AI smart glasses will help visually impaired runners take on the London Marathon

LONDON (AP) — Running past Buckingham Palace during training, Tilly Dowler is closing in on a goal she once thought out of reach.

Dowler, who has Stargardt disease and says she has about 10% useful vision, only began running last year, starting with a couch to 5K program before building up to marathon distance. She is now preparing to run the London Marathon with her boyfriend as her guide, using AI powered Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses to help her navigate and track her progress.

“They are AI assisted,” she said. “While running, I can ask for live cues, such as what landmarks are around me and how far I have run.”

She said the glasses allow her to combine audio feedback with guidance from her running partner.

Wordless puppet show explores father-daughter ties

Having a parent who travels for work is a challenge for any child, but whenever Shizuka Kai’s father left on a voyage to capture elusive footage of white wolves and kodiaks, there was an element of danger that didn’t exist for other children.

“I would say I kind of grew up with my dad telling us that he actually might not come home,” says Kai, a Vancouver-based puppet maker and theatre artist. “A moment I vaguely remember as a kid was when he sat us down and explained the life-insurance process because (he) might actually get attacked and eaten by a bear, and that’s the reality of this project (he was) doing.”

That reality is put through a puppeteer’s lens in Otosan, the closing production of the 2025-2026 season at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People.

Based on Kai’s experiences growing up as the child of a dogged wildlife videographer, combined with memories from a joint trip to Alaska in Kai’s early 20s, Otosan — on to May 17 — is told in a wordless tabletop puppet show featuring lifelike renderings of father, daughter, grizzly bear and snowy owl.

Stirring oratorio pays homage to Indigenous veterans

‘My war wasn’t in Europe. My war was when I came back to Canada and I couldn’t vote until 1962,” says composer Andrew Balfour. He’s paraphrasing a quote by an Indigenous veteran and the inspiration for his oratorio notinikew (i went to war).

Winnipeg to host three-day World Indigenous Business Forum in late October, delegates can expect ‘Manitoba experience’

After playing host to the World Indigenous Business Forum around the world, founder Rosa Walker is bringing the annual conference to her home city for the first time.

Winnipeg will host this year’s event Oct. 26-28. The conference will bring together Indigenous entrepreneurs, leaders, innovators and allies from across the globe to share knowledge, build relationships and explore opportunities for economic growth and collaboration.

Since launching the conference in 2010 in New York City, Walker has held the event in places such as Namibia, Guatemala and New Zealand. This year marks the third time a Canadian city has hosted.

Indigenous Leadership Development Institute, Inc., Walker’s non-profit company, is hosting the conference in collaboration with Winnipeg Economic Development & Tourism.

Brainstorming session proposes solutions to alarming rate of student absenteeism

Dante Taylor spent much of his early high school career ditching class — a routine occurrence outside of football season — to hang out at trap houses in Winnipeg.

“For so long, I just didn’t care,” the 16-year-old told an auditorium packed with 200 people, many of them principals and superintendents, at a summit on student absenteeism.

“It wasn’t something that seemed to be important to me because it didn’t seem to be important to anybody that I was around.”

Dante said his perspective changed recently, after meeting with a guidance counsellor, doing extensive self-reflection and enrolling in a physics course that he finds equally fascinating and challenging.

Shortage of housing for Indigenous seniors in city raising concerns ahead of northern flood, fire evacuations

A small group of women elders is expressing concerns about a lack of urban housing for Indigenous seniors, warning the crisis will only worsen as flood and wildfire evacuations uproot more from their communities.

Decorated footy veterans Scott, Gale spearheading push for NSL club

Three months into her official — and final — retirement, Winnipeg’s own Desiree Scott has a new mission: bringing a Northern Super League team to Winnipeg.

“To continue to grow the game, especially for women and girls, and create those opportunities to inspire them to stick with sports and put Winnipeg on the map,” Scott said in an exclusive interview with the Free Press. “Remind people that we are here, we are the heart of Canada, and we deserve similar opportunities that other provinces are getting.”

The Northern Super League kicks off its second season Friday. The first Canadian women’s pro soccer league marked its inaugural season with off-the-charts success, drawing over 275,000 fans and generating nearly $30 million in league-wide revenue despite its small six-team size. And the league is looking to expand for the first time in 2027.

But while the league itself turns two years old, Scott enlisted veteran footy coach Rob Gale two years prior about the idea of bringing the league to the Keystone province.

Family donates 636 acres of peatlands near Elma to nature conservancy

A Manitoba family is doing their part to support the ecosystem by making a deal with the Nature Conservancy of Canada to protect 636 acres of peatlands in perpetuity.

Manitoba crypto companies say provincial plans would put them out of business

WINNIPEG - Manitoba's plan to charge cryptocurrency operations higher electricity rates and curtail power at peak times will drive businesses under, officials with two companies told a legislature committee.

"If this goes through, our business goes bankrupt and a lot of families will be impacted," Guildo Theriault, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gator Mining, told a committee hearing Wednesday night.

The government has introduced two bills in the legislature that are aimed at controlling the growing demand on Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro's electrical grid.

One bill would charge cryptocurrency operations and data centres up to 100 per cent higher rates for electricity. The other would allow Manitoba Hydro to temporarily reduce power to cryptocurrency operators at peak times in order to ensure stability of the grid.