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The chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation says hundreds of homes have been “severely compromised” in the aftermath of a days-long power outage that damaged a water treatment plant and plumbing systems, and about 4,000 people have been evacuated from the northern Manitoba First Nation.
Residents in Pimicikamak, about 530 kilometres north of Winnipeg, started reporting burst pipes, leaks and sewer backups after power restoration began on Thursday. All power was back on as of Friday afternoon, Manitoba Hydro said.
The power to the First Nation, which has an on-reserve population of around 7,000, went out last Sunday night after a power line that crosses the Nelson River snapped, and pipes froze in the extreme cold, as temperatures dropped well below the –20 C mark.
About 200 homes have been damaged by leaking pipes, Chief David Monias said during a news conference on Saturday. Those homes are no longer safe to live in, he said.
Monias said more homes may have been damaged as pipes quickly thawed, but the First Nation needs additional help to inspect dwellings and community infrastructure for cracks and leaks.
“Just because you don’t see a visible leak doesn’t mean that there’s no damage. There could be cracks in there that are waiting to burst the pipes.”
Pimicikamak Cree Nation Chief David Monias, seen here during a Wednesday news conference, has put out a call for help from plumbers, engineers, carpenters and electricians across the Prairie provinces. (Darin Morash/CBC)
Repairs will likely cost at least $44 million, Monias said, and he is currently working on a recovery plan for the community.
On Friday, he put out a call for help from licensed plumbers across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. He previously requested help from the Canadian Armed Forces as well.
“We need engineers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters — we don’t have enough in the community,” he said.
Pimicikamak band Coun. Shirley Robinson said the outage has caused “tremendous damage to our Nation.”
A water treatment plant on the north side of the community has seen major leaks, and help is needed to fix the aging infrastructure, she said.
“Our water treatment plant is ready to collapse.”
Some residents are being evacuated to protect their health and safety, said Robinson. At least 140 people were expected to be evacuated on Saturday.
Monias said about 4,000 people have already been evacuated from the First Nation.
Jack Ross said his family was evacuated after his mother, who has asthma, was struggling to breathe when her inhaler froze due to the extreme cold during the power outage. (Travis Golby/CBC)
Jack Ross and his family were among the first to be evacuated to Winnipeg. He said his mother, who has asthma, was struggling to breathe after her inhaler froze due to the extreme cold during the power outage.
It was “very frosty” inside the multi-generational home, he said.
“The babies were crying on and off because they were cold.”
Ross said he’s worried his family will have to stay in a hotel for a long time due to ongoing plumbing issues.
“Being away from home is frustrating,” he said.
MaryJane Scott, who arrived in Winnipeg on Thursday morning before the power came back on in Pimicikamak, said she thinks evacuees could be stuck in the city for a while.
“I’m worried about going back because of the pipes,” she said. “It’s going to take time to fix the pipes.”
OSAKA—A chain of bars whose cuisine consists of canned food is on the comeback trail and increasingly targeting foreign travelers.
Clean Brothers Inc.’s first bar, called Mr. Kanso, opened in the Minami-Horie district in Osaka’s Nishi Ward in 2002. It featured the unconventional service of selling canned food to imbibers and allowing them to consume the products in-store.
Mr. Kanso bars offer about 300 varieties of canned delicacies from around Japan, such as “takoyaki” (octopus dumplings), “dashimaki” (Japanese rolled omelet) and Miyazaki beef.
The number of franchisees across Japan had reached 44 in 2015.
But the figure has dropped to 32 in 2025, a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everyone’s lifestyle changed,” said Michio Kawabata, 37, a board member in charge of public relations. “It seems many people shifted to drinking at home.”
FAMILY AFFAIR
The company is named after a project initiated by a group of artists led by Kawabata’s father Yoshihito, 71.
When Yoshihito was creating modern art pieces, he was also working as a manager for office buildings.
In 1998, he came up with an idea to clean up communal areas of buildings and lend the empty spaces to artists to display their works.
Yoshihito joined hands with eight others to found Clean Brothers, hoping to give young artists the exposure they needed.
