Manitobans raise more than $81,000 for cancer research at Terry Fox Run

Hundreds of runners, walkers and cyclists flooded Assiniboine Park Sunday to remember Terry Fox’s legacy and honour their own loved ones affected by cancer.

The 45th annual Terry Fox Run kicked off by the park pavilion at 10 a.m. Sunday. Manitoba donors raised more than $81,000 for cancer research this year.

Families old and young took to the 2.5-kilometre route all morning, some with shirts bearing Fox’s iconic visage, others carrying signs and mementos of the people they were running for.

Some came in recognition of someone currently battling cancer, like Jason Wells, who ran for his father.

Stop the online world, I want to get off

One day, I won’t need to keep up.

I look forward to that. When I won’t need to know what is happening with tariffs and governments, when I won’t have to fill my morning cup with a daily dose of man’s inhumanity to man, when I don’t have to dig through dross.

I’m just back at work after a few weeks out in a non-media world, realizing after several days I felt like I was coming up from underwater — and that, crucially, I was actually thinking about things beyond the regular churn of news. That I was having thoughts not directly connected to work purposes, that delightful meanderings of mind were still possibly in my weary head.

Thoughts about the domed shape of a sea urchin’s pale-green shell once all of its spines have fallen away; about the feel of small smooth beach rocks as you hold them in place against your index finger and rub them with you thumb. About the distance and weight of the horizon on a grey day, and the slap and lop of small waves on a beach protected by offshore rocks.

Day of free services, entertainment offers heartwarming helping hand to city’s homeless

After three years of homelessness and endless hours walking Winnipeg’s streets, Vineet got a rare chance to put his feet up Friday.

The 49-year-old immigrant from India was one of hundreds of people without homes who received free, hands-on care from volunteers at the Gizhe Waa Ti‑Sii‑Win Service Delivery Expo.

A nurse was checking, cleaning and treating blisters, calluses and toenail issues — small irritants that can quickly become big problems if they get infected, a worry for people exposed to the elements who don’t have regular access to medical care.

“This is something good for me… we walk all day,” said Vineet, who offered only his first name.

Widespread availability of graphic Charlie Kirk shooting video shows content moderation challenges

Immediately after Charlie Kirk was shot during a college event in Utah, graphic video of what happened was available almost instantly online, from several angles, in slow-motion and real-time speed. Millions of people watched — sometimes whether they wanted to or not — as the videos autoplayed on social media platforms.

Video was easy to find on X, on Facebook, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube — even on President Donald Trump's Truth Social. The platforms, generally, said they were removing at least some of the videos if they violated their policies, for instance if the person was glorifying the killing in any way. In other cases, warning screens were applied to caution people they were about to see graphic content.

Two days after Kirk's death, videos were still easily found on social media, despite calls to remove them.

“It was not immediately obvious whether Instagram for example was just failing to remove some of the graphic videos of Charlie Kirk being shot or whether they had made a conscious choice to leave them up. And the reason that it that was so hard to tell is that, obviously, those videos were circulating really widely,” said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University.

Kemp and Elizarov intend to keep the party going

On a 10-point scale, just how excited are ascending pairs skaters Ava Kemp and Yohnatan Elizarov as they contemplate what lies ahead this Olympic season?

“Ten,” Elizarov said without hesitation. “I’m very excited. I think it’s going to be a good season.”

Kemp concurred.

“Yeah, I would say 10. Last season showed us when we sat and watched others compete, we were eager to compete and wanted to, but couldn’t,” she said, referring to her back injury that sidelined the pair for several months last fall before they rebounded to claim their second Canadian junior title.

Steinbach, nearby communities flooded in massive overnight deluge

Some residents of Steinbach were mopping up and assessing damage Friday after the southeastern Manitoba city was swamped by two months’ worth of rain in about four hours.

An animal rescue charity was hit by catastrophe again when basements and streets flooded almost a year to the day a deluge inundated buildings.

“Last year, they told us it was a one-in-1oo-year event, and here we are 11 months later with the same event,” said Graham Pollock, vice-president of Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue.

He said the organization moved almost two dozen cats and kittens to foster homes after nearly 2.1 metres (seven feet) of floodwater filled the shelter’s basement overnight Thursday.

Kinew stands by cabinet minister dogged by controversy

Premier Wab Kinew says he won’t remove a cabinet minister over a social-media post she shared that slammed American right-wing activist Charlie Kirk following his assassination on a university campus Wednesday.

Nahanni Fontaine, who recently had to apologize over her criticism that an ASL interpreter had shared a stage with her and blocked her view of the audience, will remain families minister, the premier said Friday.

“It would be too easy to show her the door,” Kinew said, adding he doesn’t believe in cancel culture. “People need to be brought along and shown… we need to be showing empathy and compassion to people even when we don’t agree with them.”

Kinew said he spoke to Fontaine earlier in the day and asked her to apologize after she shared another person’s post on Instagram one day earlier that said: “Charlie Kirk was a racist, xenophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, sexist, white nationalist mouthpiece who made millions of dollars inciting hatred in this country.”

