Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos lead $200M project to save 100 of globe’s most threatened species

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Foundations funded and co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos have launched an initiative committing $200 million to revive 100 of Earth's most threatened species, including endangered lemurs, salamanders, pangolins, pigs and echidnas.

DiCaprio's Re:wild and the Bezos Earth Fund are leading the Phoenix Species Project, the groups announced Tuesday. They call it the largest single fund in history dedicated exclusively to recovering critically endangered species.

DiCaprio has for years been developing the idea of a major concerted effort to help species whose habitats and future existence are threatened by climate change.

In 2021, he and Re:wild co-founder Wes Sechrest, a biologist who serves as the organization's CEO, met with the Amazon-founding mega billionaire Bezos and his wife, former TV news reporter and host Lauren Sánchez Bezos. He serves as chair and she as vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund.

Seven more belugas on the move from Marineland to U.S. aquarium

NIAGARA FALLS - Seven more whales are on the move from Marineland, headed to a new home at an aquarium in the United States.

Marineland says in a statement that it has begun the second phase of its whale relocation plan, just weeks after successfully transferring six belugas to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and SeaWorld in San Antonio.

It says the whales getting shipped Monday – female belugas named Xena, Gemini, Skyla, Meeka, Eve, Neva and Calypso – are all going to SeaWorld's San Antonio location.

The park says the health, safety and well-being of the whales remain its top priority throughout the journey.

Some Canadians tell Carney Ottawa’s spelling protocol should lean British

OTTAWA - It seems some Canadians feel quite at home with the federal government's preference for British spelling.

Messages to Prime Minister Mark Carney on the matter indicate several correspondents see the affectation as a way of countering U.S. cultural dominance.

A flurry of emails to Carney followed news last December that promoters of Canadian English objected to the federal government's use of British spelling in official documents.

Dozens of pages of messages were released to The Canadian Press in response to an Access to Information request.

Brandon laying groundwork for Arabian championship

BRANDON — It’s time to dish the dirt on what’s about to happen at Brandon’s Keystone Centre.

Hundreds of horses and hundreds more spectators are about to descend on the site for Canada’s National Arabian Championship Aug. 6 to 15, and before that happens, the staging surface has to be perfect.

“We have been working on this day in and day out,” said Devin Epp, sales manager in the Ag Centre at the Keystone Centre.

Since July 24, staff have been working on a 24-hour schedule to build the competition floor. Dirt was hauled into the arena and has since been worked into place with tractors and hand-pushed equipment.

Long journey to home ownership for Eritrean couple

Solomon Ghebru and his family have been building a life together in Winnipeg for the past three years after years of living apart in various countries. Now, they are working toward a new goal: owning a home.

Their story is the focus of this year’s Habitat for Humanity Manitoba Cycle of Hope fundraising ride, a seven-day cycling event through southern Manitoba that begins Monday. The ride aims to raise $150,000 to support Ghebru, his wife, Mehret Awate, and their two daughters as they work toward affordable homeownership.

The couple’s journey to Canada started in Eritrea, where they grew up and attended the same church together. They left Eritrea separately, hoping to build a better life together out of the country. Ghebru travelled through Sudan and Libya before reaching Malta, while Awate travelled to Sudan and then Uganda.

After he found work in Malta, he tried to have his family join him, but government policies prevented them from reuniting. The couple married in Uganda in 2016, and their first daughter, Peniel, was born there the following year.

Crop storage headaches loom on horizon

A sense of calm descends over Prairie fields this time of year — at least on the surface.

Activities become more limited in the weeks leading up to harvest. There’s not much farmers can do now to support this year’s crop, other than monitor and protect it from diseases such as sclerotinia in canola and leaf stripe and fusarium head blight in wheat and barley.

July is when you might see farmers wading into a thick stand of canola, conducting a so-called “wet pants test” to get a low-tech read on how much disease-inducing moisture is lurking in the canopy.

Disease pressure is high in a humid, hot summer like this one and it’s kept aerial applicators busy applying fungicides. Sclerotinia spores live on plant residues in the soil and blossom into a mould that destroys the canola stem, starving the maturing pods.

Sous les eaux islandaises avec Julien Nayet-Pelletier

Avec Julien Looks Under Things: Under Iceland’s Waters, le vulgarisateur scientifique Julien Nayet-Pelletier entraîne le public sous les eaux islandaises. Son documentaire met en lumière une biodiversité fascinante et les personnes qui travaillent à sa préservation.

Devenir cinéaste n’était pas un rêve d’enfance du franco-manitobain Julien Nayet-Pelletier.