A warehouse company asked them to operate a shop at a planned redevelopment site for a limited time. Thus, the first Mr. Kanso bar was born.
Clean Brothers decided to offer only cans of food at the bar because they have a long shelf life and require almost no cooking.
Customers would choose their favorite cans from shelves, move to the bar counter, and eat the contents with drinks.
The strategy proved successful.
Yoshihito serves as chairman of Clean Brothers, while his first son, Keiji, 42, is president and second son, Takeshi, 40, is managing director. Michio is the third son.
Clean Brothers’ product information states that it offers “‘omoroi’ (amusing) products born from a flash of inspiration.”
At least 20 of them are original items, including a can of takoyaki, which is priced at 635 yen ($4). It once sold about 10,000 cans a year.
Other original brand canned products are “happosai” (stir-fried mixed vegetables), “chanko-nabe” hot pot, paella and even cheesecake.
CONSTANT ADJUSTMENTS
Clean Brothers is aware it can’t compete on price with major seafood companies that can distribute mass-produced canned products to retailers.
The bar company’s product development has largely been a long trial-and-error process.
In canning, food is sealed in a container and sterilized by heat.
But the initial problem with takoyaki dumplings was that they melted with sauce while being heated.
Clean Brothers made adjustments, including thickening the sauce, to accumulate know-how.
The challenge for dashimaki omelet was how to keep the color, shape and firmness.
Mr. Kanso is now growing popular among the increasing numbers of inbound tourists for its novelty. The tourists have created a new business opportunity for Clean Brothers.
The majority of foreign customers want to return home with souvenirs of things they have tasted in Japan, the company said, adding that they prefer “luxury items.”
Canned beef, tuna, scallops and other high-end products sell well among them, the company said.
Cans of flavored nuts are also enjoying brisk sales.
Following takoyaki, wasabi and curry-themed flavors, the company is set to release the “mentaiko” (hot pollock roe) flavor.
“We will continue performing trial-and-error experiments,” Michio said.
Currently, Clean Brothers directly manages four Mr. Kanso bars and operates an online shop.
The company opened a Mr. Kanso in Taiwan in 2019, although it is now closed. The canned food bar also came to Hong Kong in 2021.
Plans to place computerized data centers are drawing protests from residents in many parts of Japan, who aren’t happy about their nondescript facades nor see any benefits from hosting them.
The demand for data centers (DCs) is growing exponentially amid advances in artificial intelligence, among other factors.
Data centers proving unpopular among locals seem puzzling, given that these establishments provide perks, such as increased tax revenue, for regional communities.
Turning to those advantages, Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, outside Tokyo, has been recruiting data center operators so aggressively that the city is known by the nickname “DC Ginza” in tribute to the busy Ginza shopping district in the capital.
A tour of one of Japan’s leading data center clusters, as well as its surrounding municipalities, provides a look at the enigmatic situation facing the essential facilities in an era of information technology.
Inzai city saw a spate of data center building projects get under way rapidly during the 2010s. It is currently lined by a total of 30 such establishments operated, for example, by the U.S. Google LLC and an affiliate of Amazon.com Inc.
The municipality attracted considerable attention among business operators because it is particularly resistant to flooding and other natural disasters, thanks to its stable ground. Likewise helpful was the city’s prime location, easily accessible from central Tokyo and Narita Airport.
Construction is still progressing in locations across Inzai, with the number of data centers projected to reach 45 or so by 2028.
TAX INCOME MORE THAN DOUBLES OVER DECADE
Inzai city has been fully reaping the benefits of accommodating data centers.
Data centers are subjected to a higher permanent asset tax rate than logistics warehouses and similar facilities, since taxation applies to the servers densely arranged on respective floors, in addition to the land and buildings.
Servers used at data centers are costly, in particular. They need to be replaced every few years to keep pace with technological advances, helping stabilize tax revenues for host municipalities.
Proceeds from permanent asset taxes were 16.5 billion yen ($105 million) for Inzai city in fiscal 2024, more than double the 7.9 billion yen recorded 10 years ago.
