Province hires outspoken daughter of serial killer’s victim to work on Indigenous reconciliation issues

The young woman who led the charge for a landfill search to find the remains of her mother and another woman slain by a serial killer has been hired to work for the Manitoba government.

Cambria Harris, 24, officially started work Monday.

“We are excited to have Cambria join our team to help support the work within the Indigenous Reconciliation portfolio as a special assistant,” a statement from Finance Minister Adrien Sala’s spokesman Ryan Stelter said.

The Indigenous Affairs Secretariat manages policy and program issues “and provides timely, practical and effective advice on all aspects of Indigenous issues as they relate to the Manitoba government,” the government website says.

Kinew a fan of Ontario anti-tariff ad

Premier Wab Kinew is backing Ontario’s anti-tariff ad campaign that U.S. President Donald Trump blamed for his decision to halt trade negotiations with Canada.

Health-care aide ‘choked out’ by patient in HSC’s emergency department

The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union says a health-care aide was choked by a patient accessing mental-health services at Winnipeg’s largest hospital last weekend.

Union president Darlene Jackson said the aide and a nurse were assaulted while sitting with the patient in the Health Sciences Centre emergency department Sunday.

“As one nurse described it, the health-care aide was choked out,” she said Friday.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara’s office confirmed the incident on Friday in an emailed statement.

Anishinaabe MP Rebecca Chartrand driven by experience growing up surrounded by poverty, violence and tragedy

OTTAWA — Rebecca Chartrand’s office on Parliament Hill speaks volumes about the challenges facing the rookie Manitoba MP and cabinet minister.

Chartrand occupies a north-facing office in the historic Confederation Building that offers a breathtaking view of the cliffs bordering the majestic Ottawa River and the iconic Supreme Court of Canada’s chambers.

There was no luck of the draw in Chartrand landing this office.

There is a hierarchy to office assignments on Parliament Hill. Members of the governing party caucus, and its cabinet ministers, tend to get nicer digs; opposition MPs are left to fight it out for the dregs.

Twenty-five years after Beverley Rowbotham was slain, family believes mysterious letter could shed light on the case

Beverley Rowbotham’s last surviving sibling will light a candle tonight, a sombre ritual every Oct. 24, when fond memories intertwine with anguish over her horrific slaying 25 years ago.

Barb Kilpatrick hasn’t lost hope that new information will emerge, or something will happen in her lifetime, to bring closure and justice for her sister.

“Bev has been dead for 25 years. That’s a very long time, and all the things she’s missed, all the family things — her boys growing up, all the new nephews and nieces — we’re just feeling really sad,” Kilpatrick, 76, told the Free Press. “I hold on to hope. Hope is everything.”

Rowbotham, 42, was killed in her family’s backyard in the RM of St. Andrews, police concluded, in one of Manitoba’s highest-profile homicides in recent memory.

‘Morally sound medicine’: U.S. doctor finds freedom, acceptance in Winnipeg

Dr. Jesse Krikorian decided it was time to leave his country after U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders that target transgender Americans in January.

The doctor, who belongs to the LGBTTQ+ community, was looking for a new place to call home and allow him to care for patients.

“It was becoming very complicated to establish a career doing the type of community-underserved work that I wanted to do,” he said Thursday.

Legislators in several U.S. states have introduced hundreds of bills that target transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive youth’s access to age-appropriate, medically necessary care.

Prime Minister Carney’s first trip to Asia starts this week with ASEAN, APEC summits

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney left Canada Friday morning on his first trip to Asia since taking office — part of his government's efforts to build stronger trade and diplomatic ties with a region that's feeling increasingly squeezed between the U.S. and China.

Carney will attend summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, better known as ASEAN, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, or APEC.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to attend both events and world leaders will be vying for his attention.

On Thursday, Trump posted on social media that he was terminating trade talks with Canada over TV ads pushing back on his tariff campaign.

Premier Ford says Ontario will pause U.S. ad campaign to restart trade talks

OTTAWA - Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province will pause its anti-tariff television ad campaign in the United States on Monday so that Canada-U.S. trade talks can restart.

Ford says in a media statement that he made the call after speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

But Ford says he'll only pull the plug on the campaign after the weekend, so the ads can run throughout the first two World Series games and get in front of a massive American audience.

An offended U.S. President Donald Trump called a halt to trade talks over the ads, which feature footage of former president Ronald Reagan warning about the economically devastating effects of tariffs.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy urges US to broaden Russian oil sanctions and seeks long-range missiles

LONDON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday urged the United States to expand sanctions on Russian oil from two companies to the whole sector, and appealed for long-range missiles to hit back at Russia.

Zelenskyy was in London for talks with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help to shield his country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the more than three-year war.

The meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aimed to step up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding momentum to recent measures that have included a new round of sanctions from the United States and European countries on Russia’s vital oil and gas export earnings.

The talks also addressed ways of helping protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russia’s almost daily drone and missiles attacks as winter approaches, enhancing Ukrainian air defenses, and supplying Kyiv with longer-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. Zelenskyy has urged the U.S. to send Tomahawk missiles, an idea U.S. President Donald Trump has flirted with.