Apple increases prices for Macs and iPads, blaming a shortage of memory chips

Apple on Thursday announced an increase in prices for Macs and iPads, citing a memory chip shortage brought on by the artificial intelligence boom.

The Cupertino, California-based company called the demand spike an “unprecedented challenge” for the consumer electronics industry.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the company said in a written statement.

The new, entry-level MacBook Neo will now cost $699, up from $599. The 512 gigabyte MacBook Air now costs $1,299, up from $1,099. The one terabyte MacBook Pro is $1,999, up from $1,699.

Carney says having no embassy in Iran puts Canada at ‘a disadvantage’

OTTAWA - Canada is "at a disadvantage" in countries like Iran where it lacks a diplomatic presence, but his government is not looking to re-establish relations with Tehran, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday.

"Engagement is not endorsement. Having an embassy, having consular services in a country does not mean we endorse the policies of that country," Carney told reporters Thursday.

Commenting on the deadly earthquakes in Venezuela during a Thursday press conference, Carney said not having diplomats on the ground in Caracas makes it hard for Ottawa to offer help to Canadians.

"There are a series of countries with whom we have not seen eye to eye, to put it mildly, where we do not have representation … Iran, Venezuela (are) two examples, there are others," he said.

Some airlines reduce fuel surcharges as oil falls, while others hold steady

CALGARY - Some Canadian airlines are scaling back fuel surcharges as fuel prices fall, while others are holding steady for now.

WestJet Airlines says it has reduced its levy on companion vouchers to $40 from $60 per round trip or one-way fare.

Porter Airlines has cut the fuel surcharge for new reward flight bookings by half to $20, and says it will make further adjustments as conditions change.

Meanwhile, Air Canada is managing fuel costs through its regular fare structure, though a surcharge remains in effect on ground packages offered through its vacations business.

Carney says he and Trump discussed defence priorities, Arctic ahead of NATO summit

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump about efforts to protect the Arctic ahead of their attendance at the NATO summit in Turkey in two weeks.

Carney said the U.S. president called him Wednesday for a "long discussion" that involved other senior officials, including U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Carney said he and Trump also spoke about NATO, Iran and the broader situation in the Middle East. He declined to offer details but said the discussion touched on "both current and structural" issues.

"It was a very constructive conversation, those things we're working on together. I think those are best left until they come to fruition," Carney said.

These economists are worried Canada has a data quality problem

OTTAWA - Most economists, including at the Bank of Canada, were a bit surprised when Statistics Canada reported late last month that the economy contracted slightly over the first three months of the year.

The consensus estimate among economists and monetary policymakers was for real GDP growth of roughly 1.5 per cent annualized in the first quarter.

When the figures actually showed a 0.1 per cent decline, forecasters were left scratching their heads.

Incremental data released by StatCan leading up to the quarterly GDP result largely suggested Canada's economy was in line for modest growth to start the year.

Conservative MPs launch fundraiser for LGBTQ+ refugees

OTTAWA - Two Conservative MPs say leading a fundraising cruise for LGBTQ+ refugees is a tangible way for the party to advance the rights of gender and sexual minorities.

"We're all God's creatures and we're all loved, and we all deserve to be loved and we all deserve to feel safe and secure," Scott Aitchison told The Canadian Press.

"I believe that it's important for all of us to — not to preach that, but to demonstrate that."

Aitchison is MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka, a riding popular with Torontonians who own cottages.

Nova Scotia launches three-year plan to expand its $2.2-billion seafood industry

HALIFAX - The Nova Scotia government has announced a three-year strategy aimed at growing the province’s $2.2-billion seafood industry as it tries to cope with with rising costs, labour shortages and global trade challenges.

Provincial Fisheries Minister Kent Smith said Wednesday that $1.5 million will be set aside this year to establish an innovation hub for applied research.

As well, the strategy calls for expanding the aquaculture sector, providing support for product diversification and offering up to $4 million over three years to diversify markets, among other initiatives.

The strategy was developed with input from industry representatives, said Smith, who made the announcement at Sea Star Seafoods Ltd. in Clark’s Harbour, N.S., a lobster fishing community near the province's southwestern tip.

South African civil groups warn of dire impact as US phases out HIV program funding

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Civil society organizations in South Africa said Wednesday that adolescent girls and women are among the first vulnerable groups to feel the pinch of U.S. foreign aid cuts as the Trump administration phases out its more than $400 million support annually for the country’s HIV programs.

