‘Heardle’ being heralded as the new music game for ‘Wordle’ lovers

Mayoral candidate denounced for online comments

A Winnipeg mayoral candidate is facing criticism after he posted derogatory comments about immigrants and used the word “gay” as an insult online.

Sydney Adams said the response she got from Zac Uminski, who is seeking the city’s top office alongside 12 other individuals, left her baffled. She recently criticized Uminski over his use of artificial intelligence to produce campaign material, to which he replied he can’t afford to hire people to make art or “do whatever gay s—- you think is better than AI.”

“What was going through my head was that this is just unacceptable,” she said.

Adams said Uminski also posted other disparaging remarks about newcomers.

COVID-19 tracking apps raise concerns: watchdogs

VANCOUVER - Privacy watchdogs are voicing concerns over proposals across the country to implement smartphone apps to help track COVID-19.

New Brunswick, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan are among the provinces looking at or planning on creating smartphone apps that would track a user's whereabouts.

Alberta is the first province to launch an app.

Known as contact tracing, the apps track those who the user comes in to contact with, commonly by monitoring a device's Bluetooth signal.

Beware invasive, ‘frightening’ waterhemp

There’s a threat lurking on the edge of Manitoba farmers’ fields this fall that’s even scarier than the escalating trade war with their biggest customer.

Provincial extension advisers are warning farmers to watch for a weed known as “tall waterhemp,” which, true to its name, may already be towering above ready-to-harvest crops.

Those wispy tentacles waving in the breeze look pretty innocuous from a distance. But this highly invasive member of the pigweed family produces hundreds of thousands of seeds that are just itching for dispersal through farmers’ combines and across their fields.

Each of those tiny seeds — one small pill container filled halfway holds 44,000 — can produce plants with stems the width of saplings and heights of two to five metres. One or two plants can quickly turn into a patch. If waterhemp takes over a field, it can choke out the growing crop and cut yields by more than 90 per cent.

Max Parrot lands bronze but actor-turned-snowboarder Su Yiming takes big air spotlight

Su Yiming, a precocious Chinese teenager, truly exploded with supernova brilliance on Tuesday, writes Rosie DiManno.

Sinclair named Canada’s columnist of the year

Winnipeg Free Press Indigenous writer Niigaan Sinclair has been named Canada’s best columnist, winning a distinguished National Newspaper Award, which was presented at a gala in Toronto Friday evening.

Sinclair, who is Anishinaabe, joined the Free Press as a regular columnist in June 2018. Sinclair, who is on sabbatical from his job as an associate professor at the University of Manitoba, writes about Indigenous issues.

In accepting the award, Sinclair said it was his childhood dream to write for the Free Press. He said Winnipeg is the centre of reconciliation in Canada, calling it “the most imperfect city, but the most perfect.”

“I’m honoured to receive the National Newspaper Award for column writing, the same award Richard Wagamese received in 1990. It’s a testament to the incredible support and belief the Free Press has in me, and also how critically important the conversations and issues in Winnipeg are for the national stage.”