Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 20, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A4 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM LONDON — London police are probing whether Prince Andrew asked an offi- cer assigned to him as a bodyguard to dig up dirt on sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre. The Metropolitan Police said it was “actively looking into” media reports that Andrew in 2011 sought informa- tion to smear Giuffre by asking an offi- cer on the force to find out if she had a criminal record. The report by the Mail on Sunday fol- lowed Buckingham Palace’s announce- ment Friday that Andrew agreed to re- linquish use of Duke of York and other remaining royal titles after emails emerged showing he had remained in contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he previ- ously admitted. Giuffre’s family welcomed news of the duke’s demise but said King Charles III should go further and strip Andrew’s title as prince. Giuffre died by suicide in April at the age of 41. The emails were the last straw for the House of Windsor after years of tawd- ry headlines about Andrew’s dodgy friends and suspicious business deals. The move to insulate the monarchy from Andrew’s scandals has been on- going since November 2019 when he gave up all of his public duties and charity roles after a disastrous inter- view when he sought to counter media reports about his friendship with Ep- stein and deny allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein in 2001. Andrew was widely criticized for failing to show empathy for Epstein’s victims and for offering unbelievable explanations for his friendship with the disgraced financier. The BBC interview, in which he said he cut off contact with Epstein in 2010, came back to haunt him and sowed the seeds for his dukedom demotion when emails emerged last week showing he emailed Epstein on Feb. 28, 2011. An- drew told Epstein in the note that they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it.” The Mail reported that, in 2011, as the newspaper was about to publish a now-infamous photo of the prince with his arm around the partly bare midriff of Giuffre, Andrew provided his body- guard with Giuffre’s date of birth and confidential social security number to find out if she had a checkered past. It’s not clear if the officer complied with the request. Giuffre’s family said she didn’t have a criminal record. With that report and Giuffre’s posthu- mous memoir being published Tuesday, the scandal will not soon evaporate. British Energy Secretary Ed Milib- and, who was serving as the govern- ment’s representative on the Sunday morning news programs, said a police officer should not be enlisted in a smear campaign. “These are deeply concerning allega- tions,” Miliband told the BBC. “I think people want to look at those allegations and what the substance is behind them. But if that is correct, that is absolutely not the way that close protection offi- cers should be used.” Andrew in 2022 reached an out-of- court settlement with Giuffre after she filed a civil suit against him in New York. While he didn’t admit wrong- doing, Andrew did acknowledge Giuf- fre’s suffering as a victim of sex traf- ficking. In his statement Friday, Andrew said he continues to “vigorously deny” the accusations. — The Associated Press NEWS I CANADA / WORLD MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2025 Artificial intelligence threatening to push young people out of entry-level jobs CATHERINE MORRISON OTTAWA — Throughout her univer- sity career, Jacqueline Silver assumed her computer science degree would guarantee her a job. Finding out she was wrong was a demoralizing experi- ence. Silver, who graduated recently from McGill University and now lives in To- ronto, spent more than a year applying for hundreds of jobs before finally finding one in her field this month. “I was really exhausted, and it was also just really discouraging,” said Silver, who noted that several of her classmates have also had trouble find- ing work. “It was basically like I was enrolled in a whole separate class because I would go to the library and do my homework for each class and then spend an equal amount of time just ap- plying for jobs.” She likely won’t be the last to scram- ble for work. New research shows that the spread of artificial intelligence is already eating into the supply of jobs in multiple fields, including computer science — and it’s hitting young people the hardest. A recent Stanford University aca- demic paper found that early-career workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations have experi- enced a decline in employment, while employment for experienced workers and those in less exposed fields has remained stable or continued to grow. Hamoon Ekhtiari is CEO of Fu- tureFit AI, a Canadian company that uses artificial intelligence to connect people to jobs. He said the occupations most exposed to AI include junior roles in software development, sales, marketing and customer service. Ekhtiari said the reality of the im- pact AI is having on jobs is “very com- plex.” “AI will create a bunch of jobs and opportunities and it’ll impact a bunch of other jobs,” he said. Silver said generative AI tools like ChatGPT are able to do tasks like writ- ing code “quite well,” which poses a threat to entry-level jobs in her field. “Maybe you still need someone to tweak it or look at it closely, but over- all, you don’t really need that many people to write it anymore because the generative AI can do it,” she said. Ekhtiari said companies need to think beyond the short term and culti- vate young talent. He also said schools need to do a better job of connecting people to skills training and govern- ments need to do more to help people through job transitions. “Traditionally, there was a promise. Go to school for four years, you’ll have a 40-year career,” Ekhtiari said. “That promise no longer holds.” Catherine Connelly, a professor of human resources and management at McMaster University, said some companies are finding that AI is “def- initely not” a replacement for humans in jobs that involve strategy and deci- sion-making. “Sometimes what the tool might be good for is automating some entry- level tasks,” she said. “There is a dan- ger that some people are going to not have that opportunity to come in at an entry-level position, where they’re doing those routine tasks that nobody else wants to do.” Unemployment rose to 14.7 per cent for Canadians aged 15 to 24 in Septem- ber, Statistics Canada said last Friday. That’s a 15-year high outside the pan- demic years. