Flin Flon’s school year comes to disappointing end for graduating evacuees

Homesick evacuees from the Flin Flon area were dealt another blow Monday when they learned an out-of-control forest fire had cancelled the rest of the school year in northwestern Manitoba.

Graduates far from home ‘grateful’ for honour at school powwow

Grade 12 Tataskweyak Cree Nation student Jonah Wavey was among several wildfire evacuees honoured Monday during a special celebration of Indigenous graduates at the University of Winnipeg’s Duckworth Centre.

How the humble water gun became the symbol of Barcelona’s anti-tourism movement

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A group of tourists were sitting at an outdoor table in the Spanish city of Barcelona, trying to enjoy their drinks, when a woman raised a cheap plastic water gun and shot an arc of water at them.

Her weapon of choice — the cheap, squirt-squirt variety — is an increasingly common fixture at anti-tourism protests in the southern European country, where many locals fear that an overload of visitors is driving them from their cherished neighborhoods.

How did the humble water gun become a symbol of discontent?

From refreshing to revolutionary

Pray for rain — and plant more trees

As I write this, Saskatchewan is under another air-quality alert as smoke from Alberta and B.C. drift over to cast a shadow on what would typically be a sunny June day.

Like mother, like daughter: Sunshine Fund camp experience runs in the family

Peyton Toth is weeks away from graduating from Grade 3 and heading to summer camp for the first time.

And the bubbly outgoing eight-year-old will soon be on her way to Camp Arnes, on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg north of Gimli, thanks to the Sunshine Fund.

Peyton’s mom, Lindsay, said she knows firsthand the type of experience her daughter will get. Three decades ago, when she was eight years old, she went to camp for the first time — at Camp Arnes.

“I wanted her to go to camp so I began looking at the camps out there,” she said. “But I didn’t realize (camping fees) would be that much. It costs $800 for the week.

More than 7,000 elms felled in Winnipeg last year due to disease

A city report reveals elm trees were chopped down more than expected last year due to Dutch elm disease.

‘She’s all of us’: mural illustrates ties between Winnipeg and grateful Ukrainian newcomers

Blue and yellow ribbons wrapping around the city’s skyline show the deep connection between Ukraine and Manitoba in a new mural.

Take Pride Winnipeg, a downtown non-profit that seeks to clean up and inspire civic pride, unveiled its newest mural, titled “Pray for Ukraine” in the Exchange District on Monday.

It pictures a Ukrainian woman in traditional clothing stoically gazing into the distance as butterflies and a dove — which symbolize hope, peace and rebirth — flutter around the Esplanade Riel and Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The installation at Exchange District BIZ at 492 Main St. was painted by Jennifer Mosienko, who’s worked on more than 40 murals across the city.

Politicians held accountable — what about bureaucrats?

The Sio Silica caretaker convention scandal report by Manitoba’s ethics commissioner should be required reading in every public service in Canada.

Community gathers to remember couple who died in wildfire

LAC DU BONNET — Mourners wiped away tears and shared fond memories as they paid tribute to Susan and Richard Nowell, the couple who died May 13 as a wildfire ripped through homes on Wendigo Road in this tight-knit community.

There almost weren’t enough seats in the town’s community centre Friday as nearly 700 friends, family, and community members gathered to remember the Nowells at a 90-minute celebration of life. The stage was filled with brightly coloured flowers and a collage of photographs.

Emmett Nowell, the couple’s youngest son, looked at the large crowd and took a deep breath, to steady himself before speaking.

“They made everyone feel so special with their love,” said Emmett, who was the first family member to speak. “I could really stand up here and talk about them forever.”

Ottawa, Manitoba decided jointly to send evacuees to Niagara Falls

The Manitoba government confirmed Friday the decision to send some of the 18,000 wildfire evacuees to southern Ontario was made jointly with the federal government.

“Manitoba, in partnership with Indigenous Services Canada, worked quickly to ensure evacuees secured shelter and lodging in Ontario, much like Manitoba housed over 1,000 evacuees from Wabaseemoong Independent Nations (in northwestern Ontario) in May,” a spokesperson said in an email.

The province said it requested assistance from Ottawa — via Public Safety Canada’s Government Operations Centre — that emphasized the need for federal help to ensure a successful emergency response, including evacuation logistics.

“Support measures remain in place for affected on-reserve and eligible First Nation communities, with resources available for both immediate and long-term recovery,” ISC said in an emailed statement.

Singer-songwriter Kelly Bado’s music imbued with the richness of her culture

Kelly Bado, a keen observer of the world around her, forged a sense of camaraderie with her new city — with its landscape, its history and its people — at The Forks.

‘I hope that we don’t lose the town’: Snow Lake residents get mandatory evacuation order

Another wildfire-threatened town in northern Manitoba began a mandatory evacuation Friday, while a 140-kilometre-long blaze threatened multiple communities in two provinces and put evacuees on tenterhooks.

