Canadian astronaut prepares for NASA mission to International Space Station

Growing up on a cattle farm in eastern Alberta, Joshua Kutryk says he dreamt of going to space though he never thought it would happen.

But a few months after Artemis II's lunar flyby, the 44-year-old is preparing for a mission to the International Space Station that could lead to medical breakthroughs.

Kutryk is one of four members assigned to NASA's SpaceX Crew 13 mission.

He will join NASA's Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Watkins will be returning to the space station for the second time.

Michigan reports the first 2 US deaths related to a diarrhea-causing parasite

DETROIT (AP) — Two people have died in the cyclospora outbreak in Michigan, state health officials announced Monday, the first deaths confirmed in the U.S. related to the microscopic parasite.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said both people had underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by the intestinal illness and dehydration. The department said it would not provide additional information about the deaths.

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The CDC says the illness, called cyclosporiasis, is rarely deadly.

Duelling symbols: Alberta and Canada flags creating division ahead of referendum

EDMONTON -

Sarah Batchelor says it started a few weeks ago when a large blue flag bearing Alberta's shield of arms appeared on her neighbour's window in Airdrie, a city north of Calgary.

The 49-year-old music teacher, who has lived in the province for most of her life, says she would not have been bothered if her neighbour put it up a couple of years ago.

But now it irks her because of its widespread use by separatists.

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.

Helium demand balloons as Mideast supplies deflate: Can Canada meet the moment?

CALGARY - An unusual inquiry came recently to the Calgary office of Avanti Helium Corp., an explorer for the ultralight gas used for applications as wide-ranging as party balloons and space exploration.

It was a prospective customer from the Middle East, where a sizable share of the world's helium supply normally originates, reaching out to a provider half a world away.

"Well, that's interesting," Chris Bakker, Avanti's chief executive, recalled thinking. "I never thought I'd be shipping right in their backyard like that."

Turmoil in the oil and natural gas markets may have garnered the most headlines since the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, but the conflict has also upended helium supplies. Canada has raw resource in the ground to help fill the gap — but industry players say the government lacks the right policies and incentives for them to develop and sell it.

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.

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.

Climate change threatens events we wait for all year

I can’t be the only one feeling some existential dread about our summers, and the things that make them special, in the face of a changing climate.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

Plot an effective ‘retirement plan’ for your body

Every few months, someone tries to sell us the next big anti-aging breakthrough. A supplement. A peptide. A detox. A device that looks like it belongs in a spaceship and costs more than your first car did.

I get the appeal. Nobody wants to age poorly and we’re wired to wish for a shortcut. And if you’re a parent over 40, you don’t need a study to tell you energy, sleep, stress and your waistline all feel a little harder to keep in check than they did at 20.

But when you look at what actually helps people age well, the answers aren’t flashy. They’re annoyingly simple. Lift weights. Walk more. Sleep enough. Eat enough protein. Don’t over-eat or carry too much extra body fat. Manage stress. Build good relationships. Stay optimistic enough to keep pushing.

Not exactly headline-worthy clickbait type stuff. But probably the closest thing we have to an anti-aging plan that works.

Canada experiencing religious decline

Over his 50 years of writing and researching about religion in Canada, Reg Bibby has written books with the titles Fragmented Gods (1987), Unknown Gods (1993), Restless Gods (2002), Beyond the Gods (2011), and Resilient Gods (2017).

If Bibby was to write another book about religion in Canada today, the retired University of Lethbridge professor said he might title it: Vanishing Gods.

“Religion in Canada has known something of a golden era,” he said. “But that era has been over since the final decades of the 20th century.”

Bibby chronicles these changes in a chapter in his new book, The Canadian Transformation: Social Trends 1975-2025. (Project Canada Books).

Insurance costs have been surging due to extreme weather brought on by climate change — and it’s likely to get more expensive

Floods, hail and wildfires are increasingly common features of North American summers.

Adding to collective dismay, these natural disasters are the common denominator behind sticker price shock for homeowners seeing insurance premiums jump higher annually.

“Home insurance has steadily been rising since 2019,” says Matt Hands, vice-president of insurance at Ratehub.ca.

A recent report from Statistics Canada shows home and mortgage insurance premiums have risen 45 per cent on average over the last six years. That is more than double overall inflation over that span.

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.”

Chinese newcomers protest over delays in security screening clearance

Dozens of Chinese newcomers rallied outside Winnipeg’s federal immigration office Friday to protest what they describe as untenable delays to Canada’s security screening process.

The rally against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada comes after a surge in immigration security screening requests created backlogs for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Protesters said the resulting delays have left them in limbo as they try to obtain permanent residency.

“We just want transparency,” said Pakying Chau, 26, who travelled from Hong Kong to Winnipeg in 2018 to study agribusiness.

Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population

A lot of Winnipeggers may shrug, but the end of Giant Tiger’s downtown store is a giant problem for many of the people living in the centre of the city.

It would have been difficult for anyone going into or passing by the Canadian discount chain’s Donald Street and Ellice Avenue location Thursday to miss the red notices posted on the store’s windows advising it will close on Nov. 7.

According to a 2024 Downtown Winnipeg BIZ report, about 18,000 people live in Winnipeg’s downtown.

More than 60,000 people work there, and some days — when there’s a big concert or the Jets play at Canada Life Centre, for example — the number of people spending time in the area increases significantly.