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CTV News
10 minutes ago
- CTV News
Venus Williams says she is engaged to Andrea Preti after her first singles win in 16 months
Venus Williams speaks during an interview after her win over Peyton Stearns after a match at the Citi Open tennis tournament Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass) WASHINGTON — Venus Williams' winning return to the professional tennis tour also came with a surprise announcement: She is engaged. After becoming the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match, Williams gave thanks to her fiance, who was in the stands at the DC Open. He is Andrea Preti, who is a Danish-born Italian model and actor, according to the website IMDB. The 45-year-old Williams hadn't played in a tournament in 16 months until entering the event in Washington. She won a doubles match on Monday and a singles match on Tuesday, before losing in doubles on Wednesday. Williams, who has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, is scheduled to face Magdalena Frech in the second round on Thursday night. ___ The Associated Press
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Trek to Uranium City finds abandoned buildings and diehard residents
Social Sharing CBC Saskatchewan's Creator Network is a place where young digital storytellers from diverse backgrounds can produce original video content to air on CBC and tell stories through their own lens. Get in touch or pitch your own story here. In the 1950s, mining of the radioactive chemical element known as uranium went into full swing in northern Saskatchewan. The Eldorado mine at Beaverlodge, just east of Uranium City, soon became the biggest employer there. Uranium City was thriving — full of families and individuals drawn by great job opportunities. At one point, more than 3,000 people called the place home. Now, just a few dozen people live there. Ken Mercredi was born in Uranium City in 1953 and says life there was great. "We had basically everything a person would want. Even out at the mine site, they had a rec hall, and they had everything in it. There was a bowling alley, a curling rink, a pool hall, big-screen TV and gyms," Mercredi said. Hard-to-reach location Uranium City sits north of Lake Athabasca, about 50 kilometres south of Saskatchewan's border with the Northwest Territories. It's a remote place that doesn't have an all-season road connecting it to other parts of the province. But the community has long fascinated explorer Felipe Gomez. Despite the distance and difficulty getting there, Gomez was determined to make the journey to Uranium City and find out who's still there, and why. He also documented his journey for a documentary for the CBC Creator Network. WATCH | Felipe Gomez travels to Uranium City to find out who still lives in the former boom town: To get there, Gomez first flew from Saskatoon to Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta. Next was a weeklong trek across Lake Athabasca to Uranium City, skiing 170 kilometres while being battered by winds and camping in -30 C temperatures. Gomez had some help from world-renowned explorer Eric Larsen, the only man to make it to the North Pole, the South Pole and the summit of Everest in a single year. Once the pair made it to Uranium City, Larsen had to head to another expedition. But Gomez carried on, and began his quest to learn more about the former mining mecca. A short history of uranium mining The uranium industry in Canada dates to the early 1930s, but exploration didn't get going until the years after the Second World War. Deposits in northern Saskatchewan were discovered in the 1950s and the mine at Beaverlodge began production in 1953. In the 1970s, exploration resulted in major discoveries in the Athabasca Basin, and more mines started up in northern Saskatchewan in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1981, Eldorado abruptly announced it was shutting down the mine at Beaverlodge, citing increasing production costs and falling prices, according to news reports at the time. Over the next few years, Uranium City's population declined dramatically. Uncertain future in Uranium City Dean Classen remembers the day he found out the Beaverlodge mine would close. The business owner, who still lives in Uranium City, said people were devastated and had no idea what the future held. "They announced it over CBC radio that Eldorado was shutting down," Classen said. "And there were people just moving into town. There were people on flights that day that were moving in to come to the new jobs to work for the mine." The turn of events shocked the residents of Uranium City, new and old. "People who just finished buying houses or businesses or anything, they went to zero value instantly," Classen said. "It was really weird." On the upside, Classen said Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. was able to relocate people all over the world, even giving them $10,000 to move (the equivalent of almost $30,000 in today's economy) and helping them find new jobs elsewhere. And other nuclear activity continued in the province. Cameco Corp., which was formed by the merger of Eldorado Nuclear Ltd. with a provincial Crown corporation, discovered the McArthur River deposit in 1988. Mines continue to operate today, including at McArthur River and Cigar Lake, which are the largest and highest-grade mines in the world, according to the World Nuclear Association. Abandoned city Over the years, buildings in Uranium City gradually emptied out and deteriorated. Abandoned buildings are all over the community, including houses, apartment complexes and the once bustling school. The hospital stayed open until 2003, where many people who still live in Uranium City were born. Some residents say they have no plans to leave. Samantha Sidebottom grew up in Uranium City and said it was a great experience. These days, she runs a fuel business and a bed and breakfast with her husband. "I didn't have any thoughts about this being a weird place to live until I was a bit older. I choose to stay here because it's where I love to be," Sidebottom said. She said she has felt the pressure to move away, when people ponder Uranium City's future. But she said it's the land that keeps her here. "There are people here, and we're hanging on, and we don't really want to go anywhere. I'm one of them," she said. "It's my happy place."