Road through popular dog park proving divisive

Users of a large and popular city dog park fear renovations that will cut a road through the expansive property will transform the serene space into a busy traffic route.

By contrast, the city expects the updated park would serve more people and make better use of its entire property.

Frequent visitors to the 48-hectare off-leash dog area in Kilcona Park, adjacent to Highway 59 in the northeast quadrant of the city, say it’s a well-loved spot that the road would disrupt.

“Putting a big road through that… park, it just seems so intrusive. It’s beautiful just the way it is, there’s prairie wildflowers, there’s wildlife,” said Tom Moody.

Bewildered and ‘in horror,’ Toronto man fights fake news that he shot U.S. influencer Charlie Kirk

TORONTO - Michael Mallinson had never met Charlie Kirk, nor had he ever heard the name of the American right-wing commentator who was shot dead in broad daylight at a Utah college event on Wednesday.

But the retired Torontonian has done some research about him after his death.

"I gather that he appeals to young conservatives. I'm an old socialist. I guess that's the best way I could put it," Mallinson said in a phone interview.

They would never have come across each other, but a piece of viral online misinformation has tied Mallinson to Kirk's story. Now the former banker, 77, is fighting to make the truth understood: he is decidedly not the person who put a bullet in the controversial commentator's neck.

Telus drops the gloves with Rogers over alleged ad blocking on its media platforms

TORONTO - A Canadian telecom giant is asking the national regulator to call one of its competitors offside, saying it has been unfairly blocked from advertising on the other company's media platforms.

It's a battle between Telus Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. that also extends to the ice, with the former alleging that Rogers has used its position as Canada's dominant TV rightsholder for NHL games to interfere with Telus' long-standing sponsorship of the Calgary Flames.

The issue was outlined in a complaint filed by Telus in June and posted to the CRTC's website Tuesday. It alleges Rogers has been engaging in "anticompetitive behaviour" that violates regulatory rules.

Rogers disputes that characterization, however, saying Telus' advertisements aim to harm its reputation and therefore don't comply with its content standards.

Why Winnipeg needs low-fare transit

Picture a single mother choosing between groceries and bus fare, or a youth not being able to access recreational activities because transit is too expensive. In a city where costs continue to rise, access to public transit shouldn’t be a luxury, but a daily necessity for survival.

Protests against Nepal’s social-media ban grow more violent as demonstrators set buildings on fire

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Protests against Nepal’s short-lived ban on social media grew increasingly violent Tuesday as demonstrators set government buildings and politicians’ homes on fire and attacked some leaders. The prime minister resigned amid widening criticism of the country’s political elite.

The resignation appeared to have little effect on the unrest. Tens of thousands of protesters remained on the streets late in the day, blocking roads and storming government facilities. Army helicopters ferried some ministers to safe places.

A day earlier, demonstrations led by young people angry about the blocking of several social media sites gripped the capital, and police opened fire on the crowds, killing 19 people.

The ban was lifted Tuesday, but the protests continued, fueled by rage over the deaths and accusations of political corruption in the nation wedged between China and India.

Alberta bans sexual images in school library books under revised order

EDMONTON - The Alberta government made good Monday on its promise to revise its school book ban, stating that from now on written descriptions of sex are OK, but images and illustrations of sex are not.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides told reporters that visual depictions had been the government's main concern from the start.

When asked by reporters why the government wasn't concerned with written descriptions of explicit sexual material, he said, “An image can be understood and conveyed at any grade level with any degree of comprehension.

“Whereas, of course, vocabulary and understanding progresses and develops throughout the school year."

ChatGPT — get away from my em dash

ChatGPT is ruining my life, and I don’t even use it.

Winnipeg independent music magazine Stylus set to fold

The future of Stylus Magazine, Winnipeg’s flagship indie music publication, is in jeopardy.

Collective encourages BIPOC networking

It’s a warm weekday morning and Saintuary Café is filled with strangers chatting about their work and passion projects over lattes and croissants.

This has become a regular scene for the co-working café club hosted by the Value Able, a growing grassroots community designed to help BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) creatives in Winnipeg meet and collaborate.

The idea started percolating when founders Star Tactay and Daezerae Gil met at a networking event in February.

Tactay — a marketing professional and software development student from the Philippines — had recently moved to the city from Texas and was looking to meet other people of colour working in creative fields. Gil, a Winnipeg-born photographer, realized she was looking for the same thing.

Attorneys general warn OpenAI and other tech companies to improve chatbot safety

The attorneys general of California and Delaware on Friday warned OpenAI they have “serious concerns” about the safety of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, especially for children and teens.

The two state officials, who have unique powers to regulate nonprofits such as OpenAI, sent the letter to the company after a meeting with its legal team earlier this week in Wilmington, Delaware.

California AG Rob Bonta and Delaware AG Kathleen Jennings have spent months reviewing OpenAI's plans to restructure its business, with an eye on “ensuring rigorous and robust oversight of OpenAI’s safety mission.”

