WEATHER ALERT

Advertisement

Learn more about Winnipeg Free Press Advertising solutions

Business

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Bound to Please Books owner Dylan Yeun on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. For Malak story. Free Press 2026

Romance bookstore Bound to Please finds its niche alongside horror-, crime-focused peers in Winnipeg

Malak Abas 6 minute read Yesterday at 5:26 PM CST

If you walk into the provocatively-named Bound to Please bookstore on Valentine’s Day, you’ll get the chance to tell a romantic story of your own — or a not-so-romantic one.

“If you come in on a date, you get 10 per cent off, and if you come in with a break-up story, you get 15 per cent, because you need the romance books more,” owner Dylan Yeun told the Free Press with a laugh.

Yeun, 23, opened Bound to Please at 995 McPhillips St. last month with the dream of joining Winnipeg’s collection of genre-specific bookstores after studying romantic literature in university.

“I took a lot of classes in university where we talked about what is and isn’t valued as a genre. And a lot of the time, romance isn’t valued as a genre worth studying because it’s kind of viewed as less serious, less important than a lot of other genres — and that primarily has to do with the importance of it for women,” she said. “So that was something that I was really interested in.”

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Weather

WEATHER ALERT Feb. 15, 12 AM: -4°c Cloudy Feb. 15, 6 AM: -9°c Cloudy

Winnipeg MB

-3°C, Cloudy

Full Forecast

Eviance to develop success strategy for women entrepreneurs with disabilities

Aaron Epp 3 minute read Preview

Eviance to develop success strategy for women entrepreneurs with disabilities

Aaron Epp 3 minute read Yesterday at 8:11 PM CST

The federal government has tabbed nearly $800,000 for a new project that aims to help women entrepreneurs with disabilities succeed.

Liberal MPs Marie-Gabrielle Ménard, from Quebec, and Ginette Lavack, who represents St. Boniface—St. Vital, announced on Friday that Eviance (formerly the Canadian Centre on Disability Studies) will receive $797,557.

The organization, which is headquartered in Winnipeg, will use the federal investment to develop a strategy to promote opportunities and resources for women entrepreneurs with disabilities across Canada through community engagement, including focus groups and interviews.

Eviance, in partnership with Toronto-based think tank New Power Labs, will engage women entrepreneurs with disabilities to identify key issues and help shape solutions that create more equitable opportunities for success.

Read
Yesterday at 8:11 PM CST

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Quebec MP Marie-Gabrielle Ménard (from left), Eviance executive director Susan Hardie and Manitoba MP Ginette Lavack talk after a funding announcement Friday in Winnipeg.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Quebec MP Marie-Gabrielle Ménard (from left), Eviance executive director Susan Hardie and Manitoba MP Ginette Lavack talk after a funding announcement Friday in Winnipeg.

Valentine’s Day: workplace culture lives in small moments

Tory McNally 6 minute read Preview

Valentine’s Day: workplace culture lives in small moments

Tory McNally 6 minute read 2:00 AM CST

Valentine’s Day has a way of sneaking into the workplace whether we want it to or not.

Even if your organization has never acknowledged it, the day announces itself loudly through pink coffee cups, heart-shaped pastries in the lunchroom and at least one employee insisting they “don’t believe in Hallmark holidays,” while quietly checking their cellphone all afternoon.

Love may not be a core competency, but Feb. 14 has a curious habit of shining a light on how we work, how we connect and how awkward things can get when personal lives brush up against professional ones.

By the time most people arrive at work on Valentine’s Day (or the closest work day to it), the emotional landscape is already uneven.

Read
2:00 AM CST

Feepik

Most organizations have no idea what to do with Valentine’s Day. Some ignore it completely; others lean in hard, decorating common areas and encouraging gestures of appreciation.
Feepik Most organizations have no idea what to do with Valentine’s Day. Some ignore it completely; others lean in hard, decorating common areas and encouraging gestures of appreciation.