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis warned Wednesday that the “deep- ening youth unemployment crisis” will affect young workers’ career trajec- tories for the rest of their lives. He accused the Liberals of lacking a strategy to address youth unemploy- ment and pitched a Conservative pro- posal to boost financial educational supports in high-demand fields and encourage employers to build housing for workers. Jennifer Kozelj, spokesperson for Minister of Jobs and Families Patty Hajdu, said in an email that AI is everywhere now, from hospitals to classrooms. “The world of work is changing fast, and workers, in particularly young Canadians, are feeling it,” she said. “These are challenging times, but we are acting with urgency to harness this tool, build on productivity, and en- sure no worker gets left behind.” — The Canadian Press PHOTOS BY THIBAULT CAMUS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Police officers work inside the Louvre museum and outside by a basket lift (below) used by the thieves Sunday, in Paris. Thieves steal crown jewels from Louvre P ARIS — In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-vis- ited museum, thieves rode a bas- ket lift up the Louvre’s facade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jew- els, officials said. The daylight heist about 30 minutes after opening, with visitors already inside, was among the highest-profile museum thefts in living memory and comes as staff complained that crowd- ing and thin staffing are straining sec- urity. The theft unfolded just 250 metres from the Mona Lisa, in what French Culture Minister Rachida Dati de- scribed as a professional “four-minute operation.” One object, the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum, French authorities said. It was reportedly recovered broken. Images from the scene showed con- fused tourists being steered out of the glass pyramid and adjoining court- yards as officers closed nearby streets along the Seine. A lift — which officials say the thieves brought and which was later re- moved — stood against the Seine-facing façade, their entry route and, observers said, a revealing weakness: that such machinery could be brought to a pal- ace-museum unchecked. Around 9:30 a.m., several intrud- ers forced open a window, cut panes with a disc cutter and went straight for the glass display cases, officials said. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said they entered using a basket lift via the riverfront facade to reach the hall with the 23-item royal collec- tion. Their target was the gilded Apol- lon Gallery, where the crown diamonds are displayed, including the Regent, the Sancy and the Hortensia. The thieves smashed two display cases and fled on motorbikes, Nunez said. No one was hurt. Alarms brought Louvre agents to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, but the theft was al- ready done. Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an em- erald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; Empress Eugénie’s diadem; and her large corsage-bow brooch — a prized 19th-century imper- ial ensemble. “It’s a major robbery,” Nunez said, noting that security measures at the Louvre had been strengthened in re- cent years and would be reinforced fur- ther as part of the museum’s upcoming overhaul plan. Officials said security upgrades include new-generation cam- eras, perimeter detection and a new security control room. But critics say the measures come far too late. The Louvre closed for the rest of Sunday for the forensic investigation to begin as police sealed gates, cleared courtyards and shut nearby streets. Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre with visitors present ranks among Europe’s most audacious in re- cent history, and at least since Dres- den’s Green Vault museum in 2019. It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowd- ing and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pres- sure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet. Security around marquee works re- mains tight — the Mona Lisa sits be- hind bulletproof glass in a climate-con- trolled case — but Sunday’s theft also underscored that protections are not uniformly as robust across the mu- seum’s more than 33,000 objects. The theft is a fresh embarrassment for a museum already under scrutiny. “How can they ride a lift to a win- dow and take jewels in the middle of the day?” said Magali Cunel, a French teacher from nearby Lyon. “It’s just un- believable that a museum this famous can have such obvious security gaps.” The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia and re- covered two years later in Florence. Another notorious episode came in 1956, when a visitor hurled a stone at her world-famous smile, chipping paint near her left elbow and hastening the move to display the work behind pro- tective glass. Today the former royal palace holds a roll call of civilization: Leonardo’s Mona Lisa; the armless serenity of the Venus de Milo; the Winged Victory of Samothrace, wind-lashed on the Daru staircase; the Code of Hammurabi’s carved laws; Delacroix’s Liberty Lead- ing the People; Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. The objects — from Meso- potamia, Egypt and the classical world to Europe’s masters — draw a daily tide of up to 30,000 visitors even as investi- gators now begin to sweep those gilded corridors for clues. The heist spilled instantly into pol- itics. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella used it to attack President Emmanuel Macron, weakened at home and facing a fractured parliament. “The Louvre is a global symbol of our culture,” Bardella wrote on X. “This robbery, which allowed thieves to steal jewels from the French Crown, is an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the decay of the state go?” The criticism lands as Macron touts a decade-long “Louvre New Ren- aissance” plan — about €700 million (US$760 million) to modernize infra- structure, ease crowding and give the Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031. For workers on the floor, the relief has felt slower than the pressure. Forensic teams are examining the site of the crime and adjoining access points while a full inventory is taken, authorities said. Officials have de- scribed the haul as of “inestimable” historical value. Recovery may prove difficult. “It’s unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again,” said Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds. “Profession- al crews often break down and re-cut large, recognizable stones to evade de- tection, effectively erasing their prov- enance.” Key questions still unanswered are how many people took part in the theft and whether they had inside assistance, authorities said. According to French media, there were four perpetrators: two dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two each on a scooter. French authorities did not immediately comment on this. Investigators are reviewing CCTV from the Denon wing and the river- front, inspecting the basket lift used to reach the gallery and interviewing staff who were on site when the mu- seum opened, authorities said. — The Associated Press Eight priceless pieces taken from Paris museum during four-minute daytime heist THOMAS ADAMSON Police looking into whether Prince Andrew enlisted officer to dig up dirt on accuser BRIAN MELLEY ;