Iraqi calligrapher’s handwritten Quran ends 6 years of artistry and craft

ISTANBUL (AP) — Iraqi calligrapher Ali Zaman gazes with pride at his masterpiece — a colossal, handwritten manuscript of the Quran that has taken six years of craft and devotion to complete.

The finished work consists of 302 double sided scrolls, each measuring 4 meters (13 feet) in length and 1.5 meters in width. The sheets, resembling heavy parchment, were custom made for Zaman with a blend of traditional materials including eggs, corn starch and alum.

“Anytime I think of this Quran … it gives me very nice feeling that the mighty God gave me the life to be able to finish this thing and complete it. I feel very proud,” the 54-year-old told The Associated Press at a mosque in Istanbu l where the manuscript is kept.

Islamic calligraphy is regarded as one of the most valued artistic traditions in the Muslim world. The art form served to preserve and embellish Islam ’s holy book and was later also used to adorn mosques, palaces and manuscripts.

Trump continues to target Indigenous peoples

The Assembly of First Nations recently issued an official travel advisory to all its members considering travel to the United States.

Protest songs capture horror, hope in times of turmoil

Bruce Springsteen has always held a mirror up to America.

Sometimes that looks like 1975’s Born to Run, about escaping small-town suffocation and hitting the open road. Sometimes that looks like 2001’s American Skin (41 Shots), about the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student who was hit by 19 of the 41 rounds fired at him by the NYPD. And sometimes that looks like 1993’s Streets of Philadelphia, which was about the AIDS crisis.

On Wednesday, Springsteen released Streets of Minneapolis, an appropriately Dylan-esque protest song about ICE’s reign of terror in Minnesota. The Boss does not mince words, calling out “Trump’s thugs,” “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies” and naming the two “left to die on snow-filled streets,” Alex Pretti and Renée Good.

No, it’s not subtle. But it can’t be. These are not times for subtlety.

Métis-Canadian soprano exploring portrayals of Indigenous women in opera stresses need for joy, humour

While historically opera has been divided into comedies and tragedies, buffa and seria, Camryn Dewar believes Canada’s recent operas have tended to be overly solemn when tackling certain difficult subjects.

The Métis-Canadian soprano is thinking, in particular, about the representation of Indigenous issues — a lightning rod for both government funding and critical scrutiny in Canadian culture.

“Lots of (operas) tackle the struggle and the loss, but not many of them feature Indigenous joy and humour,” she says. “And that’s something that’s really necessary because it helps with normalization, showing us as normal people.”

Dewar, a Fulbright Scholar with a newly minted master of music in vocal performance from Montclair State University, is on a Canadian tour showcasing Indigenous Female Representation in Opera, 1879–Present. Part lecture, part singing performance, the presentation had its first Winnipeg stop last week at the University of Manitoba and returns to the Canadian Mennonite University at 11:30 a.m., March 12, in the Laudamus Auditorium.

‘He took us to the mountaintop’: 30th Sacred Assembly celebrates Elijah Harper’s legacy

Several hundred people from across Canada, including church and Indigenous leaders, gathered in Winnipeg on the weekend to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Sacred Assembly, and to discuss ways to keep its vision alive.

First Nation says Hydro misuse of river diversion destroying sturgeon population

A northern First Nation is calling on Manitoba Hydro to alter its use of the Churchill River diversion to protect a lake sturgeon population allegedly decimated by hydroelectric operations.

Tataskweyak Cree Nation Chief Doreen Spence said the culturally significant species is facing extinction on the river system without immediate intervention, 50 years after Manitoba built the diversion to send water to large power generating stations.

“The diversion has artificially altered the flow of the water… so much that the river is barely able to sustain life as it once did,” Spence told reporters in Winnipeg Thursday.

“Manitoba Hydro must operate the diversion in sync with the natural flow regime of the river for the sturgeon to survive.”

Pimicikamak’s $20-M in unpaid Hydro bills pales in comparison to what Hydro owes First Nation, chief says

To underline its anger over unresolved compensation from the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement, the Pimicikamak (Cross Lake) Cree Nation stopped paying its electricity bills from Manitoba Hydro about 10 years ago. Now, the remote First Nation owes more than $20 million in arrears on its residential accounts.

Dan David, Mohawk journalist and Indigenous news trailblazer, dies at 73

Dan David, a renowned Mohawk journalist who helped establish the news department of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, has died.

His sister Marie David said he died Jan. 12 after a long struggle with cancer.

He was 73.

Karyn Pugliese, an APTN host and producer and David's friend and colleague, said his death is a huge loss for the dozens of Indigenous journalists he mentored and whose careers he helped launch.

Profiter de l’hiver en musique

Depuis plus de vingt ans, le festival Music ‘N’ Mavens s’est donné pour mission de transformer l’hiver winnipegois en saison de rencontres, en misant sur la curiosité culturelle et le plaisir de se retrouver. Jusqu’au 26 mars, au Rady Jewish Community Centre (Rady JCC), la série propose chaque mardi et jeudi après-midi des concerts et des conférences pensés comme des instants de rencontre.

