After Donald Trump signed an executive order that will hit Canada and all other non-U.S.-made autos with hefty import levies, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Canada will need to do "everything we possibly can" to fight the new tariffs.

B.C. legal centre says it is overwhelmed with immigration requests from transgender Americans.

Dollar Tree has agreed to sell its Family Dollar division for over $1 billion to Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management. The sale aims to maximize value for Dollar Tree shareholders and position Family Dollar for future success and growth. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025. (UPI)

The Supreme Court upheld a Biden administration regulation on "ghost guns," requiring serial numbers, background checks, and age verification for purchasing kits online. The 7-2 decision found that current gun laws allow regulation of these untraceable firearms, which have been increasingly linked to crime. (AP News)

Prince Harry has resigned as a patron of the charity Sentebale, which he co-founded in 2006 to support children in southern Africa affected by HIV/AIDS. His departure, along with co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, came amid the resignation of five trustees due to an internal dispute regarding the charity's mission. (CBS News)

A case of measles was confirmed in a person who traveled on an Amtrak train to Washington, D.C., potentially exposing others at various locations. DC Health is working to notify individuals who may have been in contact with the infected person, particularly those who are unvaccinated or lack immunity to measles. (ABC News)

Senate Republicans are reconsidering including a debt ceiling increase in a large party-line bill to advance President Trump’s agenda. There has been a shift, as the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the deadline for lawmakers to act on the debt ceiling or risk default on U.S. obligations this summer. (NBC News)

Diverse flags permitted to be flown outside South Shore Regional Centre for Education schools again after an earlier directive was issued to only fly Canada and Nova Scotia flags outdoors.

A Winnipeg city councillor says he’s confident a long-running battle to save a stretch of riverside forest may have reached a turning point.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says the province is reducing the industrial carbon levy to zero.

He says the move makes Saskatchewan the first “fully carbon tax free” province, saving ratepayers money on their electricity bills.

Moe says the measure will also make businesses more competitive amid tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The popular park has been rebuilt to better withstand the impact of climate change. Reservations for the campgrounds open April 2.

Ontario's patient ombudsman received a record number of complaints last fiscal year and quality of health care and communication were among top concerns of people who complained.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday found the extreme heat in Texas prisons is “plainly unconstitutional,” but declined to order the state to immediately start installing air conditioning, which could cost billions.

The ruling affirmed claims brought by advocates of people incarcerated in Texas, where summer heat routinely soars above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) for weeks. But they will have to continue pressing their lawsuit later in a trial.

The lawsuit argues the hot conditions in the state facilities amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and seeks to force the state to install air conditioning.

Texas has more than than 130,000 people serving time in prisons, more than any state in the U.S. Only about a third of roughly 100 prison units are fully air conditioned and the rest have either partial or no electrical cooling.

“This case concerns the plainly unconstitutional treatment of some of the most vulnerable, marginalized members of our society,” U.S. District Judge Robert Pittman wrote in his ruling on a request for a temporary injunction against the state. “The Court is of the view that excessive heat is likely serving as a form of unconstitutional punishment.”

But the judge said that ordering the state to spend “hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to install permanent air conditioning in every (prison),” could not be accomplished before such an order would expire.

Pittman said he expects the case will proceed to trial, where advocates for prisoners can continue to argue their case.

The lawsuit was initially filed in 2023 by Bernie Tiede, the former mortician serving a life sentence whose murder case inspired the movie “Bernie.” Several prisoners’ rights group then asked to join his legal fight and expand it to encompass all Texas prisoners.

Texas is not alone in facing lawsuits over dangerously hot prisons. Cases also have been filed in Louisiana and New Mexico. One filed in July in Georgia alleged an inmate died in July 2023 after he was left in an outdoor cell for hours without water, shade or ice.