The U.S. State Department has said that it would “begin a phased drawdown” of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a program that has supported South Africa’s battle against HIV and AIDS for the last 20 years and is widely credited with saving more than 20 million lives over that period.

The phasing out of most programs is expected to be completed by the end of September, with critical personnel support continuing through March next year, according to the U.S. State Department.

South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV, with approximately 8 million people, or about 12.7 % of its 63 million population.

A Serbian town is known for raspberries that are exported around the world

ARILJE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia 's town of Arilje is known as the Balkan country's “raspberry capital,” with its fame reaching beyond borders.

Arilje and its surroundings yield berries that are exported as far as the United States and Japan. Serbia is among the top three exporters of raspberries globally.

“We are born, we live and we die with raspberries,” said Mileta Pilcevic, who heads a local association of raspberry producers. “Arilje is unique in the world. You can’t find a smaller place with such big concentration of raspberry production.”

The hilly landscape has ideal climate for raspberry cultivation. The berries from Arilje are grown without chemicals and picked by hand for high quality.

Archaeologists find huge Viking textile production site in Denmark

SØFTEN, Denmark (AP) — Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in Denmark that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the sophistication of Viking society.

Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this week that the sprawling 100,000-square-meter (more than 1 million-square-foot) site features an area for processing flax as well as more than 80 pit houses — semi-buried huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking times.

It's located in Søften, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, on the Jutland peninsula. The site dates back to the late Iron Age and early Viking Age, sometime between A.D. 600 and 950.

Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg, who led the 10-month dig, said that “we have a clear focus on textile production, which makes this settlement different from other kinds of settlements of this period.”

A submarine economic boom is just around corner. So are the challenges.

OTTAWA - As Ottawa inches closer to deciding who will supply the navy's next fleet of submarines, both the benefits and challenges involved in replacing Canada's four rusting antiques are coming to the surface.

While the industrial benefits from the submarine project will start to flow once contract details are hammered out, experts say major questions still need to be answered about long-term maintenance and staffing of the complex war machines.

Both qualified bidders offered multiple partnerships with Canadian companies in their heated, high-stakes race for the multi-billion dollar contract to manufacture up to 12 submarines.

Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr said Monday Ottawa has been squarely focused on the economic benefits that would flow from either bid, since both of the boats on offer meet all the navy's requirements.

Fewer Canadians see U.S. as ‘reliable’ as global confidence in Washington sags: poll

WASHINGTON - Most Canadians continue to view the United States unfavourably as global confidence in the U.S. under President Donald Trump continues to slide.

That finding comes from new polling by the Pew Research Center which also suggests Trump is receiving mostly negative ratings from countries around the world.

"We observe that Canadians hold critical views of the U.S. across nearly every measure that we've surveyed," said Pew research associate Moira Fagan.

Fagan said "confidence in Trump" is "well below the international median," while "favourable views of the U.S." are "at or near a record low."

Supreme Court kills suit claiming Cisco’s technology helped China persecute Falun Gong members

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted tech giant Cisco’s bid to shut down a lawsuit claiming that the company’s technology was used to persecute members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China.

The justices ruled that American courts are the wrong forum for the suits, rejecting arguments made by the plaintiffs that the suits should go forward under the 18th-century Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), first enacted in 1991.

The decision was the latest to rule against plaintiffs seeking to use U.S. courts as a venue to seek justice over the acts of foreign governments, especially those that took place abroad.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in her majority opinion that the justices “close the door” that the court slightly opened in 2004 when it suggested that some human-rights claims might be viable under the ATS. “In truth, this class is a null set,” Barrett wrote, while acknowledging such cases “frequently involve heinous and inhumane acts.”

No evidence of generalized inflation despite May price hikes: BoC’s Macklem

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says he's not seeing evidence of generalized inflation even as price pressures surged in May.

Statistics Canada said Monday that inflation jumped to 3.2 per cent last month, reaching its highest level since late 2023 and rising past the central bank's target band of one to three per cent.

The energy price spike from the war in Iran has been the primary driver of inflation over the past three months in Canada.

Macklem has said previously that the central bank will look through the initial bout of inflation tied to higher gas prices, but will act to make sure inflation doesn’t spread to other parts of the consumer basket and become entrenched.

40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development

Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated.

It's their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities' natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.