Former Inzai Mayor Masanao Itakura, who led the municipal initiative to attract data centers, recounted how their existence has contributed to an improved quality of life for citizens.
“A lot of public services, inclusive of providing free meals to students at elementary and junior high schools, were made possible owing to the financial support from tax yields from data centers,” Itakura said.
However, land redevelopment in Inzai is already approaching its limits.
Home to a plethora of data centers, the Otsuka district in front of Chiba Newtown Chuo Station is fully occupied by existing and planned establishments.
The DPDC Inzai Park, which sits north of Inzai-Makinohara Station, no longer has any vacancies, and the same is true for the other major data center site, the Matsuzaki industrial complex, in southern Inzai.
The specialized premises suitable for setting up data centers for industrial purposes in urbanization-restricted zones are now occupied virtually to the fullest.
MASSIVE POWER USE
The local energy supply grid is similarly constrained and burdened.
TEPCO Power Grid Inc. stated that the Inzai area has gone through two rounds of substation enhancement in anticipation of rising electricity demand at data centers there.
The current energy supply capacity comes to 1.7 gigawatts, enough to power 480,000 average households. This figure is a result of an unprecedented investment in the city with a population of only 110,000.
The energy distribution still falls short of actual needs.
TEPCO Power Grid is looking to hike capacity by an additional 0.6 gigawatt by fiscal 2027. Even with this boost, the available power will be insufficient to meet the estimated total consumption of existing and envisioned data centers.
The utility is considering further investment, yet a public relations representative of TEPCO Power Grid acknowledged that the process “is believed to take some time.”
An executive of the operator of a data center in Inzai noted that more businesses are currently looking outside the city.
“Although few locations are better suited than Inzai, adequate sites are scarce, making it unrealistic to plan new construction projects going forward,” said the senior official. “Operators are increasingly turning their attention en masse to regions outside Inzai.”
LOOK BEYOND INZAI
Having lost sight of the “most appropriate site” for them, data center firms are setting their eyes on regions around Inzai, provoking a hostile reaction from residents at times.
A program was unveiled in 2022 toward putting a data center in Nagareyama in Chiba Prefecture.
Featuring four stories above ground and one basement, the facility was expected to boast an overall floor space of 34,000 square meters on commercial land near the city hall.
People living in the neighborhood did not roll out the red carpet for the massive building, as data centers offer almost no local jobs and contribute little to the vitality of the regional communities.
One opponent in Nagareyama thus noted the planned establishment could simply “create an oppressive atmosphere when seen from Nagareyama Station.”
Another voiced opposition, insisting, “It is easy to imagine that a data center (near a residential area) would be deemed as an unwelcome facility” among citizens.
The third-party committee set up by Nagareyama city held a mediation meeting, only to find that the developer had dropped the plan in 2024.
“The data center was not even anticipated” by residents, pointed out a representative from the city planning division of Nagareyama. “They may have thought of the large, sparsely windowed building, with effectively no people coming or going, as unsettling.”
The previous candidate site for the data center is reportedly undergoing the construction of an apartment and a commercial facility for now.
Residents of Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture, are alike raising objections, as more than one data center building program has been proposed there. They claim that this type of facility could “cast shadows and infringe on their right to sunlight.”
Even in Inzai, the leading host city, Mayor Kengo Fujishiro has questioned an endeavor to install a data center in a prime location in front of Chiba Newtown Chuo Station on the Hokuso Line.
Fujishiro wrote on his social media account: “An establishment appropriate to the community should be developed there–not a data center at this time.”
Locals have launched a drive to stop the facility as well.
It is, however, extremely difficult for residents and authorities to pressure data center operators to give up their construction in succession.
Unlike factories and cemeteries, data centers are free from regulations on construction and installation from the perspective of emissions, noise and negative public health effects.
With no apparent disadvantages to surrounding areas anticipated, data centers are therefore treated as “offices” in legal terms.
Keeping this background in mind, a municipal official expressed concerns, saying, “Stopping a building program is impossible as long as the procedures are legal. Resorting to excessive tactics could instead expose us to lawsuits.”
