Burdett Sisler, Canada’s oldest known living man, Second World War vet, dead at 110

Burdett Sisler, the oldest known living man in Canada and one of the oldest Second World War veterans in the world has died. He was 110.

Sisler’s son Norman says his father died with family members by his side after his health took a turn for the worse in recent weeks.

“It's bittersweet. You don't want to see him go, of course. But he had a long life,” Norman said. “It was a great life.”

A statement from Gov. Gen. Mary Simon's office says she and her husband were saddened to learn of Sisler's death and are sending condolences to his friends and family.

Why one Las Vegas newspaper just stopped printing its rival

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Review-Journal announced Friday that it will no longer print its rival the Las Vegas Sun for the first time in decades, sharpening their legal dispute over the nation’s last joint operating agreement stemming from a 1970 law designed to preserve newspapers.

Readers “will not find a printed Las Vegas Sun insert inside,” the Review-Journal wrote in an editorial, noting the Sun maintains a website, has a few hundred thousand followers across social media platforms, and is free to produce its own newspaper.

“We encourage them to do so. The Review-Journal competes with countless sources of news and entertainment, but we would welcome one more. We just don’t want to foot the bill. It is time the Sun stood up on its own two feet,” the editorial said, without specifying the cost.

It was the first day in 76 years the Sun hasn’t been printed, Sun attorney Leif Reid said in an email.

Popularity of sweater with Manitoba roots goes galactic after visit to stars

It’s the ultimate interstellar fashion moment; a vintage-inspired Mary Maxim fox knit, worn by Ryan Gosling’s character in his latest blockbuster Project Hail Mary, has sent the crafting world spinning.

Air Canada CEO to step down later this year after backlash over lack of French

MONTREAL - Air Canada chief executive Michael Rousseau will leave the company later this year after coming under fire last week for his failure to deliver a video condolence message in French following a plane crash that killed two Air Canada Express pilots.

Rousseau has told the board he will step down before October, the airline said Monday. He is expected to continue to lead Canada's largest carrier and serve on its board of directors until they part ways.

The announcement leaves Air Canada scrambling to find a replacement amid the challenge of soaring fuel prices and depressed cross-border travel, and follows a half-decade marked by both COVID-19 hurdles and profit wins under the watch of a CEO known more for his financial finesse than fine-tuned community relations.

Rousseau, 68, was widely criticized for his lack of French in the four-minute condolence video posted online that included only two words in the language — "bonjour" and "merci."

Brandon plane museum needs to land cash for major overhaul

BRANDON — Brandon’s warplane museum is planning a roughly $15-million “major redevelopment” to stabilize the hangar and potentially build a new half-hangar on site.

The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum issued a negotiated request for proposals in February and is receiving regular on-site visits from interested parties, director Zoe McQuinn told the Brandon Sun on Friday.

Museum officials are searching for the best way to repair the hangar’s concrete floor, which is affecting the historic wooden structure on top of it.

“You can see (the effects) all throughout the hangar in different ways,” McQuinn said Friday, while stepping over cracks. “We need a way to stop the heaving in the floor and the twisting in the frame.”

Spying on Indigenous peoples fuels mistrust, threatens Canada’s economy and society

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association published thousands of pages in 2019 that it had fought for years to be released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The heavily redacted documents, the association said, show Canada’s spy agency spent years illegally conducting surveillance and documenting peaceful Indigenous protesters and community environmental organizations that opposed the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project. They include the Dogwood Initiative, ForestEthics (now Stand.earth), Sierra Club BC, Leadnow.ca, and the #IdleNoMore movement.

This discovery followed a report by two researchers in 2016, who found that from 2014 to 2015, the RCMP operated project SITKA, which involved a list of more than 300 political activists in the country — most of whom were Indigenous — with 89 marked as “threats” to national security.

If this wasn’t enough, access to information requests by activists found that from 2009 to 2011, Gitxsan professor and child advocate Cindy Blackstock was monitored by officials at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and the justice department – an act that Canada’s privacy commissioner later called a violation of her privacy rights.

Indigenous services minister questioned about fire that killed toddler

OTTAWA - First Nations chiefs from northern Ontario demanded answers Thursday from Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty after they linked the death of a three-year-old boy to a lack of federal funding for fire services in their communities.

On Monday, a house fire in a northwestern Ontario community took the life of Chief Donny Morris's three-year-old grandson and left two others with serious injuries.

The Independent First Nations Alliance, a group of five First Nations that includes Morris's own community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, filed a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint in August 2025 alleging Indigenous Services Canada was systemically discriminating against their communities by underfunding on-reserve fire services.

