Tories question CBC funding of spoof-style Indigenous show on residential schools

OTTAWA - Conservatives are questioning why CBC is funding a spoof program that used false pretences to lure high-profile people accused of downplaying the damage caused by residential schools into sitting for interviews.

Several current and former Conservative politicians have gone on social media to denounce the production “Northland Tales." The show is being produced for CBC and APTN.

The show is described by the Indigenous Screen Office — which works to increase Indigenous media representation using federal funding — as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

Frances Widdowson, who has described herself as a “known controversial figure” and has publicly questioned the history of residential schools and unmarked graves of children at the site of a former school in Kamloops, described her interview for the show in a video posted to social media this week.

Discussion paper floats ways Ottawa can help fund giant electrical grid buildout

Ottawa's electricity strategy will consider ways government can shoulder some of the cost of doubling the country's grid by 2050 and ensure equipment and workers are available to make it happen.

The federal government released a discussion paper Thursday laying out the broad strokes of its plan and opening it up to feedback.

"The scale is huge, the timeline is short, and the task of getting the right mix of power is complex," Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Ottawa.

Building Canada's electricity system is a "shared responsibility," the government said in the document.

AtkinsRéalis bets on nuclear-powered AI factories amid data centre surge

MONTREAL - AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.'s nuclear business powered a 34 per cent year-over-year jump in profits last quarter, as the engineering company banks on the technology to seize on soaring demand for energy-hungry AI data centres.

The Montreal-based firm's nuclear division now accounts for a quarter of total revenue versus 15 per cent two years ago, said CEO Ian Edwards. The segment boasted organic revenue growth of nearly 37 per cent to reach a quarterly record high of $737 million.

Preliminary work is now underway at Ontario's Pickering nuclear power station after AtkinsRéalis and Aecon Group Inc. signed a $2.1-billion contract for a life extension on four reactors last year. Money is also rolling in from Romania, where the company secured a deal in 2025 to extend the life of a reactor at the Cernavoda nuclear plant — after winning a contract the year before to build two new multibillion-dollar reactors there.

Atkins' ambitions go beyond traditional nuclear plants. In March, it announced it was teaming up with Nvidia to ramp up deployment of nuclear-powered artificial intelligence factories, as the two parties explore how to work the chipmaking giant's technologies into developing the facilities.

Kinew says watchdog could enforce proposed social media ban

Premier Wab Kinew floated the possibility of using a regulator or commissioner to enforce his proposed ban on social media and artificial intelligence chatbot use for kids.

College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba apologizes to Indigenous people

The regulatory body that oversees registered nurses in Manitoba has issued a formal apology to acknowledge its role in racism against Indigenous people and pledged to do better.

“This apology is long overdue,” Deb Elias, registrar of the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, told a crowd of health care providers and dignitaries from First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities who gathered to witness the apology.

“As the largest health-care profession in Manitoba, registered nurses have been part of the problem and must be part of the solution in ensuring safe care for everyone.”

The announcement coincided with National Nurses week, which began Monday and will conclude May 17.

A Florida lawsuit and AI’s complicity in killing

Readers following the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., will know that Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has apologized for not notifying police about corporate concerns raised internally about ChatGPT’s chatbot interactions with the killer before the attack.

Churchill project not worth the risk

Premier Wab Kinew is banking on the redevelopment of the Port of Churchill as the game-changing project that will put Manitoba back in the black. That’s a risky bet for several reasons.

Health officials working to control hepatitis A outbreak in province

Public health officials are battling a hepatitis A outbreak in Manitoba not seen in decades.

Federal government dismisses calls for radar sites to remain as farmland

OTTAWA - The federal government has rejected calls from some residents in southern Ontario to find other spots to set up planned Arctic over-the-horizon radar installations in order to preserve farmland.

Parliament received a flurry of petitions in recent months criticizing National Defence for buying up plots of quality farmland near Barrie, Ont., for the new radar system, and calling on Ottawa to register the land under an agricultural trust.

The government says the long-range radar, a $6 billion project to modernize Norad surveillance equipment, will make detecting threats in Arctic airspace faster and easier.

The federal government bought 288 hectares of land in Clearview Township, west of Barrie, for an antenna receiver site, upsetting local residents. It also acquired land for a transmitter site in Kawartha Lakes, about 70 km north of Oshawa, Ont.

Students compete to be ‘Reality Champion’

Middle school competitors deferred to their digital magnifying glass as they tried to determine whether King Charles was, in fact, pictured with a greasy plate of pepperoni pizza last month.

The barista is human but an AI agent runs this experimental Swedish cafe

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The coffee might be poured by a human hand, but behind the counter something far less traditional is calling the shots at an experimental cafe in Stockholm.

San Francisco-based startup Andon Labs has put an artificial intelligence agent nicknamed “Mona” in charge at the eponymous Andon Café in the Swedish capital. While human baristas still brew the coffee and serve the orders, the AI agent — powered by Google’s Gemini — oversees almost every other aspect of the business, from hiring staff to managing inventory.

