Palestinian Canadians share keepsakes, memories in CMHR’s Nakba exhibition

Fouad Sahyoun was four years old when his family fled their home in Haifa amid bombardment from encroaching Israeli paramilitary forces in 1948.

“We took a few suitcases and (some) money and we went to Alexandria. We were never allowed to go back,” said Sahyoun, a Palestinian Canadian living in Montreal. “When the money ran out, we became real refugees.”

The 82-year-old is one of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced in 1948 following the partitioning of Palestine and during the creation of the State of Israel. This event is known as the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic.

Sahyoun’s story and the deeds to his family’s seized property in Haifa are included in Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, a new exhibition open to the public Saturday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Divers Tiaglei, Rumpit jumping their way through 50 states in 50 days

Two months ago, Winnipeg high-diver Alex Tiaglei received a call that he could’ve easily confused for a belated April Fool’s joke.

On the other end was his American-born friend Braden Rumpit, whom Tiaglei had dove against at several competitions around the world.

Rumpit gave it to him straight: he planned to do a cliff dive in all 50 United States in 50 days, and he wanted Tiaglei to do it with him.

“I mean, at first I thought he was kind of crazy,” said Tiaglei. “But then I started thinking about it, and the pieces were definitely falling together pretty well.”

World Cup a mosaic of the human experience

On June 13, the third day of the ongoing World Cup, Morocco played more than a quarter of its Group C match against Brazil without a single Moroccan-born footballer on the pitch.

Instead, the starting eleven deployed by manager Mohamed Ouahbi between the 64th and 89th minutes included players from Belgium, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada. (Goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was born in Montreal.) Ouahbi, himself, hails from metropolitan Brussels.

According to the BBC, nearly 25 per cent of the players at this tournament were born in countries other than the ones they’re representing.

One of the more prominent examples of this experience is Luca Zidane.

Transit says it’s short $6.5M to provide free rides for youth year round

Winnipeg Transit has proposed to let youth ride buses for free for only seven months, stating the $10 million the provincial government provided for a year of that service won’t cover the entire cost.

In a new report, Transit says the program, which is meant to offer no-cost rides to youth aged 11 to 17 and high school students aged 18 to 21, would cost at least $16.5 million to implement for 12 months.

The program stems from the pledge in the province’s 2026-27 budget to invest “in free transit for kids and youth.”

Instead of exceeding the amount of government funding, Transit proposes to offer the free rides from September to March 2027, pending city council approval.

Bruce Oake Recovery Centre staff lead participants from darkness, despair of addiction

The Bruce Oake Recovery Centre is awash in summer light. Sun streams through the tall windows at the end of each hallway; through the glass walls of the group rooms, where the men here to recover from addiction are meeting; and through the entry atrium, where an urn holding the ashes of the centre’s namesake rests inside a glass case.

Staff shortages threaten defence-related projects, construction industry warns

Construction industry leaders are flagging potential staff shortages as the sector prepares for a surge of defence-related projects.

Winnipeg co-ops among models examined in film

We see theatre artist Debbie Patterson making her way toward the Old Grace Housing Co-operative’s entrance in her wheelchair, then settling inside for a steaming cup of tea. The co-op is her home.

“Well, I’ve always loved this neighbourhood and wanted to stay in this neighbourhood. I lived in a big, three-storey Wolseley house and then got MS and couldn’t do the stairs,” she says in a voiceover.

“Having a place I could move into that was completely accessible was just a godsend at a perfect time when I needed to stop living in my house, so I could stay in my neighbourhood and continue to be in a safe place.”

It’s one of the opening scenes of Meeting a Moment: The Art of Social Architecture, directed by Danielle Sturk and produced by Leslie Stafford, which appears on CBC Gem today and airs on CBC TV Saturday.

Indigenous Chamber of Commerce working to engage with members, increase membership

Shelly Bulycz is good at many things, but retirement is not one of them.

Last August, Bulycz retired from her job as manager of community based programming at University College of the North and moved from The Pas to Winnipeg. She soon grew restless and by the end of October, she’d landed a job as the executive assistant at the Indigenous Chamber of Commerce.

In April, the chamber appointed her to be its second-ever chief executive officer.

“I enjoyed retirement for a month and a half, two months, and then decided I needed a job,” Bulycz said. “The rest is kind of history.”