Spending on rail infrastructure is a political hot potato in Wales with Plaid Cymru in particular arguing that Wales is being short changed by as much as £4bn because HS2 was designated an England and Wales project.
In June the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the Treasury would be providing £300m for five new stations around Cardiff and Newport between 2026 and 2030, and a series of improvement works including measures to improve capacity in north Wales.
Another £48m would be spent on the South Wales Metro.
The Welsh government said it is pushing for further electrification of lines around Wales.
But it doesn’t believe devolving sections of lines such as the Great Western – which runs from stations such as Swansea and Cardiff, into England and to Paddington in London – is the solution.
“I’m not sure we’re wanting the devolution of it,” said minister for delivery Julie James.
“Really what we want is the funding formulas to be right and the organisation of it to be right so that we have a loud voice for Wales in what is done in Wales and actually we have a very good working relationship with the UK government about which railway stations will be invested in.
“I’m not a separatist politician at all. I want to work inside the UK infrastructure. It’s very important to me that the Great Western Railway line goes all the way to London seamlessly, you know, I don’t want it to only work to the border.
“If you did devolve the whole of rail infrastructure to Wales, you’d want to be really certain that all the money that you needed for that came with, I’d be very concerned whether that would happen as a one off event.”
Once the tri-mode trains are in operation on the Rhymney Valley line, new trains will be introduced on the Ebbw Vale, Cheltenham and Maesteg routes.
As another fire season kicks off, the ACT has a new tool in its arsenal to fight the threat.
It’s not a new giant “Elvis” helicopter, or a fresh batch of volunteers.
It’s one state-of-the-art recruit — artificial intelligence (AI).
At ACT Emergency Services Agency headquarters, fire tower operator Andrew Beer surveys the vast capital region ranges, via a remote video camera network dotted among the hills and valleys.
When he describes the difference that AI tech makes, he uses phrases like “major benefit”, “really, really helpful” and “a great backup”.
AI and fire towers are sharing the load when it comes to monitoring for fires in the ACT. (ABC News: Mark Moore )
“Once upon a time we had people in fire towers on high fire danger days” Mr Beer says.
“AI works 24-7, so it’s always there, it’s never asleep and it’s the first port of call to identify fire incidents.
“[The cameras] keep watch on the ACT and our surrounding areas all the time and we don’t have to have people in towers, which is a risky situation.“
Rohan Scott, the chief officer of the ACT Rural Fire Service (RFS), is similarly enthusiastic.
“The introduction of AI … is seeing significant improvements in the way we detect fire, but also how we then use that AI technology for intelligence gathering and real-time monitoring of a situation,” he says.
ACT Rural Fire Service Chief Officer Rohan Scott. (ABC News: Toby Hunt)
Mr Scott said the first time the ACT RFS began experimenting with AI assistance was just prior to the tragic summer of 2019-20.
“Unfortunately, we had an incident with one of our fire tower operators, and the chief officer at the time decided to look at other technologies to improve our capability, but also make it safer for our staff, particularly when they’re working in remote environments.”
He adds that more recently, “the AI is getting smarter and smarter as we use it.”
“It determines now whether a fire is dust or whether it’s fertiliser spreading,” he says.
“Is it steam coming off a storm that might have passed? So as it’s being used, it’s getting a lot more accurate for us and our ability to make decisions in a timely manner.”
But will it take the jobs of firies with decades of experience, decision-making and composure, that can only be learned on the fire front?
“It hasn’t taken any jobs. What it’s done is it’s increased our knowledge and our decision-making,” Mr Scott replies.
“AI is actually then giving us that reassurance and confirmation of our decisions and our commitment to those resources out on the fire ground.”
Already here, and evolving rapidly
Bettina Konti is the interim director general of a new arm of the ACT public service — Digital Canberra.
Ms Konti says beyond “garden variety” uses such as ChatGPT or Google large language models, AI is being incorporated into various areas of everyday life.
And she says that it’s vital everyone has a voice in how that happens.
ChatGPT is being used in everyday life, as well as in professional settings. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)
“Probably the simplest way I could put it is, AI is here. It will continue to grow and evolve, despite us and without us,” Ms Konti says.
