A child lost to the river, two men charged with digital harm — Ottawa, May 29

The Rideau River claimed a child Thursday evening, and the city's emergency response—bystanders in the water, paramedics racing to Riverside Drive, a hospital resuscitation that could not hold—has left a 6-year-old pronounced dead and a neighborhood asking how this happened on an ordinary spring afternoon.

Ottawa police received a report of a missing child around 5:10 p.m. near Riverside Drive and Hogs Back Road. Witnesses spotted the child in the water and brought them to shore immediately. Bystanders began CPR before paramedics arrived and transported the child to hospital, where they were pronounced deceased. The river does not often make headlines here, but when it does, the city feels it.

In a different kind of harm, Ottawa police have charged two men with creating artificial intelligence deepfakes of women and using them to sexually exploit and harass them. Stephen Lowe, 60, of Maitland, Nova Scotia, and Gregry Van Beek, 38, of West Nipissing, Ontario, were arrested after a multi-jurisdictional investigation into harmful online content. Lowe faces 25 counts of harassment by combination of prohibited conduct and 25 counts of non-consensual distribution of intimate images. The investigation reached beyond eastern Ontario, a sign of how far the damage traveled and how coordinated the alleged scheme became.

Two separate tragedies—one sudden and visible, one insidious and digital—marked the day. Both remind the city of vulnerabilities it cannot always see coming.