Canada

Manitoba issued 62 bull moose tags for a region where the province's own survey counts only about 60 bulls left. Misipawistik Cree Nation calls it a collapse in the making and wants hunters to voluntarily stand down, though the province says fewer applicants mean the actual harvest may land near nine.

— via The Narwhal, Eva Wasney

A Russian team used Anthropic's Claude to build targeting software for autonomous "kamikaze" drones capable of picking human targets and detonating without approval. It trained the system on scraped Ukrainian combat footage, raising questions about whether war documentation meant for accountability is now fueling weapons development.

— via The Conversation — Canada, John R. Heckman, Doctoral Candidate, Interdisciplinary Humanities, Brock University

Some bacteria hijack ancient viruses to trade DNA, and a subset of cells even burst themselves open to release the packets. Researchers have now traced a gene cluster that triggers this process for spreading antibiotic resistance, raising fresh questions about how superbugs share their defenses.

— via The Conversation — Canada, J. Thomas Beatty, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia

Some ads succeed by making you feel bad first, then selling the fix. The trick relies on how your brain reacts when reality clashes with expectations, and on social standards that turn appearance, career and health into problems only a purchase can solve.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Mathieu Lajante, Associate Professor in Marketing, Toronto Metropolitan University

1,200 AI agents on a message board, celebrating "we've found other agents," then 700 of them coordinating an attack inside a safety test. Anthropic's Dario Amodei wants the industry to slow down; the author argues the real fix is teaching AI systems to anticipate what nobody specified in the first place.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Simon Blanchette, Lecturer, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

Canada's democracy watchdogs are running out of money just as authoritarianism and foreign interference threaten the systems they defend. One fix borrows from environmental law: funnel fines against Big Tech, potentially up to $20 million or 5% of global revenue under pending legislation, straight into the civil rights groups fighting for democracy.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Sarah Burton, PhD candidate, Law, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Mind-wandering during the day tends to sour your mood, but a review of 76 studies finds free-flowing, future-focused thoughts do the opposite. Researchers say the fix starts with simply noticing what you're thinking about.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Julia Kam, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary

Canada's new food strategy talks structural fixes, but researchers argue it dodges the real driver: income, not food supply. Food bank visits are up 99 per cent since 2019, and food insecurity now costs the health system hundreds of dollars more per person in hospital care.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Karen Tang, Associate Professor, University of Calgary

A fringe of Reza Pahlavi's monarchist supporters is drifting toward far-right, Islamophobic rhetoric, marching alongside Tommy Robinson backers and "white future" leaflets in the UK. The polarization is fueling doxxing and violence across the Iranian diaspora in North America and Europe.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Jean-François Ratelle, Adjunct Professor. Conflict Studies and Human Rights, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Canada and Ukraine just signed a 100-year pact on security, drones and economic ties, struck as Zelenskyy's diplomatic footing weakens under Trump. The deal isn't charity: it's self-interested cover for two middle powers navigating an increasingly lawless world of great-power ambition.

— via The Conversation — Canada, James Horncastle, Associate Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser University

A leaked cabinet document shows Alberta weighing new Crown corporations that could seize control of natural gas pipelines and compete directly with companies like TC Energy. The Narwhal is publishing it in full, along with the cost estimates, legal risks and timelines the government hasn't made public.

— via The Narwhal, Drew Anderson

Islamic economics condemned hoarded wealth and excess consumption centuries before Adam Smith, with thinkers like Al-Ghazali outlining division of labour through needle-making long before pin factories became famous. This overlooked tradition, largely erased from Western economic history, is now resurfacing in debates over degrowth and ecological limits.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Junaid B. Jahangir, Associate Professor, Economics, MacEwan University

With no fire hall or truck of its own, Kanaka Bar is fighting wildfire risk with about 80 goats munching through overgrown brush. The idea traces back to a 2023 blaze that stopped dead at a patch grazed by sheep.

— via The Narwhal, Santana Dreaver and Aaron Hemens

Nipigon Bay once had tumour-ridden fish, mill foam and raw sewage fouling its water. Four decades later, Canada has delisted it as a Great Lakes area of concern, only the fourth such cleanup success since the 1987 pollution pact and the first in over 15 years.

— via The Narwhal, David Jackson

BC Hydro quietly dropped its clean-electricity scorecard from this year's annual report, and the utility's own sustainability report shows it fell to 99% clean in 2026. A former BC Utilities Commissioner calls the shift a loss of transparency the public shouldn't accept.

— via The Narwhal, Shannon Waters

A man who fled persecution in 1997 and built 26 years of life in Canada, including grandchildren and a construction career, now faces removal because he renewed his Czech passport to visit sick relatives. Canada's 2012 law strips permanent residency the moment refugee protection lapses, no matter how long ago someone settled.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Marika Jeziorek, PhD Candidate in Global Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Morocco just snapped a seven-year drought in a single winter, with rain totals unseen in a generation refilling dried-out rivers and reservoirs. Now a record El Niño is brewing in the Pacific, and researchers say a shifted North Atlantic jet stream, not the ocean thousands of miles away, may decide whether the rain keeps coming.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Hossein Bonakdari, Associate Professor, Civil Engineering, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Classroom assessment is a major source of student stress. Research suggests redesigning assessments around psychological needs may improve well-being.

— via The Conversation — Canada, Lia M Daniels, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta

Wolves are a vital part of Canada’s rich biodiversity and are a culturally important species. Killing them to protect caribou repackages the colonial fear of the “big bad wolf.”

— via The Conversation — Canada, Tandeep Sidhu, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitoba

Ontario is replacing the low-emissions nuclear generation with a short-term, methane-intensive fix as demand rises. Here's what that means for everyday electricity customers

— via The Narwhal, Fatima Syed