“So best let’s get in and understand it, learn how to work with it … if there are adverse consequences that come from it, how do we stop that from occurring?
“But how do we then gain the benefits that it promises for the Canberra community?“
She cites everything from fire safety, road monitoring, healthcare and education as areas where the ACT government has already incorporated some form of AI assistance.
But no matter what task AI is being used for, Ms Konti acknowledges that human oversight is crucial.
“It’s really, really important,” she says.
“It’s also important to say right from the outset that we don’t know everything and we’re not always going to get it right.“
Bettina Konti is the interim director general of a new arm of Digital Canberra. (Supplied)
She also makes clear that unquestioning faith in AI’s power to solve big challenges is the wrong approach.
“We can’t just implement an AI-enabled solution and just let it rip,” she says.
“We need to make sure that on an ongoing basis — and this is probably one of the areas where we’ve got new kind of job types and new kind of roles emerging through AI — someone needs to monitor.”
AI in the healthcare system
Ms Konti says that AI has particular “potentially out-of-this-world transformative” potential for the under-pressure healthcare system.
“AI won’t just be able to help in the administration and to reduce the burden of administration for our healthcare providers, but also it will help in actually being able to detect disease and those kinds of things,” she says.
One specialist using AI is Purnima Bhat, a public/private gastroenterologist based in Canberra.
She says AI is an established tool in several areas of healthcare, including administration, note-taking and training.
“AI has just revolutionised what we’re doing now for patient care in many ways … and it’s improving day by day,” Dr Bhat says.
“I think the best and greatest thing that’s happened for us in AI is the advent of public detection systems. That’s what’s become the de rigour for colonoscopy now.“
Dr Purnima Bhat, gastroenterologist and hepatologist at The Canberra Hospital (also Associate Professor ANU College of Health and Medicine). (ABC News: Adam Shirley)
A colonoscopy practitioner needs to meet an Australian standard for detecting potentially harmful polyps and lesions, some of which develop into cancerous growths.
“We’ve set these detection rates above [the point] which we think you’re safe to do colonoscopies on patients,” Dr Bhat explains.
“And so in determining whether or not your quality colonoscopy is being delivered, these detection rates are really important.“
Put simply, using AI-assisted detection equipment increases competence.
“For early-career endoscopists, for people who are providing the general service but may not be in a high expertise setting, it’s making them very competent and it’s raising the floor for the average patient who’s going to see the average person doing the procedure,” Dr Bhat says.
“And it’s made them safer and better.”
AI means ‘we’re doing our job better’: doctor
Dr Bhat said that experienced, skilled specialists and nurses are still superior to current AI, and that it’s too early to statistically say whether using AI tech is reducing colon cancer rates overall.
“But at the very least, we’re doing our job for the patients better than we were before,” she says.
“We’re finding a lot more lesions. We are hopefully preventing a lot more cancers. I think the data is still not entirely clear if that’s true.”
But one consequence to the technology is that “we’re doing a lot more work,” Dr Bhat says.
“That’s the thing with medicine, right? The more you look, the more you see, the more you scan, the more you’ll find.”
AI is being used to better diagnose conditions within the ACT health system. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
However, she predicts the future will be pivotal for diagnoses.
“The next-gen AI is going to be able to say, ‘That’s this kind of polyp. This carries with it an x-per cent risk of turning into something nasty. You better do something about it’,” she says.
“Or, you know, patients had 10 polyps, but they’re all super low risk. He’s going to be fine.
“When AI can help us to determine what kind of polyp it is, I think it’s going to make a big, big difference.“
Dr Baht is acutely aware of the concerns and questions regarding the use of AI in healthcare.
“One is that if you train with AI, are you going to have a generation of colonoscopists that don’t know how to find polyps on their own? That’s been a big question,” she says.
“And I think my answer is, I’m not sure my kids can read a map … But we remember the day when you still have to look at the ‘Refidex’ to find where you’re going and have one person read the map.
“Now we use our map system or whichever one we’re on and it tells us where to go and how to get there.