But they said they were concerned by “deeply troubling reports of dangerous interactions between" chatbots and their users, including the "heartbreaking death by suicide of one young Californian after he had prolonged interactions with an OpenAI chatbot, as well as a similarly disturbing murder-suicide in Connecticut. Whatever safeguards were in place did not work.”

American Eagle counts new customers after Sydney Sweeney ad frenzy and shares soar

Shares of American Eagle Outfitters spiked 34% Thursday after the teen clothing retailer said the frenzy surrounding its Sydney Sweeney ad campaign drew new customers during its most recent quarter.

American Eagle rolled out its new new ad campaign starring 27-year-old actor over the summer. The fall denim campaign sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture.

Negative reactions centered on ads that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” featuring the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for the HBO series “Euphoria” and “White Lotus.”

But American Eagle did get noticed, executives said late Wednesday in a call after the Pittsburgh retailer posted second quarter earnings.

C-SPAN announces deal for its service to be carried on YouTube TV, Hulu

NEW YORK (AP) — C-SPAN said Wednesday that it had reached a deal to have its three channels air on YouTube TV and Hulu's live television feed, ending a dispute that had led to a revenue squeeze for the public affairs network in the cord-cutting era.

The network said the streaming services would pay the same fee as cable and satellite companies, roughly 87 cents a year per subscriber, and that C-SPAN would continue its no-advertising policy on television.

Congress involved itself in the issue, passing a resolution this spring calling on the services' parent companies — Alphabet for YouTube and Disney for Hulu — to add C-SPAN to their programming mix. Because congressional sessions and hearings represent a big portion of C-SPAN's programming, the politicians faced diminished airtime without a deal.

At its peak a decade ago, C-SPAN was seen in some 100 million homes with television. The number of homes paying for TV has since dropped to some 70 million, with roughly 20 million of those consumers now getting television through services like YouTube and Hulu, and they weren't showing C-SPAN.

Los Angeles school district settles with parents who sued over distance learning

Parents have agreed to settle a lawsuit that alleged the distance learning program used by the Los Angeles Unified School District during the COVID-19 pandemic failed to meet state educational standards and disproportionately harmed Black and Latino students, a lawyer for the families said.

Attorneys for parents who filed the class-action lawsuit in 2020 said the agreement would require the nation's second-largest school district to offer at least 45 hours of significant tutoring services a year to more than 100,000 of its most vulnerable students over the next three years in addition to teacher training and mandatory assessments. The goal is to help the district's most disadvantaged students, the lawyers said.

The deal must be approved by the court to take effect.

"For nearly five years, we have fought tirelessly on behalf of LAUSD students and their families to enforce students’ constitutional right to basic educational equality,” Edward Hillenbrand, one of the plaintiffs' pro bono attorneys, said in a statement on Wednesday.

AI chatbots changing online threat landscape as Ottawa reviews legislation

OTTAWA - Wrongful death lawsuits citing the activities of artificial intelligence chatbots are underway in the United States, as reports emerge of mental health issues and delusions induced by AI systems.

These incidents are drawing attention to the changing nature of the online threat landscape — just weeks after the Liberal government said it would review its online harms bill before reintroducing it in Parliament.

"Since the legislation was introduced, I think it's become all the more clear that tremendous harm can be facilitated by AI, and we're seeing that in particular in the space of chatbots and some of the tragedies," said Emily Laidlaw, Canada research chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary.

The Online Harms Act, which died on the order paper when the election was called, would have required social media companies to outline how they plan to reduce the risks their platforms pose to users, and would have imposed on them a duty to protect children.

The defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting will get one of TV’s biggest prizes

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be honored with one of the television's top prizes even as it winds down its nearly 60-year work after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization, which has helped pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and TV stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” will be awarded the Television Academy's Governors Award, which honors those who have "made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television.”

It will be handed to Patricia de Stacy Harrison, the longest-serving president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony on Sept. 7.

“For more than half a century, CPB has been a steadfast champion of storytelling that informs, educates and unites us and ensures public media remains a vital space where diverse voices are heard and communities are served,” Television Academy Chair Cris Abrego said in a statement Tuesday.

Margaret Atwood takes aim at Alberta’s school library books ban with satirical story

EDMONTON - Margaret Atwood is taking aim at Alberta's controversial ban on school library books containing sexual content with a new, satirical short story after the famed author's novel "The Handmaid's Tale" was yanked from some shelves due to the province's sweeping new rules.

In a social media post on Sunday, Atwood said since the literary classic is no longer suitable in Alberta's schools, she has written a short story for 17-year-olds about two "very, very good children" named John and Mary.

"They never picked their noses or had bowel movements or zits," she said at the beginning of her story.

"They grew up and married each other, and produced five perfect children without ever having sex."

Increasing restrictions could silence culture critics

It’s getting harder to see where reviews and other forms of cultural criticism fit in the current media ecosystem. Arts writing positions are being axed at outlets all over North America — but a landscape of all influencers and no critics means all promotion and no journalism.