À contre-courant des habitudes culturelles, Music ‘N’ Mavens assume pleinement son créneau de jour avec des concerts et conférences en plein après-midi.

”Je me souviens qu’au début, on me demandait comment je pouvais penser que les gens viendraient à 14 heures quand il fait -30 degrés,” raconte Karla Berbrayer, fondatrice et directrice artistique du festival. Je leur répondais qu’il fallait une raison pour quitter la maison. Et aujourd’hui, plusieurs me disent que c’est la raison qui les pousse à sortir pendant la journée.”

À l’initiative du projet, l’on retrouve Karla Berbrayer, polyglotte et francophile, elle a nourri son intérêt pour la langue française qu’elle a commencé à apprendre en école d’immersion. La fondatrice défend depuis le départ une idée simple, celle d’offrir des propositions artistiques, sociales et culturelles à un moment de la journée souvent négligé.

Another erased piece of the Winnipeg that was

The rubble was still smoking a little on Wednesday afternoon, though by then, all that remained of the place were its bones.

First Nation’s power-outage misery ‘frozen like a rock’

An army of plumbers, engineers and members of the Canadian Armed Forces are continuing to assess damages after a lengthy power outage at Pimicikamak Cree Nation froze water and sewage pipes.

Chief David Monias said it is going to take months to repair damage to homes and years to install new water and sewage treatment plants and systems.

“They have frozen pipes — the sewage plant is completely frozen,” Monias said Wednesday. “The raw sewage has frozen like rock, it is as hard as rock. There is enough (methane) gas in there that we can’t even enter the building. So they are trying to figure out a way how to air out that building so that they can assess the sewage problem.”

Monias said the experts are going to try to get the water and sewage systems up and running while the community works with government on a longer term solution. He said the plants will eventually need to be decommissioned.

Who calls the shots on city land use?

Everybody thinks it, but no one wants to say it out loud — the fact that for decades, our city council and its administration have, to a large degree, been in thrall to the construction and development industries.

Ribbon Skirt Day leader reflects on changes since her cultural attire was shamed

In Isabella Kulak's home is a box of about a few hundred letters, notes and hand-drawn pictures of ribbon skirts sent to her from across Canada and beyond — fan mail from those who consider her story and the origins of "Ribbon Skirt Day" as inspirational.

"I have like a whole notebook of letters, a whole stack of drawings from all these schools and it makes me feel so happy and it warms my heart," said Isabella, a shy 15-year-old, on a phone call from her home in Kamsack, Sask., located about 270 kilometres east of Regina.

"I do want to eventually write back to them, but I am really busy with school."

After all, the Anishinaabe girl is still a teenager. This past week, she had a volleyball tournament. These next few months, she will be completing Grade 10 and the next big step is on the path to medical school, she said.

Damage estimates spiral as Pimicikamak tries to recover from power outage, deep freeze

The power is back on, but the damage has been done. Water leaks. Burst pipes. Burned houses. And still, more than 4,000 residents of Pimicikamak Cree Nation are forced out of their homes, with no clear timeline of when they’ll be able to return.

On Saturday, six days after a downed power line left the remote Northern First Nation without electricity for over four days, Pimicikamak Chief David Monias spoke to reporters by Zoom to give an update on the crisis — and emphasize the expertise and supports the community still needs to recover.

Although power has been restored to the community, which is located roughly 100 km south of Thompson, over four days without electricity caused major damage, Monias said. The water treatment plant is “pretty much ready to explode” due to leaks and is unable to draw water into its reservoir, leaving the community without potable water.

Houses too suffered in the deep freeze, including damage to pipes and cracked floors. So far, of the 1,335 houses on the community, which is also known as Cross Lake, at least 200 are severely compromised and not yet safe for residents to return. That number may grow as officials continue their inspections.

Flicks Cinema enters sixth decade as Stonewall amenity with new energy, new ownership

STONEWALL — Ever since Vince Levenec and his family purchased a movie theatre, he’s gotten used to hearing about patrons’ early romantic encounters.

“Everybody says, ‘That’s where I sat when I had my first kiss,’” Levenec said. “Everybody in town comes in and has that story about the Flicks Cinema.”

Opened in 1975, the single-screen, 200-seat theatre served moviegoers in Stonewall for nearly 50 years before closing its doors in December 2024. When longtime owner Don Smith put the building up for sale last summer, Levenec and wife, Amanda Van Solkema were immediately interested.

Van Solkema grew up in Stonewall, and seeing movies at Flicks Cinema has been a key part of her experience in the bedroom community roughly 25 kilometres north of Winnipeg. Around 15 years ago, Smith was thinking about selling the theatre, Van Solkema said, and she asked him about it.

Chirp heard around Manitoba: RM sells building for $1 to cricket farm entrepreneur

One dollar doesn’t stretch very far these days, but apparently it’s enough to buy a business in Benito.

Family from the Democratic Republic of Congo navigates chilly firsts alongside IRCOM supports

All Clever Ganza wants to do this winter is build a snowman.

He’s not yet had the chance, as it hasn’t been the right kind of snow — although to the eight-year-old, all snow is snow.