“So we would never go back … and I think that that’s the point with technology.“
An education ‘game-changer’
AI is also influencing the ACT school system.
Students have been dabbling in AI to help with their assessments (without approval) for years, but the ACT education system is now at the starting line of incorporating approved AI tools for teachers and students.
“The student-facing platform that we have here in ACT government is Google. And obviously, Google has [AI assistant] Gemini,” Ms Konti says.
“So there are considerations right now about how, not if, but how, we implement Gemini for students.”
Google Gemini is one of the many AI options available. (Reuters: Dado Ruvic)
For public school teachers, approved use of AI is here and now.
The ACT Education Directorate has confirmed to the ABC that AI has recently been approved for use by teachers across the public school system.
“Over the past 12 months, a range of AI tools have been trialled by teachers for specific use cases,” the directorate told the ABC in a statement.
“Following these trials, the directorate has endorsed a tool for teacher use, with careful consideration given to security, privacy and the ethical application of AI in schools.“
Amaroo School principal Ed Cuthbertson has no doubt that AI has more benefits than drawbacks for teachers.
“It’s just an absolute game-changer,” he says.
Ed Cuthbertson High School Principal at Amaroo School. (ABC News: Adam Shirley)
Mr Cuthbertson explains that AI allows teachers to tailor any lesson, text or instructions to a diverse range of students.
“For example, our school here, we’ve got 45 per cent of kids from an EALD [English as an Additional Language or Dialect] background,” he explains.
“You can say, I’m going to have this piece of work delivered at this level, this piece of work delivered at this level, and this piece of work delivered at this level. And everyone can engage with the text … as opposed to a teacher having to rewrite each level.
“And let’s be honest, they’re not going to find the time to be able to do that.“
Mr Cuthbertson cites curriculum improvements and selection of elective subjects as other areas where the technology is having an influence.
He sees AI as giving teachers back the most precious of resources.
“Time is a huge pressure in teaching. And it [AI] also takes that administrative component, which can be slow and laborious, and helps speed that up as well,” Mr Cuthbertson summarises.
He adds this can be a doubled-edged sword.
“When you find time, it’s a vacuum and it fills with other things. And I just hope that … what it can become, is that it frees up time for the important to be preferenced over the urgent,” he says.
The ACT education system is exploring how to best use AI in teaching. (Unsplash: Taylor Flowe)
He also understands the many concerns there are about the technology, including some raised in the creative and artistic world.
“I think my ultimate worry or risk is that it replaces thinking,” he muses.
“It can do a lot of the doing, but it can’t replace thinking.
“And that’s where your job as a teacher is around, how do you stimulate? How do you allow kids to make that connection?”
Maine’s housing market cooled off in 2025, as the inventory of available homes grew.
Compared to recent years, 2025 proved to be a slightly better one for buyers, said Jeff Harris, a Farmington-based realtor and the outgoing president of the Maine Association of Realtors.
More homes stayed on the market for longer, he said. Even so, many first-time homebuyers in Maine are still priced out of the market due to high interest rates. Harris said before the pandemic, the average age of a first-time buyer in Maine was 27. Now it’s 40.
Financing is also a challenge for older Mainers who want to make a change.
“There’s a lot of sellers out there that would like to downsize,” Harris said. “But the smaller homes are hard to find.”
The market has cooled in more rural parts of the state, but Harris said it remains strong along the interstate corridor from York County up to Waterville.
Harris doesn’t predict much change in the Maine market in the coming year, unless interest rates go down. If they do, Harris said he’s hopeful that older Mainers will downsize, which could open up more options for first-time homebuyers.
China’s leading new energy vehicle manufacturer BYD sold around 2.26 million electric vehicles (EVs) in 2025, surpassing Tesla in global EV sales last year.
U.S. electric automaker Tesla delivered about 1.63 million EVs in 2025, according to company data. Last year, BYD sold roughly 4.6 million new energy vehicles (NEVs).
BYD said it has expanded its market in China, while also increasing its overseas sales. Its European business has been robust and the company is exploring markets in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Notably, BYD is stepping up its local production efforts. The firm’s factory in Brazil started operation last year.