Greece bets on space technology to contain wildfires in a global first

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — In the searing Mediterranean summer, wildfires turn dangerous in minutes.

Greece has learned that at a terrible cost. In 2018, a blaze east of Athens moved with ferocious speed, killing more than 100 people. Five years later, a massive fire tore through a remote nature reserve; it was the largest wildfire ever recorded in the European Union.

Greece is looking to the heavens for help, with a dedicated satellite constellation that monitors for fires. It's a model for the continent as Europe races toward broader independence in space technology.

Four satellites, each smaller than a piece of carry-on luggage, were launched into low orbit in May. That made Greece the first nation in the world to integrate a dedicated satellite array into its national firefighting system.

Europe’s extreme heat would be impossible without climate change, scientists say

The record-breaking heat that's scorching Europe day and night this month would not have been possible without climate change, according to a new study.

The World Weather Attribution rapid study released Friday found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

Millions in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe are experiencing extreme temperatures and humidity this week associated with a heat dome. Daytime temperatures have topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many places, while high nighttime temperatures have also made it harder to cool down and recover.

The scientists estimated that a heat wave with similar characteristics occurring in the climate of June 1976 would have been about 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 Fahrenheit) cooler during the day and about 2 degrees Celsius cooler (3.6 Fahrenheit) in 2003. The nighttime temperatures would have been about 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit) cooler in June 1976 and about 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) cooler in 2003.

Province’s security enhancement fund allocated to targeted cultural centres, places of worship, justice minister says

A $1-million security enhancement fund for places of worship and cultural centres announced in January has been fully allocated but the funds have not yet flowed, Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said this week.

City’s greenhouse emissions rise, councillor says net-zero still within reach

City of Winnipeg operations created more greenhouse gases in 2025 than they did one year earlier, despite its target to hit net-zero emissions by 2050.

Montana DEQ works toward impairment designation for Big Hole River

The Big Hole River, a blue-ribbon fishery that’s become a focal point in a years-long debate over nuisance algae growth, is poised to receive an impairment designation.

At an open-house meeting in Divide on Tuesday, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality announced that the Big Hole, a mellow freestone river critical to southwest Montana’s outdoor recreation and agriculture economies, is struggling as a result of ecologically detrimental nutrient loading.

The term DEQ is using in its discussion of the Big Hole is eutrophication, which describes the link between algae growth and excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. When there’s too much algae in a river or lake, dissolved oxygen falls, imperiling fish and the aquatic life they feed on.

Algal growth is also unpopular with members of the recreating public because it can make wade-fishing a slipperier — and therefore more perilous — endeavor. And it drives down biodiversity in the macroinvertebrate population, which has repercussions for fish and other species higher up the aquatic food web. Andy Ulven, who leads DEQ’s water quality division, told Montana Free Press on Tuesday that a eutrophication listing would “formalize that there is an issue on the mainstem” of the Big Hole. He added that the agency proposal is still in draft stage and he doesn’t anticipate a final designation for the Big Hole until 2027 at the earliest.

Mayor calls Portage and Main reopening a success

Mayor Scott Gillingham has hailed the reopening of Portage Avenue and Main Street as a success, nearly a year after the downtown intersection became accessible to pedestrians again.

The future of the circular concourse beneath the intersection is still up in the air, while city staff conduct a cost-benefit analysis and consult building owners at Portage and Main’s corners.

“I’m glad we made the decision to reopen Portage and Main. It’s working well, it looks great,” Gillingham said. “So many people that were opposed to it told me now they’ve changed their mind.”

Saturday marks one year since the intersection reopened to foot traffic. Portage and Main was closed to pedestrians since 1979 as part of a commercial development deal.

Data centres top Ottawa’s big power requests, placing pressure on local utility

Hydro Ottawa's CEO says the utility is under "extraordinary pressures" as energy-hungry data centres lead a historic surge in large-scale customers seeking to connect to the power grid.

Bryce Conrad says he expects by the end of the year total grid connection requests from large-scale projects in Ottawa will exceed the average power use of the entire city's homes and businesses.

As it stands, he says 34 large projects in the connection queue have cumulative demands equivalent to about 86 per cent of the utility's average load, or just over 1,000 MW.

