Canada

CBC - Ticks are showing up in places where they didn’t use to

Manitoba's police watchdog is not pressing charges against a Brandon police officer who was accused of throwing a person onto the ground, punching her face and referring to her with derogatory language during an arrest.

In October 2023, the chair of Community Mobilization Westman, a Brandon-based initiative for community safety, met with Brandon police after a Child and Family Services case worker told her a police officer called a person a "rez dog" and a "neechie" several times during an arrest.

The officer was also accused of slamming the person against a wall of the house, throwing her to the ground and hitting her face several times during the interaction.

See this link for details about the recall: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/public-health-notices/2025/outbreak-salmonella-infections-genoa-rea-genova-bona-salami.html

Some salami products under the Rea and Bona brands are being recalled from three provinces over concerns of potential salmonella contamination, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says.

The CFIA says the products were distributed to Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario and have been recalled specifically by Marini Foods Limited.

The Public Health Agency of Canada released a notice Wednesday stating that at least 57 people – 44 in Alberta and 13 in Ontario – got sick after eating the salami and seven people have been hospitalized.

From the link:

Do not consume, use, sell, serve or distribute recalled:

• Rea brand Genoa Salami Sweet (Lots: 5035 226 and 5049 226)
• Rea brand Genoa Salami Hot (Lots: 5020 228 and 5035 228)
• Bona brand Mild Genova Salami (Lot: 5035 226)

Gift article

For the Heiltsuk, stories explain everything from the shape of a local mountain to the distinct red fur fringes on the sea wolves stalking shores. They tell of the flesh-eating monster baxbakwa’lanuxusiwe, whose entire body was covered with snapping mouths before it was destroyed by a shaman and became a cloud of mosquitoes.

Passed down over generations, in ceremonies forbidden by Canada’s government, the stories weave together the physical world, the supernatural and the liminal space that binds the two.

Such stories are also the bedrock of the Heiltsuk’s newly created constitution (PDF download), a document recently ratified through ceremony that asserts the nation’s long-held convictions that they are the original inhabitants and rightful stewards of the region’s future.

• Invidious
• Youtube

When an alleged hacker known as “Waifu” violently threatened her online, cybersecurity researcher Allison Nixon set out to unmask them.

Now Connor Riley Moucka, a 25 year old from Kitchener, Ont., is being held in Canada as he awaits extradition to the U.S. to face multiple criminal charges. U.S. authorities accuse Moucka and his accomplices of hacking into at least 10 organizations and stealing troves of sensitive records like payroll and banking information. By holding stolen data for ransom, they allegedly extorted US$2.5 million in Bitcoin from three of their victims.

In 2024, hiding behind pseudonyms like “Waifu,” Moucka purportedly used Telegram group chats to boast of his alleged crimes and threaten Nixon and her company. Nixon believes Moucka was trying to get her attention to find out what Unit221B knew about him – which she admits wasn’t much at the time. Those threats, however, quickly made him a target for Unit221B and would be a crucial misstep in his undoing.

“He was drawing attention to himself and causing more people to work on his case and causing his case to become the higher priority,” Nixon said. “He couldn’t stop threatening people that weren’t initially working on his case.”

The head of a youth hockey organization has been charged with sexual assault following allegations that led to an arrest last month.

Court documents confirm Ryan Wood was arrested on May 20. Wood is the director of hockey operations with the Purple Cobras Hockey Association within the Klevr Super League (KSL) Inc.

KSL President Jamie Stone issued a letter to families of the Purple Cobras Association a week after Wood’s arrest, stating in part, “The allegations are deeply upsetting and concerning to the KSL, and are entirely inconsistent with the standards that we uphold.”

Authors:

• Bhavini Gohel | Clinical Associate Professor, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
• Muskaan Muse Laroyia | MSc Candidate & Graduate Researcher, Neuroscience, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary

Anyone who has experienced wildfire smoke knows how it can leave you with a scratchy throat, stinging eyes and impact your lungs. However, smoke can also affect your brain. Tiny airborne pollutants found in smoke have been linked to increased risk of stroke, dementia and flare-ups in neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS).

Alongside harmful gases and heavy metals, wildfire smoke contains fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5. These tiny particles can travel deep into your lungs, slip into your bloodstream and even reach your brain. Some even bypass the lungs entirely, entering the brain directly through the nose.

After entering the brain, these toxins can cause inflammation and stress, damage nerve cells and even accelerate cognitive decline. Studies have linked exposure to air pollution to an increased risk of stroke and dementia. Even short-term spikes in smoke exposure, like those during wildfires, lead to a surge in emergency visits for strokes, especially among people over 65.

A 2022 experiment had thousands of adults participate in an online attention task under smoky conditions. It found that just a three-hour spike in fine particulate matter, typical of a heavy smoke episode, led to measurably worse attention scores. This fits other evidence that breathing smoke makes people mentally foggy, forgetful or fatigued.