A November 2022 study by researchers at Brown, Boston and Harvard universities found that 13% — or 271 — of the deaths in Texas prisons without universal AC between 2001 and 2019 may be attributed to extreme heat. Prisoner advocates say those numbers are only likely to increase as the state faces more extreme weather and heat due to climate change.

In a weeklong hearing that sought the order for air conditioning while the lawsuit proceeds, former inmates testified about their experiences in hot prison buildings where they said temperatures reach above 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 Celsius).

They testified some inmates would splash toilet water on themselves to cool off, fake suicide attempts to be moved to cooler medical areas, or even deliberately set fires so that guards would be forced to hose down cells.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice Director Bryan Collier acknowledged that heat was a factor in three inmates’ deaths from multiple causes in 2023, and that prison staff and inmates sometimes fall ill from high temperatures.

But the state disputed the hundreds of deaths in recent years alleged by the prisoner advocates, and argues Texas has implemented effective heat mitigation measures, such as providing fans, towels and access to cooler “respite” areas. In 2018, Texas agreed to install air conditioning at a prison for older and medically vulnerable inmates.

Collier also insisted he would like to have air conditioning installed across the prison system, but that state lawmakers have never agreed to spend enough money to do that.

Jim Vertuno, The Associated Press

Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe has her name back.

The Anishinaabemowin title, meaning Buffalo Woman, belongs to Ashlee Christine Shingoose, the Winnipeg Police Service confirmed at a news conference Wednesday.

“Our hearts go out to Albert and Theresa Shingoose – Ashlee’s parents,” said Gene Bowers, chief of the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS). “And all the members of St. Theresa Point First Nation who received this unbearable news.

“Your daughter deserved to be named, and we offer our condolences.”

Ashlee was 30 years old and the mother of three children.  She left St. Theresa Point, a remote fly-in reserve 500 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, due to overcrowding in 2016 for a better life in the Manitoba capital.

In fact, bad weather prevented her parents from flying to the city to attend the news conference.

Shingoose was murdered three years ago this month by Jeremy Skibicki, a Winnipeg man convicted last summer of killing four First Nations women between March and May 2022.

“I’m concerned that the level of detail that I was prepared to provide – I’m reconsidering,” Cam Mackid, deputy chief of investigations, told the packed news conference.

“This has been a horrific tragedy.”

The news conference was moved to a bigger room in the Millenium Library across the street from police headquarters to accommodate family members of the other victims, their supporters, police officers and reporters.

Shingoose was the first victim and the last to be identified. Her remains are believed to be in the city’s Brady Road landfill, Mackid revealed.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who attended the news conference, announced the site would be searched.

“I cannot promise you that we will bring her home, but I can promise you that we are going to try,” he said to applause after repeating Ashlee’s name four times in Anishinaabemowin.

“I think it’s very important we say her name. And we remember her.”

Kinew has presided over a successful search of the Prairie Green Landfill outside Winnipeg, for the remains of two other Skibicki victims Morgan Harris, 39, and Marcedes Myran, 26.

The remains of fourth victim, Rebecca Contois, 24, were found in garbage bins outside Skibicki’s River East apartment and in the Brady landfill. The garbage was trucked by the city to its facility or the privately owned Prairie Green.

Within three months of commencing the search on Dec. 3, Kinew announced Harris and Myran had been identified.

It was a significant victory in the two-year-long fight by the victims’ families to force a search after the former provincial government and WPS, under former chief Danny Smyth, rejected the idea.

Kinew asked police brass to stand with him and two of his ministers at the front of the room signalling to First Nations chiefs and victims’ family members they were working together now.

“I know there will be many questions,” he added, “and those answers about what a search will look like, when we will begin, how it will be undertaken, will take time for us to sort out.”

Skibicki was caught on surveillance cameras disposing of bulky garbage bags at night in his neighborhood. Police said he was putting the victims’ remains in nearby residential and commercial garbage bins after killing them in his home.

He was sentenced to life in prison in August 2024.

All of the victims were considered vulnerable due to poverty, mental illness or addiction.

