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Cision Canada
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cision Canada
Canada's Baking and Sweets Show Returns with Halloween Magic -- October 18-19, 2025
MISSISSAUGA, ON, Aug. 13, 2025 /CNW/ - Join us for a delicious weekend of inspiration, creativity, and indulgence at Canada's Baking and Sweets Show, taking place October 18–19, 2025, at The International Centre in Mississauga. This year's enchanting theme is Halloween Magic — a perfect way to get into the spooky spirit ahead of Halloween and the festive season. Taste, Learn, and Shop the latest in baking trends, techniques, and tools, all under one roof. Explore a lively show floor filled with passionate exhibitors offering everything from premium ingredients to cutting-edge decorating tools and sweet delicacies. Whether you're a home baker or a seasoned pro, there's something to excite every baking enthusiast. Each day features exciting stage programming with special guests, celebrated chefs, and acclaimed authors. On Saturday, don't miss celebrity chef Anna Olson, host of Baking with Anna Olson and author of multiple bestselling cookbooks, live on stage sharing baking tips and her signature charm. Also on the Main Stage: Camilla Wynne, author of Jam Bake, brings a creative twist on preserves and sweet spreads. Jean Parker and Rachel Smith, co-authors of Baking Wonderland, share family-friendly baking ideas designed to inspire all ages. Over at the Flavour Network Stage, enjoy dynamic demonstrations from top culinary talents presenting innovative recipes and techniques throughout the day. Returning by popular demand, the Cake Design Academy offers immersive learning experiences: Whether you're mastering fondant or refining piping skills, these expert-led sessions provide the tools to level up your baking game. This year's show promises spooky treats, cozy seasonal classics, and plenty of magic. Sample, shop, and be inspired by the best in baking. Don't miss competitions throughout the weekend that spotlight both up-and-coming talent and industry pros. Show Hours: Saturday, October 18: 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Sunday, October 19: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Admission: One-day pass: $20 adults | $18 seniors (65+) & $15 students (13–17 with ID) Weekend pass: $30 Venue: International Centre, Hall 4 6900 Airport Road, Mississauga, ON Canada's sweetest baking event awaits! SOURCE Canada's Baking and Sweets Show
CTV News
06-08-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Community ‘grieving' after Toronto pastor and 2 daughters ordered deported to Kenya
Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki and her two children, six-year-old Pearl and nine-year-old Joylene, attended an immigration hearing at the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) office at Mississauga's International Centre on Aug. 6, where a judge denied the woman's request to defer their deportation order to Kenya. Despite prayers and impassioned pleas to government officials, a Toronto-based preacher and her two young daughters are being sent back to Kenya. Early Wednesday morning, Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki and her two children, six-year-old Pearl and nine-year-old Joylene, attended an immigration hearing at the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) office at Mississauga's International Centre, where a judge denied the woman's request to defer their deportation order. Wanyeki was seeking to push back her family's deportation from Canada until a decision was reached on their application for permanent residency here along with a risk assessment, which to date have all been denied, but are being appealed. The family was originally scheduled to be removed from the country earlier this year; however, a deferral was granted until June to allow the girls to finish the school year. Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki and her two children, six-year-old Pearl and nine-year-old Joylene On Aug. 6, Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki and her two children, six-year-old Pearl and nine-year-old Joylene, attended an immigration hearing at the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) office at Mississauga's International Centre, where a judge denied the woman's request to defer their deportation order to Kenya. As a result of Wednesday's hearing, an order was issued for their deportation on Thursday. Wanyeki and her children are being detained by CBSA until their departure. Documents obtained by CTV News show tickets that have been booked for the family on Ethiopian Airlines. Their flight to Nairobi via Addis Ababa is scheduled to leave Pearson International Airport at 10:45 a.m. CTV News Toronto briefly spoke to Wanyeki on the phone earlier today from inside the immigration detention centre near Rexdale Boulevard. She said her children are frightened, scared, and don't understand what is happening, adding that they also do not have any memories of life in Kenya, nor any connection to the East African nation. 