It is not clear how long the experiment will last, but the AI agent appears to be struggling to turn a profit in Stockholm’s competitive coffee trade. The cafe has made more than $5,700 in sales since it opened in mid-April, but less than $5,000 remains from its original budget of $21,000-plus. Much of the cash was spent on one-time setup costs, and the hope is that it eventually levels out and makes money.

Many cafe patrons have found it amusing to visit a business that's run by AI. Customers can pick up a telephone inside the cafe and ask the agent questions.

Health advice is all over social media. Here’s how to vet claims

Health and wellness advice is available in abundance on social media — from trendy to informative to straight-up disinformation — and you're far from alone in seeing it.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults — and around half of those under 50 — get health information from social media or podcasts.

Researchers also looked at the social media profiles of 6,828 health and wellness influencers with at least 100,000 followers. Only about 4 in 10 list a background as a health professional. About one-third called themselves coaches, about 3 in 10 described themselves as entrepreneurs and about 1 in 10 cited their own life experience, like being a parent.

Despite the wide range of expertise, about half of people who get health and wellness information from influencers said the influencers help them better understand their own health, while about one-third said it hasn't made much difference. About 1 in 10 said it made them more confused.

Movie review: Talking-sheep comedy pokes affectionate fun at mystery genre

There’s a certain kind of little British film that wants very much to be sweet and charming.

It’s a tricky genre. When it’s forced, sweetness can easily become sugary, charming can tip over into twee.

This all-ages talking-sheep comedy-mystery gets it right. With a lot of Babe sincerity and a smidge of Knives Out self-awareness, The Sheep Detectives is cosy but never complacent.

Using a deft blend of live-action and CGI animation, the story starts with George (Hugh Jackman), a shepherd who tends his flock just outside Denbrook, a picture-perfect village with thatched roofs, half-timbered walls and a mossy churchyard.

Governments blasted for inaction as HIV rates rise

An HIV/AIDS advocate who has spent the past 35 years raising awareness about the disease is calling for a national inquiry into what he calls a lack of proactive action by provincial and federal governments to prevent infections.

Albert McLeod, a two-spirit elder from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, says HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis — commonly known as PrEP — has been approved by Health Canada since 2016. Despite that, infection rates have continued to climb.

“It’s just this sort of very conservative attitude to our health,” McLeod said Friday, challenging anyone to find a poster in Winnipeg promoting HIV awareness or PrEP on street corners or at bus stops.

“And now it’s suddenly an emergency in 2026, when we’ve had 10 years to be proactive and let people know about the availability of this medication? Instead, we have people who are HIV positive who could be negative.”

Hep A outbreak in province’s North makes its way to Winnipeg, officials scrambling to vaccinate people at high risk

Manitoba public health officials say an outbreak of hepatitis A that began in the province’s North last year has led to an increasing number of cases in Winnipeg in recent weeks.

The outbreak, declared in April 2025, was at first affecting communities in northern Manitoba, including several remote First Nations, but has evolved in recent months and spread to other places in the province, provincial health officials said Friday.

The outbreak has spread to Winnipeg, particularly the homeless community, and people with connections to other places where the virus was already spreading.

As of April 26, 601 cases of hepatitis A virus associated with the outbreak have been identified in Manitoba, 131 of which are in Winnipeg.

In legal dispute over ‘The View,’ ABC argues Trump administration is trying to chill free speech

NEW YORK (AP) — In a strongly worded filing, ABC accuses the Trump administration of trying to chill its constitutionally protected free speech and hinder open political discussion.

The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

Mass cybersecurity breach of learning platform hits Canadian post-secondary schools

Multiple post-secondary institutions across Canada say they've been impacted by a cyberattack targeting an education system used by thousands of schools globally.

Technology company Instructure said it launched an investigation on April 29 after detecting "unauthorized activity" in Canvas, a learning platform for schools that manages student coursework, grades and other education materials.

Information affected by the attack may include names, emails and messages exchanged within the platform, but there's no evidence that passwords, financial information or government identifiers have been compromised, the company said.

Instructure said Canvas went off-line temporarily but is now available to use, and an investigation into the breach is ongoing with a third-party forensic firm and law enforcement.

Developers selling some land slated for delayed ‘complete community’ near Polo Park

Plans for 84-acre development north of the major shopping mall included apartment towers, retail space and parks

Three Winnipeg restaurants among Canada’s best

Three Winnipeg restaurants have made it into the annual Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list.

Mandel Hitzer’s Deer + Almond and Emily Butcher’s Nola, both which appeared last year, retained their spots but dropped down in placing.

Hitzer’s restaurant at 85 Princess St. held the rear of the top 50, down 16 places from last year’s 34 ranking.

Nola (300 Taché Ave.) came in at 88, after making its debut on last years’ list at 86.

Manitoba declares public health emergency over HIV rising rates

The Manitoba government declared HIV spread a public health emergency Thursday as case counts continue to escalate.

Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer, made the declaration at a news conference, noting cases have steadily increased over the past six years.

“In 2024, we reported a rate of 19.5 cases per 100,000 (people), which is roughly 3½ times that of Canada’s rate of 5.5,” Roussin said.

Manitoba had 328 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus in 2025, a sharp increase from the 90 tracked in 2019.