La grande histoire d’un petit village

Le village de Sainte-Agathe, qui borde les rives de la rivière Rouge et de la rivière aux Rats, à près de 40 kilomètres au sud de Winnipeg, fêtera ce 28 mai son 150e anniversaire.

Alors 150 ans, ça fait beaucoup de bougies, certainement trop pour toutes les faire tenir sur un gâteau, mais ça ne veut pas dire qu’on laisse tomber les célébrations.

Ce 28 mai, l’évènement se tiendra près du quai de Sainte-Agathe, où un bateau transportait les voitures d’un côté à l’autre de la rivière, à l’époque où il n’existait pas de pont.

Joel Lemoine, conseiller municipal pour Sainte-Agathe détaille la nature des célébrations.

Alain Boucher: insuffler l’espoir au coeur du traitement

Pour Alain Boucher, rien n’est plus essentiel à la guérison qu’un grand sourire et un cœur léger. Au cours des six dernières années comme bénévole chez Action Cancer Manitoba, il a mis cette philosophie en pratique. Et avec beaucoup de succès!

Au moins deux fois par semaine, il apporte ce sourire, son attitude positive, sa sensibilité et sa capacité de bien connecter à travers le dialogue avec les clients de l’organisme.

Il affirme que c’est, avant tout, son engagement à reconnaître l’humanité de chacun de ses clients qui le rend fier du travail qu’il accomplit.

“Apporter une touche humaine à leur situation, je vois que ça fait une énorme différence. Puis ça, c’est bien la meilleure récompense. Pas besoin de salaire pour ça,” dit-il en souriant.

Kinew says watchdog could enforce proposed social media ban

Premier Wab Kinew floated the possibility of using a regulator or commissioner to enforce his proposed ban on social media and artificial intelligence chatbot use for kids.

College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba apologizes to Indigenous people

The regulatory body that oversees registered nurses in Manitoba has issued a formal apology to acknowledge its role in racism against Indigenous people and pledged to do better.

“This apology is long overdue,” Deb Elias, registrar of the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, told a crowd of health care providers and dignitaries from First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities who gathered to witness the apology.

“As the largest health-care profession in Manitoba, registered nurses have been part of the problem and must be part of the solution in ensuring safe care for everyone.”

The announcement coincided with National Nurses week, which began Monday and will conclude May 17.

Exhibit helps tell story of Sikh immigrant who put life on line

A Sikh Century of Service is on display Friday at the University of Winnipeg.

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.

A Florida lawsuit and AI’s complicity in killing

Readers following the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., will know that Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has apologized for not notifying police about corporate concerns raised internally about ChatGPT’s chatbot interactions with the killer before the attack.

Manitoba’s flag: A symbol of shared heritage at 60

On a fair spring afternoon 60 years ago, the Flag of Manitoba made its debut at the provincial legislature. In what the Winnipeg Free Press called an “impressive ceremony,” then-lieutenant-governor Richard Bowles formally proclaimed the new provincial flag on May 12, 1966.

Some Japanese snack packages are turning black-and-white as Iran war depletes ink supply

TOKYO (AP) — The packaging on some snacks in Japan is turning a somber black-and-white, as the war in Iran disrupts the supply of an ingredient used in colored ink.

Tokyo-based Calbee Inc., which makes potato chips and cereal, said what’s inside remains the same. Calbee's popular snacks are available in Japan's ubiquitous convenience stores and shipped to the United States, China and Australia.

“This measure is intended to help maintain a stable supply of products,” it said in a statement this week.

The change on 14 products in its lineup will start May 25, limiting ink colors to just two, the company said, noting it was necessary to respond flexibly to changing geopolitical conditions.

Ukrainian drone pilots turn a military exercise in Sweden into a critical warning for NATO

GOTLAND, Sweden (AP) — The war game scenario was this: One of NATO ’s newest members, Sweden, was under threat by an unnamed country that was building up troops along the military alliance’s eastern border. And in an unusual twist, non-NATO member Ukraine was there to advise on drone warfare — and delivered a critical warning to the alliance.

The Associated Press was allowed to witness the Swedish-led military exercise this week as Europe faces not only the threat of Russia but the wavering of NATO’s most powerful member, the United States.

The war game that also involved U.S. forces played out with a real threat in mind. For months, Russia has ramped up sabotage including cyberattacks against critical infrastructure and disinformation against countries across Europe, as detailed by an AP investigation.

The war game scenario — with the Swedish island of Gotland in theory facing power outages and food shortages because of sabotage — tested what NATO members might do before NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, has been invoked.

Exhibition takes Canadian history of Chinese oppression from the archives into the light

Housed within two innocuous rooms flanking the Welcome Gallery at Manitoba Museum is a sobering record of a government’s betrayal of its own citizens.

Federal government dismisses calls for radar sites to remain as farmland

OTTAWA - The federal government has rejected calls from some residents in southern Ontario to find other spots to set up planned Arctic over-the-horizon radar installations in order to preserve farmland.

Parliament received a flurry of petitions in recent months criticizing National Defence for buying up plots of quality farmland near Barrie, Ont., for the new radar system, and calling on Ottawa to register the land under an agricultural trust.