'At first, (my daughters) started crying immediately. They don't know why they have to leave the city so I had to calm them down,' she told CTV News Toronto's John Musselman. Wanyeki, daughters came to Canada as refugees in 2020 Wanyeki, who is known to many in the community as Reverend Hadassah came to Canada, along with her two children – who were four and 8 months old at that time – in 2020 as refugees. She said they were forced to flee Kenya as they faced persecution from a powerful church leader in Nairobi. Over the past five years, the family has created a life in Toronto with Wanyeki founding and serving as the senior pastor of North York's Prayer Reign International Church in Canada. Pearl and Joylene, meanwhile, have settled in at West Hill Public School in Scarborough and are involved in basketball at West Hill Gospel Hall and participate in various church programs. Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki, Pearl and Joylene Toronto-based Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki with her daughters Pearl and Joylene. (Supplied) Supporter says deportation process 'very unfair' Speaking with CTV News Toronto outside the CBSA office prior to Wanyeki's hearing, Diana Da Silva, an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said Canada's deportation process is 'very unfair.' 'Rosalind still has (immigration) applications going, but these applications that are currently in place do not stop a deportation. That is systematically designed, in a way, to kick out our people, our communities before justice is made,' she said, adding that Wanyeki is 'feeling very anxious, scared, worried and uncertain' about her future. 'She is here, like many other refugees, because her life is being persecuted. She fled persecution because of a very powerful church leader back home. (Rosalind) is still very much at risk and it's important that she be able to get safety and protection that Canada promised her.' Da Silva said the community is 'grieving' after learning that Wanyeki and her kids are being sent back to Kenya. 'We're calling on the immigration minister and the public safety minister to step in. This is the only thing that can be done now,' she said. Diana Da Silva, an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change Diana Da Silva, an organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, speaks with CTV News Toronto on Aug. 6. CTV News Toronto reached out to both Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as well as CBSA, however they both said they wouldn't speak to specific cases citing privacy. 'We require written consent from individuals before we can disclose information about their cases to the media.' In a statement, a CBSA spokesperson said it 'carries out removals based on a risk-management regime.' 'There are multiple steps built into the process to ensure procedural fairness and the CBSA only actions a removal order once all legal avenues of recourse that can stay a removal have been exhausted,' they wrote in an email. Eunice Mbugua Eunice Mbugua is a mobilizer in the GTA's Kenyan and East African community as well as a friend of the Wanyeki family. Eunice Mbugua, a community mobilizer, attended an emergency prayer service for Wanyeki and her children over the weekend in North York. 'So what is being taken away from the Kenyan and the broader African community at large is actually a support system that actually is very needed,' she said at that time. Mbugua also came down to the CDSA office on Wednesday morning to support the family. 'They are not forgetting the trauma itself, what (Rosalind is) dealing with right now,' she said. 'The children, themselves, the trauma they're dealing with right now and the fragility of their age as well that they have to kind of process this all by themselves. They don't even know what's going on but they knew they are at risk.' Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki Rev. Rosalind Wanyeki, who is facing deportation to Kenya with her two young daughters, speaks during an emergency service on Aug. 3. According to data on the CBSA website, on average 45 people are deported daily from Canada. With files from CTV News Toronto's John Musselman and Rahim Ladhani
BBC News
31-07-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
More than 2,000 to compete at Pickleball Open in Telford