Chief Carla Duncan of Muskrat Dam Lake First Nation — a member community of that alliance — told Gull-Masty during a Nishnawbe Aski Nation meeting in Toronto Thursday the community is still searching for the child's remains.

Province’s first Indigenous parenting event draws hundreds in person, online

Amara LeClair starts with the basic questions: Where are you from? Who are your grandparents? Did they forage?

New studies of old dogs help scientists understand where they came from

Using the oldest dog genes studied so far, scientists are finding more evidence that our furry friends have been our companions for thousands of years.

First World War soldier’s remains traced to Manitoba

More than a century after he was killed by an enemy shell during the First World War in France, the remains of Roblin-area farmer Albert (Bert) Henry Detmold have been identified.

The 33-year-old private, who served with the 107th Overseas Battalion, was killed while digging a trench on the first day of the Battle of Hill 70 on Aug. 15, 1917.

Despite the efforts of the surviving members of the unit to find the dead and wounded, in the midst of enemy attacks that involved mustard gas, Detmold’s remains could not be found.

It wasn’t until August 2020 that a construction crew, doing excavation of a site intended for a new hospital, discovered his remains.

Maritime historical groups earn UNESCO recognition for Black Loyalist archive

HALIFAX - Detailed ledgers, business receipts and church records from Black Loyalists in the 1780s and onward are more than just rich historical texts to Andrea Davis.

“This is a part of my history… it means so much to us as a community,” she said in an interview Saturday.

Davis is an eighth generation descendant of Black people who left the United States for Nova Scotia at the end of the American Revolution, siding with the British. The Black Loyalists were offered land, protection and freedom, but they were not given the rations, assistance or fertile land they were promised.

“My ancestors, they are a group of people that were not meant to survive, but they did. And so to be here to represent the Black Loyalists and my ancestors is extremely rewarding,” she said.

More than 20 per cent of Manitobans think the U.S. could invade Canada in the next two years, poll conducted for the Free Press reveals

It has been more than two centuries since American troops crossed the international border in 1812 and invaded what was then the British colony of Canada — but that feeling of everlasting peace is fading.

Against the backdrop of the U.S. war with Iran, its forced removal of Venezuela’s president and President Donald Trump’s musing about annexing Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, some Manitobans are beginning to fear the spectre of armed conflict between this country and its neighbour to the south.

More than one out of five Manitobans believe an American invasion of Canada is possible in the next two years, according to a new Probe Research poll commissioned by the Free Press. Of those, 18 per cent of respondents said the prospect was somewhat likely, and four per cent felt it was very likely.

“The idea of the U.S. invading, for a long time, seemed preposterous. This certainly isn’t a question that we would’ve expected to ask people even a couple of years ago, but we wanted to understand with all of the things that have been happening in the last few months… if this is something that people think is a possibility,” said Curtis Brown, principal of Probe Research.

A sanctuary for the city — and its future

On Saturday mornings during my Grade 12 year, I would head downtown to the Eaton’s department store on Portage Avenue.

I was part of the Eaton’s Junior Executive program, which brought together students from high schools across Winnipeg to host events and represent Eaton’s at community gatherings.

I also had a part-time job in the store’s sporting goods department.

Downtown Winnipeg in those days felt like the centre of my universe. Eaton’s — now the site of Canada Life Centre — was a bustling hub, and on my lunch breaks I would wander outside to explore the neighbourhood.

Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns

ROME (AP) — The Colosseum has a bright new look following a restoration using the same travertine marble of ancient Rome to recreate parts of columns from 2,000 years ago.

Thousands of Romans once flocked to this arena to watch gladiators battle each other and wild animals. The structure still captures the public's imagination; it is Italy’s most popular tourist destination, with 9 million visitors in 2025 alone.

The project focused on a semicircular piazza outside the arena, where Roman spectators crowded under two arcades comprised of marble columns stretching up to 50 meters (164 feet) high. People stood in these arcades as they waited to pass through the entrances and take their seats.

Those arches are long gone, collapsing over the centuries from earthquakes and unstable ground. But now, tourists will be able to sit on large travertine marble slabs where the columns once stood and read reproductions of the Roman numerals that indicated seat sections.

Ukrainian Guide to Winnipeg directory puts focus on area businesses, services run by Ukrainians

A new online directory brings together Ukrainian-owned businesses and service providers in Winnipeg.

The brainchild of Mila Shykota, a provincial government worker who immigrated to Winnipeg in 2022 after Russia invaded her native Ukraine, the directory features 138 businesses — a number she says she adds to every day.

“I came up with the idea a year ago, when I initiated a project at work celebrating our diversity, since our team is very multicultural,” Shykota said on Friday.