Snow Lake, home to about 1,100 people, ordered residents to get out before noon Saturday and head to an evacuation reception centre in Winnipeg if they need a place to stay.

“I put the sprinkler on my home, and locked the door and left,” resident Caroline Denby told the Free Press during her roughly seven-hour drive to Winnipeg. “I hope that we don’t lose the town. Everybody getting out is the main thing. I really trust our (fire) crew, and believe they’re really wonderful at what they do.”

Town officials started planning for a potential evacuation as early as about two weeks ago. A voluntary evacuation began Tuesday. Denby was ready to go when it became mandatory.

Saskatchewan lays charges in wildfires while 1,000 more flee in Manitoba

Prairie wildfires developed on two fronts Friday, as 1,000 more Manitoba residents were forced to flee their homes and Saskatchewan RCMP charged two people with starting blazes.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told a news conference that one charge relates to starting a fire near La Ronge, which has forced 7,000 people from the area.

“The RCMP have informed us that they have now charged a couple of individuals,” Moe said.

An 18-year-old woman from Montreal Lake Cree Nation and a 36-year-old man from Pelican Narrows each face one count of arson, said RCMP.

Georgia detains second opposition leader within days as ruling party faces more protests

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian police on Friday detained a second opposition leader within days as protests continue in the South Caucasus country against the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Lawyers for Nika Melia, one of the figureheads for Georgia's pro-Western Coalition for Change, said his car was stopped by police on Thursday. Soon after, he was bundled away by a large group of people in civilian clothing.

According to Georgia’s interior ministry, Melia has been detained on charges of verbally insulting a law enforcement officer.

The arrest came a week after that of Zurab Japaridze, another leader of the pro-Western, liberal coalition of parties that support European Union integration and want a restoration of democratic standards.

Every Floridian should have a plan for this year’s hurricane season, DeSantis says

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Two days away from the start of hurricane season, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s top emergency manager joked Friday that they didn't want to encounter each other again until the storm season ends in late November. Forecasts suggest that’s unlikely.

While the upcoming season, which starts Sunday, isn't expected to be as topsy-turvy as last season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there's a 60% chance it will be above normal, a 30% chance near normal and just a 10% chance it will be quieter than average. Relentless storms, including Debby, Helene and Milton, which landed in Florida last year, made for the third-costliest hurricane season on record last year.

“You just have to prepare and plan that we are going to have impacts,” DeSantis said at a news conference in front of shelves of generators at a Home Depot store in Jupiter, Florida. “If you plan and it doesn't happen, you're never going to have regrets. If you don't plan and it happens, you're going to immediately be saying, ‘Why didn’t I do this?'”

Ahead of any hurricanes headed toward the peninsula, Floridians should be prepared to have seven days of food, water and supplies for their households, including pets. If they need to evacuate, they don't have to travel hundreds of miles when traveling just a few miles inland to a hotel or shelter works, officials said.

Hamas says it is still reviewing a US proposal for a Gaza ceasefire

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas said Friday it was still reviewing a U.S. proposal for a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where 27 people were killed in new Israeli airstrikes, according to hospital officials.

The ceasefire plan, which has been approved by Israeli officials, won a cool initial reaction Thursday from the militant group. But President Donald Trump said Friday negotiators were nearing a deal.

“They’re very close to an agreement on Gaza, and we’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow,” Trump told reporters in Washington. Late in the evening, asked if he was confident Hamas would approve the deal, he told reporters: “They’re in a big mess. I think they want to get out of it.”

U.S. negotiators have not publicized the terms of the proposal. But a Hamas official and an Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Thursday that it called for a 60-day pause in fighting, guarantees of serious negotiations leading to a long-term truce and assurances that Israel will not resume hostilities after the release of hostages, as it did in March.

A Palestinian describes 15 minutes of terror trying to get food in the new Gaza distribution system

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Shehada Hijazi woke at dawn. It was his best chance, he thought, to get his hands on a package of food at a new distribution site run by a U.S.- and Israeli-backed foundation in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of others, equally desperate to feed their hungry families, had the same idea.

By the time Hijazi walked the 7 kilometers (4 miles) to the southern tip of the territory, a militarized zone that has been evacuated of its residents, it was chaos. People pushed and shoved for hours as they restlessly waited outside the site, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, earth berms and checkpoints. When it opened, the crowd charged, rushing toward hundreds of boxes left stacked on the ground on wooden pallets.

Hijazi described what he called 15 minutes of terror Thursday at the center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the private contractor that Israel says will replace the U.N. in feeding Gaza's more than 2 million people.