Mais bien qu’il ait toujours été fasciné par la nature et le théâtre, et bien qu’il demeure fan des documentaires de David Attenborough, c’est donc sans surprise que la vie l’a finalement mené sur cette voie.

Il est l’animateur de la série numérique Julien Looks Under Things, où il vise à dévoiler les éléments variés de la nature avec humour et un talent pour rendre la nature accessible.

Making water safety a priority

The headlines persist.

Every summer, across Canada, people learn of drownings and deaths that could have been prevented if the people involved had taken water-safety precautions — learning to swim, supervising children, observing boating safety rules, wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs) or being cautious in and around fast-moving waters.

Also every summer, the Royal Lifesaving Society of Canada — which runs the Swim for Life program of swimming lessons across the country — designates the third week of July as National Drowning Prevention Week, as July is when Canadian water-incident rates peak.

The aim of Drowning Prevention Week is to promote water safety of all kinds — and the need is real. According to the Lifesaving Society, over 450 Canadians die annually in preventable water-related incidents. In Manitoba, there are 22 fatal drownings, on average, every year.

Rushing to Rushing River

Every summer, Manitobans go rushing to Rushing River. I told Margie, “And that explains the name!”

Although 240 kilometres from Winnipeg, Ontario’s small Rushing River Provincial Park reports 51,000 annual visits by ’Tobans, about two-thirds of total entries. On some days, I’ve only seen Manitoba vehicles in the campground.

Yup, my new pastime is vacationing to survey licence plates.

This boreal beaut awaits down Ontario Highway 71, shortly after the Trans-Canada Highway’s clever sign explaining “Large vehicles need more room” — and after the intersection where Margie yelled, “Stop! A turtle is crossing!”

Reclaiming Icelandic ancestors, one photo at a time

When Blair Swanson tries to identify the images of people who have been lost to time, Facebook is his greatest tool.

Each month, he posts dozens of historical photos of Icelandic immigrants to Facebook groups in the hope that people will be able to identify them.

The Winnipegger works with Icelandic Roots, a global non-profit that traces the family line of more than 850,000 people of Icelandic heritage from around the world.

Swanson runs the organization’s Unknown Photos Project, which tries to uncover details about the lives of the people depicted in pictures sent in by the Icelandic community.

Embarking on backyard photo expedition benefits science, conservancy says

Manitobans can contribute to a global scientific database that helps scientists further understand local wildlife by simply going outside and snapping some photos.

The Big Backyard BioBlitz, which began earlier this week and ends Monday, is an annual national event organized by the Nature Conservancy of Canada that encourages people to record wildlife observations and submit them to researchers.

People can take photos of animals, insects or plants at any outdoor space and submit them virtually through the NCC website. The program is a great way for people to take part in protecting the environment, said Christine Chilton, the conservancy’s Manitoba region community development manager.

“It becomes really easy to say, ‘The climate is in trouble and things are not going the way we want them to, I wish somebody would do something about it.’ This is a really neat way for people to be a part of the story and help make a difference.”

The bountiful harvest: Thousands of visitors flock to St. Norbert Farmers’ Market every Saturday

While most of Winnipeg is still sleeping, or perhaps just starting to think about making the morning coffee, a patch of shade and sun just south of the Perimeter Highway is already humming with life.

Alberta lets the dogs out, recruits more canine muscle in fight against mussels

CALGARY - Hilo, Jane and Winnie are a part of Alberta's muscle against invasive mussels that have spread throughout the Great Lakes and Canadian waterways since the 1980s.

So far, species of invasive mussels haven't made their way into Alberta, and the canines work among human teams that scan boats entering the province to maintain that streak.

But the threat is nearing, with golden mussels just recently established in California, said Cindy Sawchuk, the lead for the province's Aquatic Invasive Species Operations and Conservation Canine Program.

"These mussels really like to hide in damp, dark places (and) a lot of them are hard to see," said Sawchuk, emphasizing their small size.

Giant Tiger to close downtown, area residents bemoan dwindling grocery options

One of the only remaining grocery-store options for people living downtown and in the Exchange District is closing its doors.

Minister says changes to Nutrition North program set to roll out in the fall

OTTAWA - Northern Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand says changes to the Nutrition North program are coming this fall, but they won't be limited to subsidies to reduce the cost of food in the North.

Instead, Chartrand said, the federal government is looking at all options to help reduce food insecurity in the region, including strengthening local supply chains and supporting harvesters.

Nutrition North provides money to retailers to help bring down the high cost of groceries in 124 communities. Some retailers have been accused of not applying the full subsidy to the items they sell.

