Weekly News Recap: July 17, 2026

Weekly News Recap: July 17, 2026

Calgary businessman, volunteer and philanthropist Bob Brawn has died at age 89.

History favors the brave. – Famous Football Saying

SOME GOOD NEWS

  • This program gives Black single moms $1,000 a month for a year. The results are undeniable (The Guardian) What a wonderful program. "Three months after giving birth to her son, Amaya Jones moved into a new apartment complex. She knew no one else in the building, but it was a fresh start for her and her two children. One day, someone put up a flyer on her unit’s door, notifying her about a program called the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT). Launched in 2018, the MMT is the longest-running guaranteed income program in the country, and the first to target extremely low-income families headed by Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. With no strings attached, the program provides mothers with $1,000 a month for 12 months."

  • VIDEO: He won an Erling Haaland lookalike contest | The Moment (CBC) #Haaland "Per Olav Tegnander tells The National about the moment he won a contest for looking the most like Norway’s star striker Erling Haaland and got two tickets to the FIFA World Cup quarterfinals against England in Miami."

  • VIDEO: Goldie the goat tries to join the fire squad | The Moment (CBC) Goats are cool. "Colorado Springs Fire Department Lieutenant Trevor Leland tells The National about the moment a sociable pet goat named Goldie tried to join his squad while fighting a wildfire."

  • A tiny eye implant invented by a Stanford scientist is helping blind people read again (MSN) "The device was invented at Stanford by Daniel Palanker, an ophthalmologist at Stanford who also has a background in electrical engineering. He previously built lasers for cataract surgery, which is what got him interested in efforts to create a retinal prosthesis. 'People were doing it with wires, and I thought that was completely unnatural for eyes,' he said."

TOP TEN STORIES OF THE WEEK

  1. Sheila Taylor named the Calgary Downtown Association’s new executive director (Livewire Calgary) CALGARY STORY Congrats Sheila! "New Calgary Downtown Association (CDA) executive director Sheila Taylor began her first day on the job Monday, ready to continue the core’s evolution. Taylor, the former longtime executive director of Parks Foundation Calgary and former Calgary Board of Education school board trustee, was named to the position by the CDA’s board of directors, effective July 13."

  2. How Paul Allen's will is set to turn the $9.6B Seattle Seahawks sale into philanthropy (Wealth Professional) #Wowzers "The Estate of Paul G. Allen has entered into a formal agreement to sell the Seattle Seahawks to an ownership group fronted by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, with the bulk of the sale proceeds earmarked for charity under terms the late Microsoft co-founder set out in his estate plan. The Seahawks confirmed over the weekend that the Khosla family will take over the Seahawks once the league signs off on the deal. While official terms were not shared, reports from ESPN and others pegged the purchase price at a record-shattering US$9.612 billion."

  3. ‘Father of Reinforcement Learning’ Richard Sutton Starts Oak Lab To Work On New Approaches To AI (OfficeChai) EDMONTON STORY "Yet another senior AI researcher has set out on his own to explore AI approaches distinct from LLMs. Richard Sutton, the University of Alberta professor widely credited as the father of reinforcement learning, has announced that he’s leaving John Carmack’s Keen Technologies to start a new company called Oak Lab, alongside his former student and longtime collaborator Khurram Javed. Sutton made the announcement on X, where he praised Carmack and Keen but said he and Javed wanted to “pursue a slightly different path toward understanding intelligence.' "

  4. Getting kids active through Sport Hub - Calgary Conversations podcast (City of Calgary) CALGARY STORY "Getting kids active through sports is the focus of the latest edition of the Calgary Conversations podcast. Sport Hub is a new, community-centered program for kids and teens aged 5 to 18 that brings fun, inclusive and coach-led sport lessons directly to schools and neighbourhoods."

  5. VIDEO: Agreement reached on multibillion-dollar Pathways carbon capture and storage project (CBC) ALBERTA STORY "A multibillion-dollar plan to transport and store oilsands greenhouse gas emissions is one step closer to reality after the Alberta government, Ottawa and five oil majors agreed to advance the Pathways Project while working to increase Canada's bitumen production. The project is a condition for a new West Coast oilsands pipeline moving ahead, and would serve to offset some of the carbon dioxide emissions that infrastructure would enable."

  6. VIDEO: Caught in the Act: Astronomers Detect a Star Devouring a Planet (NASA) We live in a miraculous universe. Thanks to Recap contributor and ViTreo Emeritus, Mick Mulloy for sharing this story. "A star nearing the end of its life swelled up and absorbed a Jupiter-size planet. In about 5 billion years, our Sun will go through a similar end-of-life transition. A new study published online [...] in the journal Nature documents the first observation of an aging star swallowing a planet. After running out of fuel in its core, the star began to grow in size, shrinking the gap with its neighboring planet, eventually consuming it entirely."