It’s his second winter in Winnipeg after arriving in Canada with his parents and younger brother Travor, 5, in December 2024.

Clever has acclimatized pretty quickly.

Fewer than one in five Manitobans are sure they know fabricated online content when they see it: survey

When Weekly World News stories about a half-boy, half-bat lined supermarket checkout lanes in the 1990s, most consumers — including Probe Research partner Curtis Brown — could readily, easily and confidently identify the eye-grabbing tabloid reports as false.

“When it comes to (content generated by) AI, people have a bit less confidence,” says Brown. “Sometimes it’s very obviously so-called AI slop — like a historical figure talking about something contemporary. The last couple of months I’ve seen a lot of videos of JFK talking about what a fool his nephew is.”

Even if a quick Google search to note RFK Jr. was nine when his uncle was assassinated in 1963 — marking such videos as debris in an artificial intelligence mudslide — new media literacy polling conducted by Probe for the Free Press reveals that only 18 per cent of Manitobans feel very confident that they can identify whether video footage is “fake or AI-generated.”

Of the 1,000 Manitobans randomly surveyed by Probe between Nov. 25 and Dec. 10, 13 per cent believed that they’d personally shared video, images or text on social media that they didn’t realize was fake.

Alberta group gets green light to collect signatures for separation referendum

EDMONTON - Alberta's election agency has fired the starter's pistol on the race to collect enough names for a referendum on the province quitting Canada.

Elections Alberta announced Friday that Mitch Sylvestre and the Alberta Prosperity Project have from Saturday until May 2 to collect just under 178,000 signatures to qualify.

"Citizen initiative petition signature sheets have been issued," Elections Alberta said in a statement Friday.

"The proponent may now proceed with collecting signatures."

Filipino-style fried-chicken biz off to a sizzling start

Before we begin, John Tadeo wants to make it abundantly clear that Popoy’s, the tag he and his girlfriend Patricia Santiago settled on for their Filipino-style fried-chicken biz, isn’t a play on an international fried-chicken chain that bears the name of a certain, spinach-loving sailor-man.

When Tadeo was a youngster growing up in the Philippines, his paternal grandmother never called him anything but Popoy, a derivative of Popo, which is Tagalog for little boy or child. His parents continue to address him by that term of affection to this day, so last winter, when he and Santiago were tossing around potential names for their fledgling enterprise, they agreed Popoy’s Golden Chicken had a better ring to it than John’s or Patricia’s.

“I guess if somebody associated with Popeyes (Louisiana Kitchen) ever tells us we can’t call ourselves (Popoy’s), we’d probably just change it to Poy’s,” Tadeo says, standing next to Santiago in the commercial kitchen at Riverview Community Centre, where they accept pickup orders on a regular basis, usually every other weekend.

“But since Popoy is my name, I’m not sure what argument they’d have.”

‘Canada is not for sale’ hat makers want to share domestic manufacturing tips

OTTAWA - One of the people behind the viral "Canada is not for sale" hat says he wants to help other companies get on board the made-in-Canada train.

Liam Mooney told The Canadian Press he and his fiancée and business partner Emma Cochrane felt distraught watching Ontario Premier Doug Ford tell U.S. President Donald Trump and American media in early January that — the president's musings about annexation notwithstanding — Canada would never be for sale.

A few days later the Ottawa-based pair, now married, stitched together a hat bearing the premier's message. Mooney called it a "creative rebuttal" in a form familiar to Trump.

But after a year of learning the ins and outs of domestic manufacturing — and seeing the lengths Canadian firms have to go just to get their products on local store shelves — Mooney said his goal in 2026 is to spread the "Canada is not for sale" ethos.

Skating trail expected to open in time for New Year’s Day activities at The Forks

Skaters, rejoice: the Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks could be open as early as New Year’s Day, marking one of its earlier openings in recent years.

The port rink on the Assiniboine River and a small section of the the iconic river trail opened on Dec. 31 last year. The earliest recorded opening of the six-kilometre skating trail was Dec. 21, 2013.

“We had a good freeze this year… and we’re hoping for a nice, long season this year,” Adam Dooley, spokesperson for The Forks, said Monday.

Sections of the trail, which snakes along the Red and Assiniboine rivers and meets at The Forks port, have some slush owing to recent snowfall and may take more time to open, Dooley said.

Canada responsible for ensuring safe First Nations housing, Federal Court rules in $5-B class-action suit

A Federal Court judge has recognized Canada is responsible for ensuring safe housing on First Nations in a $5-billion class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of two reserves in Manitoba and Ontario.

Métis federation launches second class action over ’60s Scoop

The Manitoba Métis Federation has launched a second court action over the apprehension of Métis children during the ’60s Scoop.

The federation and Albert Beck, a Métis man who was adopted by a non-Indigenous family, filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the Manitoba government in the Court of King’s Bench last week.

The proposed class action seeks damages over the harm suffered by Métis kids who were taken into care and placed with non-Indigenous families in Canada and the United States over several decades.

“The (‘60s) Scoop caused significant, irreparable harm to the Red River Métis children that were removed from their homes and communities. They suffered trauma and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse,” reads the proposed class action.