Former minister Catherine McKenna blasts the heads of Canadian oil companies

MONTRÉAL - Former environment minister Catherine McKenna says the leaders of Canada's oil industry are figures close to American President Donald Trump who are "taking us for fools" and putting both the economy and environment at risk.

Canada's official greenhouse gas inventory was published last week. It showed that in 2024, oil and gas production was the only sector in the country to have increased its greenhouse gas emissions.

"In Canada, we expect, Canadians expect everyone to step up and do their parts. But instead, we have oil and gas, which is largely foreign-owned, largely U.S.-owned, who aren't doing their part. All they're doing is increasing our emissions and demanding subsidies," McKenna said in an interview while at Montreal's climate summit last week.

She adds that oil companies are "demanding that Canadian taxpayers pay the bill for cleaning up the pollution they cause and building pipelines they won’t risk their own money on."

Phasing out of door-to-door mail delivery sinks in for Winnipeggers

Canada Post said Thursday it plans to convert about four million addresses to community mailboxes over the next five years, beginning with 136,000 in late 2026 and early 2027.

Gatorade, inventor of the sports drink, is getting a rebrand targeting non-athletes

Sixty years after it invented sports drinks, Gatorade is making a surprising pivot: It’s no longer focusing primarily on athletes.

PepsiCo, Gatorade’s parent company, said Thursday that the brand wants to broaden its reach to non-athletes who are looking for ways to hydrate, whether they’re on a long flight, going for a walk or nursing a hangover. New packaging highlights the specific ways Gatorade’s various drinks and powders work and the research behind them.

The change reflects U.S. consumers’ booming interest in beverages with perceived health benefits. Jack Doggett, a food and drink analyst with the consulting firm Mintel, said his research indicates 60% of consumers who buy sports drinks aren’t athletes but want the functional ingredients those drinks provide, like electrolytes for hydration and carbohydrates for energy.

“People are using these drinks more for wellness and daily maintenance,” Doggett said. “It’s easy to say that the wellness consumer is the young consumer, but older generations are also drinking these drinks for hydration.”

Why claims of sentience can’t guide black bear policy

The modern debate over sustainable-use bear hunting often hinges on a few claims including bears are sentient, therefore humans have no moral right to hunt them.

It’s a powerful emotional argument, but it collapses under scientific scrutiny and ecological reality. Sentience is real. Bears and other animals do feel.

But the leap from “animals feel” to “humans must never hunt” is not supported by biology, ethics or conservation science. If we want wildlife policy that protects species and ecosystems, we need to separate what sentience is from what animal rights activists want it to mean.

In scientific terms, sentience refers to the capacity to feel or perceive, not the ability to make moral judgments.

AI-rendered Val Kilmer debuts in ‘As Deep as the Grave’ trailer

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The filmmakers behind “As Deep as the Grave,” the indie film that is using an artificial intelligence-rendered version of Val Kilmer in a prominent role, debuted a first look at the recreated actor Wednesday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

“Don’t fear the dead and don’t fear me,” Kilmer’s character, Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, says at the end of the trailer.

The actor died last year at 65, of pneumonia. The use of generative AI to recreate Kilmer for the historical drama based on archaeologists Ann and Earl Morris became a hot button topic when the filmmakers announced it last month. The trailer shows Kilmer’s character at various ages.

Writer-director Coerte Voorhees, along with his brother John, spoke on a panel Wednesday about the controversial decision to use technology to create a performance from a deceased actor and explained why they feel they've done it ethically by working with Kilmer's children and the actors union. Coerte Voorhees stopped short of calling it a Val Kilmer performance, however.

A small but growing movement wants you to put down your phone. But first read this

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a dozen millennials gathered in a brownstone apartment in Brooklyn and placed their phones in a metal colander before two hours of reading, drawing and conversation — anything but staring at screens.

A similar scene played out a few miles away, in an early 20th-century cardboard box factory turned high-end office space. Nearly 20 people in their 30s stared at their cellphones for a few minutes. Then they set them down and looked at their bared palms for a while. Then those of their neighbors.

The exercise was meant to drive home the importance of paying attention to real life, not the gleaming little screens that have taken over our world.

A ‘revolution’ against devices

Liberals adopt policy to restrict kids from social media

MONTREAL - Federal Liberals voted in favour of setting 16 as the age of majority for Canadians to be able to use social media accounts.

Party grassroots passed a non-binding resolution Saturday morning for the restriction and to place the onus on social media companies to enforce it.

Quebec MP Rachel Bendayan, who presented the idea to her caucus and championed it at the convention, said prolonged social media use can be harmful to the mental health of young Canadians.

She said social media companies need to be more accountable and stop allowing young children to use technologies designed to be addictive.

Me, hate cute little squirrels? You must be nuts

I was standing in the backyard next to a very tall tree, sipping the first coffee of the day, trying to think of a topic for today’s column, when suddenly it hit me.

No, I was not struck by a sudden inspiration. I was bonked on the top of my head by a pine cone the size of a regulation volleyball.

In quick succession, several more potentially lethal pine cones plummeted from the sky and thudded into the ground near my feet.

“I can see you up there!” I shrieked, waving my fist at the sky. “You are not going to get away with this!”