The federal government says it has been reviewing the program to strengthen the food economy, restructure governance and reform subsidies.

Get a little culture: Folklorama celebrates 55 years

You never have to wait more than a week in Winnipeg during summer for the next major festival.

And you never have to venture very far during Folklorama, which begins Sunday, before running into another church, community centre or curling club humming with music, food and cultural dress.

In sheer scale, it’s the most transformative festival Winnipeg has.

Featuring 45 pavilions this year, its 55th, Folklorama launched Wednesday at a news conference at The Forks. (The official kickoff is Sunday at Assiniboine Park’s Lyric Theatre and Field at 4 p.m., the only chance to see all the Pavilion Ambassadors in one spot.) The event also featured a citizen ceremony for several dozen new Canadians, presided over by Canada’s first Métis citizenship judge, Suzanne Carrière.

Some robotaxis approved to operate without steering wheels and losing the brake pedal could be next

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Federal regulators are clearing the way for robotaxis to operate without manual controls like steering wheels or eventually even brake pedals as the rules start to catch up to the evolving technology.

Amazon’s fully autonomous Zoox vehicles got approval Thursday to begin charging customers for rides in the specially designed cars that feature four inward-facing seats once they secure state and local approval. Zoox has already been offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco since last year. At least a couple people were waiting at most stops Thursday afternoon for rides up and down the Vegas strip aboard one of the distinctive boxy-shaped vehicles.

“It’s kind of scary at first, but when I just got used to it, it’s really cool and chilling. I really liked the music and how you can adjust the temperature,” Chloe Huu from Ann Arbor, Michigan, said after taking a ride in a Zoox Thursday. But the projected wait time for the ride kept changing, which made it hard to plan.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also proposed a rule last month to allow robotaxis to operate without brake pedals, but that proposal is still pending. Administrator Jonathan Morrison said his agency wants to update the regulations to fit these fully autonomous vehicles while still acting as the “cop on the beat to make sure that this is being done right.”

Real-life heroes commended for bravery

In a situation where other people might freeze, Preston Houle took action.

He recalls being at Delta Beach on July 18, 2025 when he heard a cry for help from a mom in distress, her two-year-old son in the water unresponsive after going under while playing with friends.

“I leaped into action,” Houle said. “I grabbed the young man, took him back to the shore, performed CPR until he kind of came back, and waited until EMS got there.”

Houle’s wife, too shy to speak, agreed that her husband was the kind of man you could rely on.

Ceremony heralds growth of active transportation network in city’s north

North Winnipeg’s active transportation network is set to grow, with construction planned for a nearly two-kilometre extension of the Northwest Hydro Corridor Multi-Use Path later this summer.

A few community members, Mayor Scott Gillingham and other representatives from the city and province and Trails Manitoba gathered Tuesday at Daylan Marshall Gate Park for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of Phase 2 of the project, which will extend the existing multi-use pathway north and south.

The original Northwest Hydro Corridor opened in 2023 and runs nearly three kilometres along the hydro right-of-way from Leila Avenue to Church Avenue, just west of McPhillips Street.

Phase 2 will extend the corridor north from Leila Avenue to the greenspace behind Daylan Marshall Gate and south from Church Avenue to Selkirk Avenue. Once completed, the pathway will stretch approximately 4.2 kilometres in length.

‘Drive day and night’: TFI plans to roll out driverless trucks in U.S.

MONTREAL - Canada's biggest trucking company aims to roll out autonomous big-rigs in the United States next year, with testing slated to start within months.

TFI International Inc. is working on the project with a partner south of the border in a bid to boost reliability, safety and fuel efficiency, said chief financial officer David Saperstein.

"It can drive day and night. There's no hours of service," he told analysts on a conference call Tuesday evening.

Driverless vehicles steer clear of human factors such as fatigue, illness and poor driving, Saperstein suggested.

Bell rolling out new tool to detect and flag spoofed phone calls using AI

MONTREAL - Bell Canada is launching an artificial intelligence-powered feature that it says can identify and flag spoofed phone calls.

The telecommunications company says the tool will help protect customers against fraud involving caller ID spoofing, a tactic used by scammers to impersonate organizations, local businesses or personal contacts.

Steve Karan, Bell's vice-president of wireless products and logistics, says this adds "another powerful layer of protection" to keep Canadians safe as phone fraud grows more sophisticated.

It builds on Bell's suspicious call detection feature launched last year, which uses artificial intelligence analytics to monitor incoming calls in real time and alert customers to potential spam or fraud.