Value of Valentine’s Day money chat

Joel Schlesinger 5 minute read Preview

Value of Valentine’s Day money chat

Joel Schlesinger 5 minute read 2:00 AM CST

Valentine’s Day may be for lovers, and a chat about personal finance certainly risks dulling the passions of the day. That is unless you love money.

Yet it is a discussion that nonetheless should happen … eventually. Often sooner is better than later, hopefully, well before popping the big question.

That decisive question could be happening right now. Valentine’s Day is the premier day for couples to get engaged and that big ask (and hopefully affirmative answer) often comes with a hefty capital allocation for a sparkling speck of costly rock set in a ring made of an increasingly high-priced precious metal.

De Beers coined the notion of three months’ salary as the rule of thumb to spend on an engagement ring amid the Great Depression. At the time, diamonds weren’t common for engagement rings. Today, the world’s priciest gem is considered the norm — and the bigger the rock, the greater the profession of your love, according to the marketing.

Read
2:00 AM CST

Freepik

Given all the other needs of a couple — notably purchasing an increasingly pricey home — many Canadians are skipping traditions such as a pricey engagement ring.
Freepik Given all the other needs of a couple — notably purchasing an increasingly pricey home — many Canadians are skipping traditions such as a pricey engagement ring.

U.S. senators express support for trade pact as Trump questions CUSMA’s future

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview

U.S. senators express support for trade pact as Trump questions CUSMA’s future

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press 4 minute read 5:00 AM CST

WASHINGTON - United States lawmakers expressed support for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade during a Thursday committee hearing after President Donald Trump floated the idea of ending the critical continental trade pact.

Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, from Idaho, told the Senate finance committee that the trade agreement, better known in Canada as CUSMA, has protected American jobs, strengthened manufacturing and helped to expand the economy.

"As the (CUSMA) review process proceeds, it is wise also to remember to not let the perfect become the enemy of the good," Crapo said.

The trade agreement is up for mandatory review this year but Trump has indicated he's in no rush to sign on for a 16-year extension. The president has said CUSMA may have served its purpose and has called the trade deal "irrelevant."

Read
5:00 AM CST

Ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., left, speaks as committee chairman Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, listens during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., left, speaks as committee chairman Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, listens during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

First Nation buys own backup generators, saying governments and utility failed them

The Canadian Press 3 minute read Preview

First Nation buys own backup generators, saying governments and utility failed them

The Canadian Press 3 minute read Yesterday at 9:40 PM CST

WINNIPEG - A Manitoba First Nation whose residents were evacuated for months last summer due to a wildfire and an extended power outage says it has bought its own backup generators, after it says governments and the province's Crown-owned electric utility failed them.

The Mathias Colomb Cree Nation says it has moved forward, on its own, to arrange private financing for the $8-million purchase of generators it says were meant to be installed last summer to bring wildfire evacuees home.

More than 2,000 residents of the First Nation, in northwestern Manitoba, remained evacuated for 128 days due to an extended Manitoba Hydro outage that the community says the backup generators would have resolved.

In a news release, Mathias Colomb Chief Gordie Bear chastised Canada and Manitoba for not supporting or cost-sharing the urgent purchase of the generators earlier, and he called on the province's minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro to direct the utility to connect the new equipment.

Read
Yesterday at 9:40 PM CST

Trees burned by wildfires in northern Manitoba are shown during a helicopter tour in the surrounding area of Flin Flon, Man. on Thursday, June 12, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Deal-Pool
Trees burned by wildfires in northern Manitoba are shown during a helicopter tour in the surrounding area of Flin Flon, Man. on Thursday, June 12, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Deal-Pool

Soaring coffee prices rewrite some Americans’ daily routines

Matt Sedensky, The Associated Press 4 minute read Preview

Soaring coffee prices rewrite some Americans’ daily routines

Matt Sedensky, The Associated Press 4 minute read Updated: 11:00 AM CST

NEW YORK (AP) — For years, it was a daily McDonald’s trip for a cup of coffee with 10 sugars and five creams. Later, it was Starbucks caramel macchiatos with almond milk and two pumps of syrup.