More than 2,000 pickleball players will arrive in Shropshire shortly for a major Pickleball English Open will be held at Telford's International Centre for the third time, from 6 to 10 year's competition ran for seven days but Pickleball England said the schedule was was "tough" on volunteers, so made the decision to streamline this year's event over five days, but with longer is a mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong and can be played by singles or in pairs, either indoors or outside. "When registration opened, we were amazed to receive over 1,400 entries in just four hours," the sports body said."Some events filled up immediately. "With 2,348 players from 41 countries, we're proud to host our biggest tournament yet."Taking place across 40 courts, players range from under 12s to 70+.There is a prize money pool of £30,000 across all of its open events, some of which will be live-streamed. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
SBS Australia
17-07-2025
- Politics
- SBS Australia
Calls to criminalise possession and use of AI tools that create child abuse material
Child safety advocates have met at Parliament House to confront the problem of child safety in the age of Artificial Intelligence. From the rising prevalence of deepfake imagery to the availability of so-called nudify apps, the use of A-I to sexually exploit children is growing exponentially - and there is concern Australian laws are falling behind. The roundtable was convened by the International Centre for Exploited and Missing Children Australia, or ICMEC. CEO Colm Gannon says Australia's current child protection framework, introduced just three years ago, fails to address the threat of AI - and he's calling on the government to make it a priority. "(By) bringing it into the national framework that was brought around in 2021, a 10 year framework that doesn't mention AI. We're working to hopefully develop solutions for government to bring child safety in the age of AI at the forefront." Earlier this year, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to introduce A-I sexual abuse offences to protect children from predators generating images with artificial intelligence. Colm Gannon is leading the calls for similar legislation in Australia. "What we need to do is look at legislation that's going to be comprehensive - comprehensive for protection, comprehensive for enforcement and comprehensive to actually be technology neutral." Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame says online child abuse needs to be addressed at a society-wide level. "Perpetrators are not just grooming their individual victims, they're grooming their entire environments to create a regime of control in which abuse can operate in plain sight. And there are ways through education that needs to be aimed at, not just children and the people who work with children but the entire community, there are ways to identify these precipitating behaviours that underpin the contact offending framework, it's things like how offenders target victims, which victims they are targeting specifically." In 2023, intelligence company Graphika reported that the use of synthetic, non-consensual, intimate imagery was becoming more widespread - moving from being available in niche internet forums, to an automated and scaled online business. It found that 34 of such image providers received more than 24 million unique visitors to their websites, while links accessing these services increased on platforms including Reddit and X. As part of Task Force Argos, former policeman Professor Jon Rouse pioneered Australia's first proactive operations against internet child sex offenders, and has also chaired INTERPOL's Covert Internet Investigations Group. Now working with Childlight Australia, he says big tech providers like Apple have a responsibility to build safety controls into their products. "Apple has got accountability here as well, they just put things on the app store, they get money every time somebody downloads it, but there's no regulation around this, you create an app you put it on the app store. Who checks and balances what the damages that, that's going to cause is. No-one. The tragedy is we're at a point now that we have to ban our kids from social media. Because we can't rely on any sector of the industry to ban our kids. Which is pretty sad." Apple has not responded to a request for comment. But in 2021 it announced it had introduced new features designed to help keep young people safe - such as sending warnings when children receive, or attempt to send, images or videos containing nudity. Although potentially dangerous, AI can also be used to detect grooming behaviour and child sexual abuse material. Colm Gannon from ICMEC says these opportunities need to be harnessed. "The other thing that we want to do is use law enforcement as a tool to help identify victims. There is technology out there that can assist in rapid and easy access to victim ID and what's happening at the moment is law enforcement are not able to use that technology."