She invited co-workers to represent their own country in some way, be it cuisine, culture or heritage. She said when she was preparing her own presentation, she decided to collect data on all of the Ukrainian restaurants and souvenir boutiques in Winnipeg so her colleagues could experience her culture.

Some B.C. appraisers adding land-claims clause after Aboriginal title court case

VICTORIA - An organization representing about 1,200 appraisers in British Columbia says some of its members are adding clauses to their reports noting that current, past, and potential future land claims have not been considered in their valuations.

Allan Beatty, president of the B.C. branch of the Appraisal Institute of Canada, says in a statement that the recent Cowichan Aboriginal title court ruling in B.C. is contributing to speculation that private property rights could be affected.

Beatty says the organization is preparing advice for its members on the appropriate limitation clauses, but discourages the use of "unsubstantiated adjustments that do not reflect the most relevant market data."

In an August 2025 ruling, a B.C. Supreme Court judge confirmed the Cowichan Tribes hold Aboriginal title over about 300 hectares of land on the Fraser River in Richmond, B.C.

King Charles ‘expressed his concern’ over Alberta separatism in meeting: grand chief

EDMONTON - The grand chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations says King Charles "expressed his concern" after hearing about Alberta's separatist push in a face-to-face meeting with Indigenous leaders on Wednesday.

Grand Chief Joey Pete, who was part of a delegation of Treaty 6 chiefs who went to Buckingham Palace, said in a news release that the King was "very interested" in what the Indigenous leaders had to say.

"We made him aware of the separatism issue in Alberta and the threat to treaty it represents," the chief said.

"He expressed his concern and committed to learning more."

Marc Miller says Musqueam deal has ‘nothing to do with’ private property

OTTAWA - Culture Minister Marc Miller says a rights acknowledgment agreement between the federal government and the Musqueam First Nation has "nothing to do with" private property.

He says instead that the agreement signed last month is a small step forward for a First Nation that has been fighting for its rights ever since British Columbia was settled.

The government says the agreement recognizes Musqueam Aboriginal rights "including title within their traditional territory," which the nation asserts is an area encompassing much of Metro Vancouver.

Critics have suggested the agreement could affect private property ownership, but Miller says right-wing parties have been using the issue in a "cynical attempt to try to whip up votes."

Volunteering at aviation museum sparks love of learning, sharing knowledge for former Air Force pilot

Gary Hook was a fighter pilot, commanding officer and senior flight instructor during his 43-year career in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Hook, 72, piloted more than 15 types of aircraft across Canada and Europe.

These days, the aviation buff volunteers as a tour guide and gallery interpreter at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, at 2088 Wellington Ave.

“There’s no shortage of good stories to tell about the aircraft, the people and the eras of aviation they flew in,” Hook says.

Transfer program adds to Manitoba First Nation’s bison population

The herd of bison that calls Chitek Lake Anishinaabe Provincial Park in Manitoba home just grew a little larger.

Debate over a foreign spy service for Canada influenced by allies, money: study

OTTAWA - The decades-long debate over whether Canada should create a CIA-style foreign spy agency has been coloured by pressure from allies, budgetary restraint and internal federal rivalries, a new study reveals.

Much of the discussion about Canada's foreign intelligence aspirations has taken place — fittingly perhaps, given the subject matter — in classified memos and behind closed doors in the halls of government.

"To spy, or not to spy," a new paper by researcher and former Canadian intelligence analyst Alan Barnes, draws on recently released archival records to trace the history of official thinking on the question from 1945 to 2007.

Ottawa's fractious relations with Washington over the last year have prompted fresh conversations about whether Canada should have its own intelligence service that dispatches people abroad to covertly gather political, military and economic information.

Children’s book on Ramadan put back on school shelves

A Ramadan-themed children’s book is returning to elementary school shelves in Winnipeg following public outcry.

The Louis Riel School Division announced on Friday afternoon that it was bringing Upside-Down Iftar back into circulation.

The newly released picture book by Palestinian author Maysa Odeh is about a girl and her grandmother preparing a traditional dish for their family to break their fast together after sunset.

It was temporarily pulled from schools last week following a complaint about an illustration of a map.

West has long history of vilifying Iran

In 1953, Britain and the United States worked together to overthrow the democratically elected, secular government in Iran.

Shockingly, this intervention did not end up being the advent of a long and fruitful friendship between Iran and the U.S. Instead, as so often happens when imperialist actors impose their will on foreign nations, it fostered a deep resentment amongst the Iranian populace.

This malignant animosity was a primary ingredient to the social climate which brought us the Islamic revolution of 1979, when the current regime seized power.

And an undeniably brutal regime it has been.