Coffee has been a morning ritual for Chandra Donelson since she was old enough to drink it. But, dismayed by rising prices, the 35-year-old from Washington, D.C., did the unthinkable: She gave it up.

“I did that daily for years. I loved it. That was just my routine,” she says. “And now it’s not.”

Years of steadily climbing coffee prices have some in this country of coffee lovers upending their habits by nixing café visits, switching to cheaper brews or foregoing it altogether.

Read
Updated: 11:00 AM CST

Coffee is for sale at a grocery store Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
Coffee is for sale at a grocery store Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

More Business

Cuba postpones its annual cigar fair as a US oil siege causes severe fuel shortages and blackouts

Andrea Rodriguez, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

Cuba postpones its annual cigar fair as a US oil siege causes severe fuel shortages and blackouts

Andrea Rodriguez, The Associated Press 3 minute read 2:38 PM CST

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) — Cuba’s annual cigar fair, which was set to be held the last week of February, has been postponed organizers said Saturday, as the island faces blackouts and severe fuel shortages brought about by a U.S oil embargo.

In a statement, the cigar fair’s organizer, Habanos S.A. said it decided to postpone the iconic event to “preserve its high standard of quality.”

Habanos S.A., a joint venture between the state-owned company Cubatabaco and international firm Altadis, holds the global monopoly on Cuban cigar sales.

Every year, the company hosts the annual Habanos Festival, a key event for cigar aficionados and distributors worldwide, where attendees tour tobacco plantations, participate in auctions and witness the latest in craftsmanship.

Read
2:38 PM CST

A couple sit on a seawall while watching a tanker ship exit the bay of Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A couple sit on a seawall while watching a tanker ship exit the bay of Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A year after border agent’s killing, 7 Zizians fight criminal charges in 3 states

Mark Scolforo And Holly Ramer, The Associated Press 7 minute read Preview

A year after border agent’s killing, 7 Zizians fight criminal charges in 3 states

Mark Scolforo And Holly Ramer, The Associated Press 7 minute read 7:01 AM CST

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) — The violent deaths linked to the group known as Zizians stopped at six a year ago, after a U.S. border agent was killed and three members were arrested on trespassing and gun charges in the woods of western Maryland. Seven of the group's members are jailed in three states, all awaiting trial.

Police in Maryland quickly connected Jack “Ziz” LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank to homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow covered dirt road last February, according to court documents and pre-trial testimony.

“All the suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult,” Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025 arrests. But their prosecutions have only inched along amid trial delays and little action in other cases.

Called “Zizians” by outsiders, the young, highly intelligent computer scientists appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left the border agent and another Zizian dead.

Read
7:01 AM CST

FILE - In this undated and unknown location photo released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Border Patrol Agent David Maland posing with a service dog. (Department of Homeland Security via AP, File)
FILE - In this undated and unknown location photo released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Border Patrol Agent David Maland posing with a service dog. (Department of Homeland Security via AP, File)

Canadian researchers develop AI tool to fight online disinformation

Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview

Canadian researchers develop AI tool to fight online disinformation

Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Updated: 8:28 AM CST

REGINA - Researchers say artificial intelligence has helped them ramp up the fight against online disinformation meant to divide Canadians and distort perceptions of reality.

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research says incorporating AI technology into its debunking tool CIPHER has allowed it to better keep up with a constant flow of false and misleading claims.

Brian McQuinn, an associate professor at the University of Regina who is one the project’s leads, said the technology currently only analyzes Russian campaigns but is expected to start decoding those that use Chinese languages.

It could also look at information coming from the United States, he added of the tool, which works by scanning foreign media sites for dubious claims that are then assessed by a human fact-checker.

Read
Updated: 8:28 AM CST

Brian McQuinn, associate professor at the University of Regina and co-lead of CIPHER, stands for a photograph in Regina, on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu
Brian McQuinn, associate professor at the University of Regina and co-lead of CIPHER, stands for a photograph in Regina, on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu

LOAD MORE