The government says the long-range radar, a $6 billion project to modernize Norad surveillance equipment, will make detecting threats in Arctic airspace faster and easier.

The federal government bought 288 hectares of land in Clearview Township, west of Barrie, for an antenna receiver site, upsetting local residents. It also acquired land for a transmitter site in Kawartha Lakes, about 70 km north of Oshawa, Ont.

MPs amend bill criminalizing sexual deepfakes to include ‘nearly nude’ images

OTTAWA - A House of Commons committee has amended a proposed bill that would criminalize sexual deepfakes to ensure it covers "nearly nude" images.

The change to Bill C-16 comes after experts warned the original version of the bill likely would not cover many of the images created by Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot which proliferated on his X platform at the beginning of this year.

The original version of the bill would have criminalized the non-consensual sharing of images which show the subject nude, exposing their sexual organs or engaged in explicit sexual activity. The images created by Grok — such as edits of photos of women to depict them wearing see-through bikinis — may not meet that standard.

MPs on the justice committee voted in favour of amendments put forward by Conservative MP Andrew Lawton to change the wording of the legislation to address images in which the subject is nude or "nearly nude."

The barista is human but an AI agent runs this experimental Swedish cafe

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The coffee might be poured by a human hand, but behind the counter something far less traditional is calling the shots at an experimental cafe in Stockholm.

San Francisco-based startup Andon Labs has put an artificial intelligence agent nicknamed “Mona” in charge at the eponymous Andon Café in the Swedish capital. While human baristas still brew the coffee and serve the orders, the AI agent — powered by Google’s Gemini — oversees almost every other aspect of the business, from hiring staff to managing inventory.

It is not clear how long the experiment will last, but the AI agent appears to be struggling to turn a profit in Stockholm’s competitive coffee trade. The cafe has made more than $5,700 in sales since it opened in mid-April, but less than $5,000 remains from its original budget of $21,000-plus. Much of the cash was spent on one-time setup costs, and the hope is that it eventually levels out and makes money.

Many cafe patrons have found it amusing to visit a business that's run by AI. Customers can pick up a telephone inside the cafe and ask the agent questions.

Baltic, Nordic officials urge Canadians to learn from the Russian threats they face

OTTAWA - European officials are warning that Russia's meddling in the Baltic Sea is likely a preview of tactics Moscow could someday deploy in Canada's High North.

A recent panel discussion in Ottawa hosted by the Polish embassy touched on how Estonia, Poland and Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark are responding to Russian threats that emerge from the sky, sea and online.

Polish Ambassador Witold Dzielski gave the example of an explosion last November on a rail line used to transport military goods to Ukraine, which his government suspects was orchestrated by Russia.

"Saboteurs are hired in order to conduct kinetic attacks," he said.

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.”

In legal dispute over ‘The View,’ ABC argues Trump administration is trying to chill free speech

NEW YORK (AP) — In a strongly worded filing, ABC accuses the Trump administration of trying to chill its constitutionally protected free speech and hinder open political discussion.

The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

Someone call the PM: next governor general doesn’t speak a single Indigenous language

This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney selected former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour as the country’s 31st governor general.

Mass cybersecurity breach of learning platform hits Canadian post-secondary schools

Multiple post-secondary institutions across Canada say they've been impacted by a cyberattack targeting an education system used by thousands of schools globally.

Technology company Instructure said it launched an investigation on April 29 after detecting "unauthorized activity" in Canvas, a learning platform for schools that manages student coursework, grades and other education materials.

Information affected by the attack may include names, emails and messages exchanged within the platform, but there's no evidence that passwords, financial information or government identifiers have been compromised, the company said.

Instructure said Canvas went off-line temporarily but is now available to use, and an investigation into the breach is ongoing with a third-party forensic firm and law enforcement.

Nature is a big part of the Canadian economy — but how big? We crunched the numbers.

Canada’s vast landscape, which boasts 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater, a quarter of global wetlands and 28 per cent of its boreal forests, is critical to its economy. Natural resource industries — forests, farms, fisheries, mining and oil and gas — together make up approximately seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.

Tension exists between expanding these industrialized sectors and protecting the ecosystems on which they depend.

In Manitoba, some worry protecting the Seal River Watershed, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometres in the province’s north, will hinder opportunities in mineral resources and hydro; to the east, critical mineral mining ambitions in Ontario’s Ring of Fire clash with the protection of the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, the second-largest carbon sink on earth; and in B.C., Coastal First Nations have protested that lifting the large tanker ban through their waters will endanger the protected Great Bear Rainforest.

These tensions make it easy to frame nature as the antithesis of economic activity, if it’s always put in opposition to projects that are described as growing Canada’s wealth, sovereignty and security.

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.

Agape Table expansion underscores surging food demand

Food banks and non-profit organizations across Manitoba are expanding their spaces to meet record demand for food.

Agape Table showed off its new 10,500-square foot home at 350 Furby St. Thursday, where it has planted permanent roots for the first time in its 45-year history.

It is located next to the Wave Church, where it had been operating out of the basement for eight years.

The executive director of the food-distribution charity said a bigger space has been needed for years.