ABC News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
'Urgent' demand to outlaw AI tools being used to generate child sexual abuse material
Former Australian of the year Grace Tame says there is an urgent national need to act to prevent AI tools being used to create child abuse material, and that the country must criminalise the possession of freely available child exploitation apps. Child safety advocates including Ms Tame will meet at Parliament House today ahead of a new term of parliament to address the rise of AI being used to sexually exploit children, as well as opportunities to use AI to detect grooming behaviour and child sexual abuse material. The meeting comes as a spotlight has turned on what governments are doing to protect children in the week of another horrific alleged case of abuse at a Melbourne child care centre. Ms Tame, who rose to prominence campaigning for the right to speak under her own name about her abuse, says the government is moving too slowly. "I don't think previous governments and, unfortunately, the current government, have acted swiftly enough when it comes to child safety online," Ms Tame said. The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which is convening the parliament round table, has advocated for Australia to make it an offence to possess or distribute custom-built AI tools designed to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Similar legislation has been introduced in the United Kingdom, which the government has said it is following closely. Intelligence company Graphika reported late in 2023 that non-consensual explicit generative AI tools had moved from being available on niche internet forums into a "scaled" online and monetised business. It found there had been more than 24 million unique visits to the websites of 34 of these tools, and links to access them had risen sharply across platforms like Reddit, X and Telegram. Worse still, the spread of AI-generated exploitation material is diverting police resources from investigations involving real victims. While possession of CSAM is a criminal offence, advocates say Australia should be following other nations, including the United Kingdom and European Union, in outlawing the AI tools themselves. "The reason why this round table is really important … is because when we look at the national framework for child protection that was drafted in 2021, it's a ten-year framework and the presence of AI and the harms being caused by AI are actually not mentioned in that framework," ICMEC Australia chief executive Colm Gannon said. "There has to be regulations put in place to say you need to prevent this from happening, or your platform being used as a gateway to these areas." "This software [has] no societal benefit, they should be regulated and made illegal, and it should be an offence to actually have these models that are generating child sexual abuse material. "It is urgent." Ms Tame said currently, perpetrators were able to purchase AI tools and download them for offline use, where their creation of offending material could not be detected. "It is a wild west, and it doesn't require much sophistication at all," she said. An independent review of the Online Safety Act handed to the government in October last year also recommended "nudify" AI apps used to create non-consensual explicit material should be banned. The government has promised to adopt a recommendation from that review to impose a "duty of care" on platforms to keep children safe, though it is yet to be legislated, and the 66 other recommendations of that review have not been responded to. In a statement, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the use of AI to facilitate the creation of child sexual abuse was sickening "and cannot continue". "I am committed to working across government to further consider how we can strengthen responses to evolving harms. This includes considering regulatory approaches to AI in high-risk settings," Ms Rowland said. "Australia has a range of laws that regulate AI. These include economy-wide laws on online safety." Advocates are also raising that government can do to remove barriers limiting law enforcement from being able to use AI tools to detect and fight perpetrators of child abuse. Police have limited their use of facial recognition tools to investigate child abuse online since 2021 when the Privacy Commissioner determined Clearview AI breached Australians' privacy by scraping biometric data from the web without consent, and ordered Australian data to be deleted and the app be banned. Mr Gannon, a former specialist investigator who has helped in national and international child sexual exploitation cases, said, however, there were existing tools that could be used by law enforcement while protecting the privacy of Australians. "That's something the government need to actually start looking at: how do we actually provide tools for law enforcement in the identification of victims of child sexual abuse [that are] compliant with privacy laws in Australia? "We shouldn't disregard the idea of using AI to help us identify victims of child sexual abuse. "There are solutions out there that would also have good oversight by government allowing investigators to access those tools." Clearview AI continues to be used overseas by law enforcement to identify child abuse victims and offenders, but Mr Gannon said there were solutions that could allow "good oversight by government" while also enabling investigators to access the tool. He added that Australia should be working with international partners to harmonise its approach to AI safety so that expectations for developers could be clearly set. Advocates have also warned that the spread of unregulated AI tools has enabled child sex offenders to scale up their offending. Ms Tame said the need for a framework to regulate AI tools extended beyond obviously harmful apps, with even mainstream AI chatbots used by offenders to automate grooming behaviour and gain advice on evading justice or speaking with law enforcement. "In my own experience, the man who offended against me, as soon as he was notified that he was suspended from my high school, he checked himself into a psych ward," she said. "We are seeing offenders not only advancing their methods … we're also seeing their sophistication in evading justice." The government acknowledged last year that current regulations did not sufficiently address the risks posed by AI, and would consider "mandatory safeguards". Last month, the eSafety commissioner said technology platforms had an obligation to protect children. "While responsibility must primarily sit with those who choose to perpetrate abuse, we cannot ignore how technology is weaponised. The tech industry must take responsibility to address the weaponisation of their products and platforms," the commissioner wrote.