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
‘Important to restore Morrisseau's legacy': Robots rooting out art fraud
Genevieve Beauchemin has the story of how AI and technology is being used to restore the legacy of Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. Robots at a startup in Montreal are helping restore the legacy of world-renowned Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. A sprawling investigation into forgeries of Morrisseau's paintings that have flooded the market for decades has uncovered what investigators have called the biggest case of art fraud in Canada, and some say, possibly in the history of the world. The estate of the late artist has turned to AI and robots to help authenticate his paintings, in hopes of providing concrete empirical evidence for Canadian courts. The process involves robotic arms that take paintbrushes, dip them in bright paint colours and execute complex strokes on a canvass to produce copies of paintings. This may evoke fears of robots taking over the art world, but those behind the technology say the paintings are not machine-created fakes to be passed off as a real Morrisseau, but replicas to train AI models to root out fraud. 'The better our work gets, the better the model has to get to detect the copies,' said Acrylic Robotics CEO Chloe Ryan. 'This also allows us to refine our robotic techniques.' Ryan is a former painter now armed with a degree in mechanical engineering, who set out on a mission to shake up the art world when she co-founded Acrylic Robotics. 'I have been painting and selling my work since I was a teenager, and I became very frustrated with how long it would take me to make a painting, and then I could sell that work of art once to one person,' they said. 'I was making two dollars an hour, and I thought, 'how can artists make a living selling their art?'' Ryan says that led to a longer reflection on what she calls the 'scarcity-driven art market.' 'The value of art is driven by how few people have access to it,' she said. 'In the music or film industry, it is driven by how many people your art resonates with.' Ryan set out to pioneer a model that would allow for the creation of copies of paintings that capture the same details as the original. She knows that is a scary proposition to some who are concerned robots could take over the work of human creativity, but she says this is based on using technology as a tool. The model she is pitching is of artists consenting to copies of their paintings to be made, which would be clearly identified as copies, so that the human behind the art will be credited and compensated while also making their art more accessible. 'I am pioneering a new method of creation in fine art, one that is driven by how many people resonate with your work, and not one that is driven by how scarce it is,' said Ryan. 'He made Canada look at itself' But what caught the attention of the estate of the late Morrisseau is the technology's potential to help in its fight against forgeries. Morrisseau, who died in 2007 at the age of 75, was a world-renowned painter known as the grandfather of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada. 'Morrisseau was pivotal in sharing Indigenous culture, opening up markets and new pathways for other Indigenous artists,' said Cory Dingle, the executive director of Morrisseau's estate. 'But he also made Canada look at itself. 'All through the residential school trauma, the land displacement and all the racism against him, his art always spoke of love and unity,' adds Dingle. '(O)f interconnectivity and interdependency, and so it is important to restore his legacy.' Morrisseau's pieces sell in the millions, but thousands of fraudulent works of art have flooded the market since the late 1990's, making it difficult to authenticate and sell his paintings. The estate says reporting fakes posed a challenge in the face of Canadian laws. Acrylic Robotics works closely with the estate to create increasingly precise copies of Morrisseau paintings, which are used to train a computer program called Norval AI that was developed three years ago by professors to detect fakes. That program produces heat maps showing spots where a copy differs from the original. Acryclic Robotics has been going back and forth with the estate for about a year, improving copy after copy. For Morrisseau's estate, this is part of a crucial mission. 'Restoring his legacy means that these institutions will study him, that the museum will display him, and we will be able to share this with the world,' said Dingle, sitting in front of a rarely seen Morrisseau. But in the process, there will be more Morrisseau copies floating around. Robotic Acrylics says it is working with the estate to ensure that there are markings in the pieces to ensure that they could never be sold as originals. Producing precise brush strokes involves much more than a few clicks of a mouse. 'There is a robotic challenge of how do I have a robot move in the same way as a human wrist, with the same delicate strokes,' said Ryan. Achieving that may spark concerns about machines replacing humans, but the hope here is that this is a high-tech step in the age-old fight against art fraud.