  7. EXPLAINER: 5 Things to Know About Ukraine and Patriot Missiles (Kyiv Post) "In brief: Ukraine urgently needs PAC-3 Patriot interceptors, the only system in its arsenal capable of stopping Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles, which carry half-ton warheads. By early July 2026, Ukraine’s PAC-3 stocks were reportedly exhausted, allowing Russia to launch major strikes involving 23-24 ballistic missiles and Zircon missiles with no intercepts."

  8. 'A life well lived': Calgary entrepreneur and philanthropist Bob Brawn dies at 89 (Calgary Herald) CALGARY STORY RIP Mr. Brawn. Your family's philanthropy lives on. We will not see your like again. "Bob Brawn learned the value of hard work early on in his life, spending three years delivering newspapers for the Calgary Herald to pay for his university education. The lessons he learned on that paper route stayed with him for the rest of his life. More than seven decades later, Brawn continued devoting his time and resources to making Calgary a better place until his final days, leaving behind a legacy of kindness, generosity and community service. Brawn, a successful businessman and dedicated philanthropist, died suddenly at home on June 29 at the age of 89. He is survived by four children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren."

  9. Meta To Build $9 Billion Alberta Data Center, Its First In Canada (Slashdot) ALBERTA STORY "Meta will build its first Canadian data center in Alberta, investing $9 billion in a 1-gigawatt facility that can scale to 1.8 gigawatts to support its AI infrastructure needs. The project will rely on new generation and grid infrastructure funded by Meta, including a long-term agreement tied to a new natural gas power facility. The company says it will offset electricity use with clean and renewable energy investments."

  10. US$57m corporate donation to research institute questioned (University World News) "Bernard Arnault, chief of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH and the wealthiest man in France, last week pledged €50 million (US$57.18 million) to build an Institute for Mathematics and Fundamental Sciences bearing his name at the French elite public engineering school Polytechnique just outside Paris [...] Not everyone is applauding Arnault’s initiative, however. Christophe Blondel, CNRS physics research director at a Polytechnique lab at the Palaiseau campus and a member of the non-executive Institut Polytechnique board of directors, is shocked."

SEVEN LIFE AND CAREER HACKS

  1. I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Wanted (New York Times) I love my cold plunge.

  2. 10 Productivity Habits That Make Me Faster Than Most Devs I Work With (Level Up Coding) A fulsome and worthwhile read.

  3. Can Cycling Replace Some of Your Running? (Runner's Life) I fully believe in cycling along with running -- I have been running for 20 years and I have had no injuries with this cross-training.

  4. Why Your Notes Don’t Help You (And the One Habit That Fixes It) (Paco Cantero) Take the ten seconds to connect every note to something else.

  5. The Hidden Geometry of Numbers (Gabor Gulyas) Math can be visual. #NerdAlert

  6. From Bell Curves to Rare Events: Mastering Probability Distributions Like a Pro (Python in Plain English) As someone who digs pretty deep into data science, this read was well worth it. #LoveTheBeta

  7. UI Design Direction 2026–2027 (Michal Malewicz) Cheat codes for designers of all types.

TOP THREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

  1. Incredible $40 million donation to help fight Motor Neurone Disease | A Current Affair (YouTube) "Motor Neurone Disease doesn’t discriminate, and there’s still no treatment, no cure and a rising number of people being diagnosed. Two humble Australians have given a remarkable gift of $40 million – and more importantly, hope – to help in the fight against MND."

  2. 'I wanted to give back': 50 groups share 85-year-old's surprise $1M donation (The London Free Press) ILDERTON STORY "Community organizations from Ilderton and across Middlesex Centre gathered on Saturday for one resident’s surprise $1-million donation. Ilderton’s 150 celebration ran from July 10 to 12 and included a country concert, tractor pull and movie night that brought together residents from across the area. Fifty community agencies, including churches, food banks and athletic organizations, were invited to the Ilderton community centre on Saturday for a special presentation by former Ilderton resident Glenn Powell, 85."

  3. $1.3M donation delays closure of London Cares supportive housing (CBC) LONDON STORY "A London, Ont., supportive housing program that was scheduled to close later this year has been given a lifeline with the announcement of a financial donation that will keep the doors open through the spring. London Cares is receiving up to $1.3 million from the London Community Foundation's Fund For Change to keep the House of Hope open through the end of March 2027 after it was initially set to close in November 2026, officials [announced.]"

LAST WEEK'S MOST POPULAR STORIES

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