp fingerprints.

The Book of Birds is a follow-up to Morris and Macfarlane’s previous collaboration The Lost Words. When the Oxford Junior Dictionary dropped a bunch of words connected to the natural world (such as acorn, otter, fern, newt and wren), the renowned artist and celebrated author created a “spell book” to conjure back 20 of those words and bring increased awareness of the things the words describe. It proved to be immensely popular.

Here they focus on 49 birds, presented alphabetically from avocet to kestrel to sparrow to yellowhammer, that are in danger of disappearing completely from the natural (European) world. Morris provides the spectacular bird illustrations, and Macfarlane waxes poetic on each of them in the hopes readers will not just identify birds, but “identify with them.”

Saskatchewan seeding delayed by cold temperatures, wet soil but farmers undeterred

When you ask Brett Halstead what challenges he expects to see with seeding at his farm in Saskatchewan, his answer is simple.

"Everything."

Seeding in Saskatchewan has been delayed because of cold temperatures and stubborn spring snow, particularly in the north and east of the province.

On top of the common issue of moisture, farmers in Canada's breadbasket are dealing with war-driven commodity pricing.

Health officials working to control hepatitis A outbreak in province

Public health officials are battling a hepatitis A outbreak in Manitoba not seen in decades.

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.

Governments blasted for inaction as HIV rates rise

An HIV/AIDS advocate who has spent the past 35 years raising awareness about the disease is calling for a national inquiry into what he calls a lack of proactive action by provincial and federal governments to prevent infections.

Albert McLeod, a two-spirit elder from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, says HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis — commonly known as PrEP — has been approved by Health Canada since 2016. Despite that, infection rates have continued to climb.

“It’s just this sort of very conservative attitude to our health,” McLeod said Friday, challenging anyone to find a poster in Winnipeg promoting HIV awareness or PrEP on street corners or at bus stops.

“And now it’s suddenly an emergency in 2026, when we’ve had 10 years to be proactive and let people know about the availability of this medication? Instead, we have people who are HIV positive who could be negative.”

Parade of ghostly icebergs brings joy and wonder to Newfoundland and Labrador

ST. JOHN'S -

At the top of Signal Hill in St. John's, N.L., on Tuesday afternoon, a steady stream of people walked around a rocky cliff and gasped.

Some cheered, some took out their phones to capture the moment — a rush of awe as an iceberg floated in the ocean below, cleaved off from a Greenland glacier and delivered by the Labrador current on a cloudless spring day.

It's a banner year for icebergs in Newfoundland and Labrador, where tourists and residents alike are gathering on shores across the province to welcome the ancient visitors.

Conservation shouldn’t come at the cost of access

The Seal River Watershed in northern Manitoba is one of the last great intact ecosystems in North America.

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.

Project brings seniors, students together over love of gardening

Seniors and high school students in North Kildonan are growing vegetables and community through a unique indoor gardening project.

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic kills 3 people

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people, including an elderly married couple, and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organization and South Africa's Department of Health said Sunday.

In a statement to The Associated Press, WHO said an investigation was underway but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients was in intensive care in a South African hospital, the U.N. health agency said, and it was working with authorities to evacuate two others with symptoms from the ship.

The Dutch company that operates the cruise said the ship was now sitting off the coast of Cape Verde, an island nation off Africa's west coast, and local authorities were assisting but had not allowed anyone to disembark. It said the two sick people onboard requiring urgent medical care were crew members.

Hantavirus infections are spread mainly by rodents

Seeding clock ticks loudly on Prairie fields

If the forecast holds, Manitoba fields will be crawling with equipment this week, as the race to seed this year’s crop begins.

An early-May start to seeding is right on track by historical standards, but still feels late this year, partly because it’s been so cold. Seeding dates have been edging earlier over time, especially for crops such as wheat, as farmers discover they can get away with super-early seeding under the right circumstances.

Due to the compressed growing season characteristic to this part of the world, it’s well-documented the later the crop is seeded, the lower it yields. However, seed too early and there’s a risk that a late-spring frost will force farmers to reseed some fields.

For most, it’s a gamble worth taking.

Local garden centres rev up even as cold temperatures delay outdoor planting season

Colin Rémillard is obsessed with the weather.

When he and his family opened Winnipeg gardener’s staple Jardins St-Léon Gardens for the 2026 season on Wednesday, it came after weeks of chilly weather. But with staff itching to go — and customers waiting — they decided to open the doors after a “mad dash” to bring in produce and tag every product in the store one day earlier.

“Everything seemed to roll fairly well. We’re in good shape. It’s going to be a colder spring, that’s just reality,” Rémillard said from the garden centre Friday.

“We’ve had really nice springs for the past one or two years. We always remember only one year in the past, so we think this is unusual, but it is pretty normal to have this amount of cold.”

Thorn in their side: Assiniboine Park asks for help to remove invasive plant

Assiniboine Park Conservancy is rallying the troops to stop the invasion.

Saturday will be a bad day for European buckthorn at the park, as forestry staff are hoping 100 volunteers will show up to help clear the problematic plant.

“It’s a big issue and there’s a lot of it,” said Barret Miller, the park’s manager of education and programming.

This is the first time the conservancy is asking for help from the public to remove the invasive weed from the Winnipeg green space. The section being targeted is in the heart of the park, just south of the cricket fields.

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.

The blunt — and massive — cost of forest fires

It’s a total that’s bound to go up — because all of the costs aren’t clear yet, and even when they are, not every cost can be quantified.