WEATHER ALERT

Role of news media

Please review each article prior to use: grade-level applicability and curricular alignment might not be obvious from the headline alone.

A Florida lawsuit and AI’s complicity in killing

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

A Florida lawsuit and AI’s complicity in killing

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, May. 13, 2026

Readers following the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., will know that Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has apologized for not notifying police about corporate concerns raised internally about ChatGPT’s chatbot interactions with the killer before the attack.

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Wednesday, May. 13, 2026

Some Japanese snack packages are turning black-and-white as Iran war depletes ink supply

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

Some Japanese snack packages are turning black-and-white as Iran war depletes ink supply

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press 3 minute read Wednesday, May. 13, 2026

TOKYO (AP) — The packaging on some snacks in Japan is turning a somber black-and-white, as the war in Iran disrupts the supply of an ingredient used in colored ink.

Tokyo-based Calbee Inc., which makes potato chips and cereal, said what’s inside remains the same. Calbee's popular snacks are available in Japan's ubiquitous convenience stores and shipped to the United States, China and Australia.

“This measure is intended to help maintain a stable supply of products,” it said in a statement this week.

The change on 14 products in its lineup will start May 25, limiting ink colors to just two, the company said, noting it was necessary to respond flexibly to changing geopolitical conditions.

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Wednesday, May. 13, 2026

Churchill project not worth the risk

Deveryn Ross 4 minute read Preview

Churchill project not worth the risk

Deveryn Ross 4 minute read Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

Premier Wab Kinew is banking on the redevelopment of the Port of Churchill as the game-changing project that will put Manitoba back in the black. That’s a risky bet for several reasons.

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Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

Health officials working to control hepatitis A outbreak in province

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Preview

Health officials working to control hepatitis A outbreak in province

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Monday, May. 11, 2026

Public health officials are battling a hepatitis A outbreak in Manitoba not seen in decades.

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Monday, May. 11, 2026
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Exhibition takes Canadian history of Chinese oppression from the archives into the light

AV Kitching 6 minute read Preview
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Exhibition takes Canadian history of Chinese oppression from the archives into the light

AV Kitching 6 minute read Monday, May. 11, 2026

Housed within two innocuous rooms flanking the Welcome Gallery at Manitoba Museum is a sobering record of a government’s betrayal of its own citizens.

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Monday, May. 11, 2026

MPs amend bill criminalizing sexual deepfakes to include ‘nearly nude’ images

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview

MPs amend bill criminalizing sexual deepfakes to include ‘nearly nude’ images

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

OTTAWA - A House of Commons committee has amended a proposed bill that would criminalize sexual deepfakes to ensure it covers "nearly nude" images.

The change to Bill C-16 comes after experts warned the original version of the bill likely would not cover many of the images created by Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot which proliferated on his X platform at the beginning of this year.

The original version of the bill would have criminalized the non-consensual sharing of images which show the subject nude, exposing their sexual organs or engaged in explicit sexual activity. The images created by Grok — such as edits of photos of women to depict them wearing see-through bikinis — may not meet that standard.

MPs on the justice committee voted in favour of amendments put forward by Conservative MP Andrew Lawton to change the wording of the legislation to address images in which the subject is nude or "nearly nude."

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Tuesday, May. 12, 2026
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Winnipeg’s forgotten Stanley Cup champ

Rick C. Benson 6 minute read Preview
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Winnipeg’s forgotten Stanley Cup champ

Rick C. Benson 6 minute read Saturday, May. 9, 2026

On what would be his 150th birthday, the story of Maj. John Robinson Benson — Winnipeg’s forgotten Stanley Cup champion — deserves to be told.

On May 10, 1876, Dr. Edward Benson’s wife Annie gave birth to a son they named John Robinson, after the boy’s grandfather, Col. J.R. Benson. Dr. Benson had arrived in Winnipeg in January 1874 by horse-drawn sleigh via the end of the rail line in Minneapolis. He quickly established his medical practice and became one of the founding physicians of the Winnipeg General Hospital.

Young Rob — as the family called him — grew up in a household that helped build the institutions of a frontier city. At 19, he was the youngest member of the 1896 Winnipeg Victorias, the team that brought the Stanley Cup west for the first time. He had already earned his place across two Anderson Cup-winning seasons and appears in every team photograph from the era: the championship portraits, the Montreal dressing room, the commemorative poster. Listed as the squad’s spare, he was not a marginal figure. In a seven-man game with no line changes, the spare was the one player trusted to step into any position at any moment.

On Valentine’s Day, 1896, the Victorias entered Montreal’s Victoria Skating Rink for a sudden-death challenge against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Montreal Victorias. Winnipeg’s starting seven included some of the finest athletes in the country: Captain Jack Armytage, who had founded the Victoria Hockey Club and played in the first hockey game in Manitoba history; Dan Bain, later voted Canada’s outstanding athlete of the last half of the 19th century; Rod Flett, the Métis point player whose steady, unshakable defence anchored three Stanley Cup campaigns; and George “Whitey” Merritt in goal, who startled the Montreal crowd by wearing protective cricket pads on his legs — a western innovation the easterners had never seen.

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Saturday, May. 9, 2026
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Governments blasted for inaction as HIV rates rise

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Preview
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Governments blasted for inaction as HIV rates rise

Scott Billeck 5 minute read Friday, May. 8, 2026

An HIV/AIDS advocate who has spent the past 35 years raising awareness about the disease is calling for a national inquiry into what he calls a lack of proactive action by provincial and federal governments to prevent infections.

Albert McLeod, a two-spirit elder from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, says HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis — commonly known as PrEP — has been approved by Health Canada since 2016. Despite that, infection rates have continued to climb.

“It’s just this sort of very conservative attitude to our health,” McLeod said Friday, challenging anyone to find a poster in Winnipeg promoting HIV awareness or PrEP on street corners or at bus stops.

“And now it’s suddenly an emergency in 2026, when we’ve had 10 years to be proactive and let people know about the availability of this medication? Instead, we have people who are HIV positive who could be negative.”

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Friday, May. 8, 2026

Hep A outbreak in province’s North makes its way to Winnipeg, officials scrambling to vaccinate people at high risk

Free Press staff 3 minute read Preview

Hep A outbreak in province’s North makes its way to Winnipeg, officials scrambling to vaccinate people at high risk

Free Press staff 3 minute read Friday, May. 8, 2026

Manitoba public health officials say an outbreak of hepatitis A that began in the province’s North last year has led to an increasing number of cases in Winnipeg in recent weeks.

The outbreak, declared in April 2025, was at first affecting communities in northern Manitoba, including several remote First Nations, but has evolved in recent months and spread to other places in the province, provincial health officials said Friday.

The outbreak has spread to Winnipeg, particularly the homeless community, and people with connections to other places where the virus was already spreading.

As of April 26, 601 cases of hepatitis A virus associated with the outbreak have been identified in Manitoba, 131 of which are in Winnipeg.

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Friday, May. 8, 2026
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In legal dispute over ‘The View,’ ABC argues Trump administration is trying to chill free speech

Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview
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In legal dispute over ‘The View,’ ABC argues Trump administration is trying to chill free speech

Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press 5 minute read Monday, May. 11, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — In a strongly worded filing, ABC accuses the Trump administration of trying to chill its constitutionally protected free speech and hinder open political discussion.

The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

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Monday, May. 11, 2026