Ashlee’s youngest child was seized by social workers a few years after she arrived in Winnipeg. She had been abused by her partner, her parents told APTN News last summer, and she was struggling.

Two of her children went to live with Albert and Theresa, who sent a message delivered by St. Theresa Point Chief Raymond Flett.

“It’s been a long time time waiting. I need to bring her home,” Theresa said in the message. “I need that closure.

“Search the landfill as soon as possible.”

Later, piped into the news conference via phone, Albert asked the premier to sing a traditional song.

Flett said the murder of Ashlee was another Indigenous woman killed in Canada.

“It is an ongoing struggle for justice, especially for our young women,” he said. “Some are still out there missing.”

The WPS searched for about two weeks in October 2012 for the remains of Tanya Nepinak, a First Nations victim of a different Winnipeg serial killer, Shawn Lamb.

Hearing they would embark on a search for Ashlee’s remains sent her aunt, Sue Cariboo, into distress and she had to leave the room.

Mackid said Ashlee was positively identified on March 24 through DNA from a pair of pants – not a black, Baby Phat jacket police as police had first reported.

“The jacket was a dead-end,” Mackid told reporters after the news conference. “From there (in subsequent interviews with police), Skibicki offered a second item – this pair of pants (that was sent for testing).

“… That identification was backed up by photos that we showed to him.”

Skibicki targeted his victims at or near inner-city homeless shelters. He enticed them to come to his home with the promise of food, shelter and substances.

Mackid said police found numerous items of women’s clothing in the apartment and in garbage bins.

“Ashlee hasn’t been seen or heard from since March 11, 2022. Her DNA was found in the suite, the person Skibicki described as murdering looked exactly like Ashlee Shingoose,” he said.

“So, if you combine all that and then an additional identification that was made through photos shown to Skibicki … if you put all that together, there’s no doubt in our mind whatsoever that Buffalo Woman was Ashlee Shingoose.”

The post ‘It’s been a long time waiting’: Family, community reacts to identification of Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe appeared first on APTN News.

Heavy snow is expected to hit parts of southwestern and southcentral Manitoba, with 10-20 centimetres forecast to build up between Thursday and Friday.

The iconic "McBarge" vessel, which housed a McDonald's restaurant during Expo 86 in Vancouver, was on its side and partially capsized in the Fraser River on Wednesday.

Victoria-based DJ Danny Elder, who goes by the stage name Rumpus, has been producing music for eight years and touring internationally. He shared how his song 'Set it Off' recently appeared on an episode of The White Lotus, a popular American dark comedy drama anthology television series.

More than 100 CFS workers with two Métis child and family services authorities in Manitoba say they’re walking a picket line to push for higher wages.

According to Kyle Ross, president of the union, workers want the same pay as their provincial counterparts.

“These workers have the same education, they support the same type of families, the same types of individuals that need these supports. And we really think they should be paid the same as everyone else,” said Ross.

“With everything going on in the environment, with inflation, all these things, these workers are feeling those pinches.”

The workers are employed by two agencies governed by the Manitoba Métis Federation – the Michif Child and Family Services and the Métis Child and Family Community Services.

The post Workers with Métis CFS agencies on strike, looking for wage parity with provincial counterparts appeared first on APTN News.

Environment Canada is warning that a "potent" spring ice storm will likely hit a huge swath of Ontario starting Friday evening and extending into Monday.

High amounts of MDA in a Brandon man's blood likely resulted in his overdose death, a forensic toxicologist testified Wednesday at a trial for the woman accused of selling the drugs he took before he died in July 2020.

Among the customers coming and going from CanaMex Groceries, a Mennonite-owned convenience store in rural Norfolk County, Ont., it’s easy to find people who’ve been touched by the largest measles outbreak in the province in nearly 30 years.

Speaking outside the store on a warm, blue-sky day in March, Aganetha Guenther, 62, says six or seven of her grandchildren recently recovered from the measles.