About 60 per cent of that comes from data centres, the infrastructure backbone of the artificial intelligence boom.

Carney coming to Calgary Stampede, carrying message that separation is no magic wand

Prime Minister Mark Carney is coming to next week’s Calgary Stampede, and plans to reiterate that quitting Canada will not be the magic wand separatists think it is.

Carney, taking questions from reporters in Ottawa on Thursday, said the fallout from the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union a decade ago should serve as a clear cautionary tale.

"I saw firsthand what gets sold in these referenda, that everything's gonna be easy, that you can keep your passport, the currency — you can stay in the country and leave it at the same time," he said.

Carney said Alberta's vote comes when Canada is trying to be seen as a stable, reliable international trading partner.

Carney says B.C. condo buyout proposal is about affordability, not bailouts

OTTAWA - Converting British Columbia's glut of unsold condos into affordable housing is about supporting Canadians, not distressed developers, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday as he defended his government's proposal.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Ottawa, Carney said the Liberal government had done a poor job of explaining the program laid out in Vancouver a week earlier.

A press release issued by the Prime Minister's Office on June 18 said Ottawa and the B.C. government plan to "leverage innovative financing tools to convert more than 2,200 vacant condo units in priority growth areas into affordable homes."

Carney said Thursday the federal government would put up 10 per cent of roughly $1.45 billion in total potential spending to convert the units, with the B.C. government footing the rest of the bill.

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.

Truancy report calls for students to engage in policies, programs

A new report calls on school leaders to treat truancy as “feedback” for fixing systemic gaps instead of an individual student issue.

The Winnipeg School Division has released a document that includes seven recommendations based on an absenteeism summit.

The list suggests schools need to do a better job of ensuring every child has at least one trusted teacher, coach or another adult in the building, but multiple items require cross-sector collaboration.

“Absenteeism cannot be understood as an isolated issue within schools,” a summary of the inaugural student absenteeism summit said. “Instead, it reflects broader systemic realities including factors related to social determinants of health, transportation barriers, intergenerational trauma, and gaps in culturally safe education systems.”

AI is helping gas stations collude to raise California fuel prices, lawsuit says

AI-powered software has allowed gas station operators across California to illegally collude and drive up prices at the pump, according to a federal lawsuit.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed Monday, accuses gas station giants including Marathon and Circle K of violating California’s antitrust law through Kalibrate, a fuel-pricing software system used across the world. The plaintiffs describe Kalibrate as the “central nervous system for a conspiracy to extinguish retail price competition among gas stations.”

According to the lawsuit, Kalibrate helps “coordinate high prices” and even discourages its users from pricing their gas lower than competitors, saying that doing so would trigger a “downward spiral.”

“Kalibrate promises that if gas stations surrender their pricing decisions and competitively sensitive cost and volume data to Kalibrate Fuel Pricing, the software will enable them to avoid competing with other area stations and to charge higher prices to consumers,” the lawsuit said.

Grade 7 students learn about environment in Seine River cleanup

On a rainy Wednesday morning, Grade 7 students from École Lacerte traded their classroom desks for rubber boots as they headed out along the Seine River to help plant native shrubs, test water quality, and clean up the riverbank.

JJ Swidersky, one of about 40 students taking part in the work, says protecting the environment is important to him and his classmates.

“Planting the trees, planting the shrubs,” Swidersky said when asked about his favourite part of the effort. “Just trying to keep the river clean, trying to keep it as clean as we possibly can.”

The planting Swidersky is referring to is part of the Niakwa Trail Rain Garden, which is located next to the St. Anne’s Superstore.

Province providing funds for Indigenous-led response team helping with drug crisis

An Indigenous-led response team known for mobilizing quickly in missing persons and human trafficking cases is being deployed to help tackle Winnipeg’s escalating overdose crisis.

The province is funding Red Response Team to patrol overdose hot spots across the city, relying on workers with lived experience to connect vulnerable people with supports and intervene before emergencies turn fatal.

The funding is part of a $6.8-million package announced Tuesday aimed at addressing a crisis that is claiming dozens of lives each month and placing immense strain on front-line services.

“We’re trying to assist in taking care of (these overdose calls) with a community-based response rather than over-utilizing the health-care system and emergency response system,” a member of the group, who is not being identified, said Wednesday.