Indigenous women’s groups call for funding to limit risks to safety, prosperity

OTTAWA - Advocates are calling for long-term, stable federal funding to safeguard Indigenous women and girls and warning the federal government's major projects push could place them at higher risk.

Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, president of the National Family and Survivors Circle, said groups like hers still don't know if they'll receive continued funding from Ottawa. She said that uncertainty undermines their efforts to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

"When we're looking at the safety and human security of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit and gender-diverse people, it's really critical that organizations who are doing this important work — and even through the lens of prevention and economic participation — that they receive long-term, sustainable and equitable funding," she said.

"They're severely underfunded. There's a real power imbalance."

Home gardeners have new way to share bumper crops

Planning a prolific pumpkin patch? A new free online resource lets Winnipeggers list vegetables they’re planning to grow this summer that they will either sell, barter or give away in the fall.

Artemis II astronauts make long-distance call to the space station as they head home from the moon

HOUSTON (AP) — Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Feds, city, province join forces with First Nation to build 150 apartments in St. James

More than a century after its lake became the source of Winnipeg’s drinking water, Shoal Lake 40 First Nation is leading a major housing development in the city, backed by more than $51 million in government funding.

The federal government announced the combined funding Tuesday to build 150 apartment units at 2675 Portage Ave. in the city’s St. James neighbourhood. The development will include one-, two- and three-bedroom units.

Shoal Lake 40 Chief Herb Greene said the project carries historical significance.

“This development is about three things: history, teamwork, and the future,” Greene said during a sod-turning ceremony Tuesday. He noted for more than 100 years, Winnipeg was in dire need of a reliable source of clean drinking water.

In pictures: Artemis II crew captures eclipse, Earthrise, far side of moon during lunar flyby

NASA released new photos Tuesday captured by the Artemis II astronauts.

Artemis II’s lunar fly-around and intense observation period lasted seven hours.

A total solar eclipse greeted the three Americans and one Canadian as the moon temporarily blocked the sun from their perspective.

Venturing as close as 4,067 miles (6,545 kilometers) to the gray dusty surface, the astronauts zipped through a list of more than two dozen photo targets, using powerful Nikon cameras as well as their iPhones to zoom in on impact craters and other intriguing lunar features.

Artemis II astronauts channel Apollo 8 with a striking Earthset photo

HOUSTON (AP) — The Artemis II astronauts are now forever intertwined with Apollo 8.

A day after the historic lunar flyaround, NASA on Tuesday released striking new photos taken by the U.S.-Canadian crew.

The four astronauts channeled Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968 with their own: Earthset, showing our planet setting behind the gray, pockmarked moon. Another photo captures the total solar eclipse that occurred when the moon blocked the sun from the crew’s perspective.

The three Americans and one Canadian are now headed home, with a splashdown in the Pacific set for Friday. In the meantime, scientists at Houston's Mission Control are poring over the stream of moon photos beaming down.

Energy-hungry Nova Scotia companies nearly doubled their solar power capacity in 2025

HALIFAX - Energy-hungry companies in Nova Scotia are heading toward the light.

New statistics from the province's private power utility show that commercial-scale players — which includes municipalities and First Nations — grew their capacity to generate solar energy by 82 per cent last year.

Energy consultant David Brushett says that’s partly because legislative changes a few years ago have allowed companies to install solar systems 10 times larger than before. The “net-metering” system gives firms a credit on their power bills for the electricity they generate, offsetting their own usage. Even with the new rules, they are not allowed to generate more power than their operations consume.

The program allows solar projects of up to one megawatt for commercial customers. Brushett says that size makes more financial sense. “So that allowed much larger installations,” Brushett said in an interview.

Caring for native flowers and grasses helps former adult educator find ‘hope and joy in a dark time in the world’

After a career guiding newcomers through the logistics of life in Winnipeg, from registering with a family doctor to figuring out the transit system, Gerry Pearson turned her sights toward helping the city’s native plants settle back into place.

Trump administration terminates agreements to protect transgender students in several schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department said Monday it has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding protections for transgender students, backing away from requirements negotiated by previous administrations that took a different interpretation of civil rights.

The decision removes the federal obligations for the schools to keep up measures such as faculty training on abiding by a students' preferred name and pronouns and allowing students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students. Another district, Sacramento City Unified, said Monday it "remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”

The other affected districts are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District and Taft College in California.

Tale of flight stuck on ‘freezing Canadian island’ gets warm laughs in Newfoundland

ST. JOHN'S - Newfoundlanders were having a chuckle on Monday over international media reports saying passengers on a British Airways flight diverted to St. John's last week were stranded on a frozen island somewhere in Canada.

Headlines describing Newfoundland as a "freezing island" had people cracking jokes and sharing weather statistics on social media. A spoof video on Reddit collected upvotes for its David Attenborough-style tale of marooned passengers scrounging for food and Wi-Fi signals in the capital city of more than 200,000 people.

It certainly wasn't easy for many of the 255 passengers who were grounded for two nights in Newfoundland and Labrador's capital city, Heather McKinnon, general manager at the Delta Hotel in St. John's, said Monday. They had no access to their luggage when a storm blew in and some spoke of missing funerals and weddings, she said in an interview.

But McKinnon said she hopes most know that Newfoundland is not a frozen wasteland, as the headlines appeared to suggest.