Many new data centers are coming to rural areas for cheap land. Experts at C40 say metropolitan areas are under tremendous pressure too, with about 1,700 data centers located in their network of cities so far. Development of data centers is expected to grow by over 40% in 50 of those cities.

C40 got involved because the mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, came together over worries about data centers using a lot of their cities' electricity and water, and competing with housing developers for available land.

AI companies should release environmental impact, commit to clean energy, says UN chief

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday called on artificial intelligence companies to release information about the carbon pollution they create, along with the water and land used to power their operations.

While urging action in an address at London Climate Action Week, Guterres proposed the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, arguing AI companies should measure and disclose the impact of their increasingly in-demand technology — impact which has been cited by opponents as reasons to curb the rapid growth of data centers. These companies have faced mounting pressure, both from governments and locally in areas with data centers that support AI, for increased transparency and more standardized reporting across the industry.

Guterres said AI companies should also commit to powering their facilities with electricity produced with renewable technologies, such as wind and solar, by 2030.

“No more hidden costs,” Guterres said at Europe’s largest independent climate conference. “No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean.”

Ottawa reverses orders to surrender some ‘lost Canadian’ citizenship certificates

OTTAWA - Just one week after some "lost Canadians" were told to surrender their new citizenship certificates, a few received letters over the weekend confirming their citizenship claims are valid once again.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson said Monday the department is now reviewing the roughly 4,100 citizenship by descent claims made under an amendment to the law that offers a path to citizenship for those with Canadian ancestors.

Citizenship certificates will not be suspended unless the review turns up a problem with a document already issued, the spokesperson said.

A statement the department issued last week said it is temporarily pausing the finalization of citizenship certificates related to the citizenship by descent amendment passed as Bill C-3.

‘This is nuts’: The hard-fought race to build Canada’s next submarine fleet

From a massive ad blitz featuring Canadian broadcast icon Peter Mansbridge to a cabinet minister calling on shipbuilders to cough up a car plant, the brief race to replace Canada’s aging submarine fleet turned heads in more ways than one.

Greed outshines ‘the Beautiful Game’

Utter greed is at the heart of this World Cup, and it has shown up as utter stupidity on the part of FIFA to think that it could treat the 104 matches of this tournament as “104 Super Bowls.”

Cuba pushes through sweeping free-market reforms in biggest economic shift since the revolution

HAVANA (AP) — Observers on Friday called Cuba’s new free-market reforms the most sweeping economic overhaul of the island’s communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as the grandson of former President Raúl Castro said in an interview that Cuba must seek to move its economy forward.

The 176 measures aim to further decentralize Cuba’s state-run economy, which has been left gasping by a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the island’s current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold and how the country’s resources are allocated.

The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.

“Elements that for decades were listed as pillars of the revolutionary economy, such as the state monopoly on foreign trade and the centralization of productive forces, have been dismantled,” said Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American political scientist and lawyer who is a doctoral candidate at the University of Salamanca.

World Refugee Day marked with celebration, reflection

The strength, courage and resilience of Manitoba refugees who have fled conflicts around the world were recognized as World Refugee Day was celebrated Thursday at Central Park downtown.

Newcomers of all backgrounds shared their stories and showcased their cultures.

Parwana Fasihi told her story to a crowd of people, detailing how her family fled Afghanistan with some clothes when the Taliban retook control of the country in 2021.

“It was a day that all the dreams, all the hope and all the plans I had for my future changed in one moment,” said Fasihi afterwards in an interview.

Inside the colorful, compelling and controversial jersey designs at the World Cup

A look at some of the more compelling — and controversial — backstories from the kit designs on show in soccer’s biggest event.

Climate-driven heat in India’s textile factories stifles workers but coolers and ventilation help

SURAT, India (AP) — For dozens of workers at a textile manufacturer on the edge of Surat, the blazing temperatures and high humidity on a recent afternoon were amplified by steam, radiating heat and chemical smells that emerged from the heavy machines that dominate nearly every inch of the low-ceilinged factory floor.

The machines, called stenters, roared like engines, boilers hissed and drum washers released clouds of steam. The sound was relentless, the air heavy.

Soni Pande, a 27-year-old worker and single mother, said fans and coolers that spray mist help, but are overpowered on the hottest days.

“The heat does make us weak. We sweat a lot. Some people feel dizzy, unwell,” said Pande, who came from Bihar state in eastern India. “There are fans and coolers, but it's still so hot inside.”