Israeli soldiers opened fire in an attempt to control the crowd, he and other witnesses said. His 23-year-old cousin was shot in the foot. They quickly abandoned hope of getting any food and ran for their lives.

Swiss president pledges aid for Alpine villagers left homeless after glacier collapse

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland's president on Friday said evacuees from an Alpine village whose homes and businesses were destroyed by a landslide caused by a glacier collapse were “not alone," and the government was calculating ways to help.

Karin Keller-Sutter spoke after a helicopter flight to see for herself the damage to the village of Blatten that was largely destroyed on Wednesday as an estimated 10 millions of tons of mud, ice and rock thundered down from the Birch glacier overhead.

“The force with which the mountain here wiped out an entire village is indescribable,” Keller-Sutter said. “I’d like to tell you all that you’re not alone. The whole of Switzerland is with you, and not just (people) in Switzerland.”

Officials limited access to the area and warned that waters from the Lonza River, which has been dammed up by deposits stacked tens of meters high over a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) swath of valley, had pooled into a lake. The future course of those waters could not yet be predicted precisely.

Many survivors of Myanmar’s devastating quake in March still live in leaky tents

BANGKOK (AP) — Two months after a deadly earthquake ravaged much of central and northeastern Myanmar, recovery is just inching along, with huge numbers of people living in temporary shelters while facing the heavy rainfall and strong winds of monsoon season.

The 7.7 magnitude March 28 quake caused significant damage to six regions and states, including the capital Naypyitaw and Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. The confirmed death toll from the disaster has reached 3,740, with 5,104 injured, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Friday.

Bodies are still being found

As the task of rebuilding grinds along, the grim work of recovering the dead is continuing.

Winds push smoke from Canadian wildfires south into US and worsen air quality

Air quality in some parts of the United States is worsening as smoke from dozens of wildfires in Canada travels south, pushed by winds high in the atmosphere.

Through parts of Minnesota and into Wisconsin, the air quality is deemed unhealthy for people and animals sensitive to pollution and other airborne particles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow page.

As of Friday afternoon, the interactive air quality map showed a strip of orange moving northwest to southeast across Wisconsin. Most of the state showed moderate air quality as did all of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Eastern Iowa and northwestern Illinois also showed moderate air quality on the AirNow map.

Over the next day or so, particulates from the burning trees, leaves and other vegetation could reach further south into Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arkansas, said Patrick Ayd, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth, Minnesota.

What is a famine and who declares one?

For months, U.N. officials, aid groups and experts have warned that Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of famine.

Earlier this month, Israel eased a weekslong blockade on the territory as a result of international criticism, but the U.N. humanitarian aid office said Friday that deliveries into Gaza remain severely restricted, describing the current flow of food as a trickle into an area facing catastrophic levels of hunger.

Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people relies almost entirely on outside aid to survive because Israel’s 19-month-old military offensive has wiped out most capacity to produce food inside the territory.

Israel said it imposed the blockade to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages it holds and because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid, without providing evidence. The U.N. says there are mechanisms in place that prevent any significant diversion of aid, though aid trucks have been robbed and hungry crowds have broken into aid warehouses a few times.

Army Corps analysis finds Great Lakes pipeline tunnel would have sweeping environmental impacts

Building an underground tunnel for an aging Enbridge oil pipeline that stretches across a Great Lakes channel could destroy wetlands and harm bat habitats but would eliminate the chances of a boat anchor rupturing the line and causing a catastrophic spill, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday in a long-awaited draft analysis of the proposed project's environmental impacts.

The analysis moves the corps a step closer to approving the tunnel for Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. The tunnel was proposed in 2018 at a cost of $500 million but has been bogged down by legal challenges. The corps fast-tracked the project in April after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in January to identify energy projects for expedited emergency permitting.

A final environmental assessment is expected by autumn, with a permitting decision to follow later this year. The agency initially planned to issue a permitting decision in early 2026.

With that permit in hand, Enbridge would only need permission from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy before it could begin constructing the tunnel. That's far from a given, though.

Evacuee describes ‘surreal’ speed of B.C. wildfire that quadrupled in size

DAWSON CREEK - Shelley Calliou of the Kelly Lake Cree Nation said it was "surreal" how fast a wildfire threatening the community in northeast British Columbia moved.

She said she was told by the RCMP at 6 p.m. Thursday that she had a two-hour window to evacuate, with the Kiskatinaw River fire 18 kilometres southwest of the unincorporated community of Kelly Lake.

"Within those two hours, it moved 10 kilometres. It's fast-moving," said Calliou on Friday from Dawson Creek, B.C., where she said about 70 people had fled, about 80 kilometres north.

The fire that prompted the evacuation order for Kelly Lake and nearby areas on Thursday quadrupled in size overnight, as firefighters warned of "intensifying conditions" in the parched northeast of the province where most fire activity is concentrated.