Kinew tours western Manitoba amid flooding

Premier Wab Kinew will be touring the Parklands region Wednesday after the area was slammed by rain and extensive overland flooding.

Kinew is set to visit Swan River and Minitonas to assess the damage left by a one-in-a-200-year rain event that left hundreds without power.

The provincial Emergency Management Organization has been mobilized to co-ordinate the response and workers from the transportation and infrastructure department were assessing damage in the region.

The Town of Swan River and Municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman declared states of emergencies earlier this week after the communities flooded and stranded many in their homes.

Trump ‘not looking to renew’ CUSMA trade pact, says no need for Canadian imports

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is "not looking to renew" a critical continental trade pact, indicating the United States will blow past a July 1 deadline for renewal.

If the deadline passes, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, known in Canada as CUSMA, stays in place subject to an annual rolling review for up to 10 years.

"We don't need anything that Canada has, we don't need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "And they should have to treat us better."

Trump complained about the trade deficit the U.S. has with Canada — which is caused by Canadian energy exports — and has claimed the U.S. doesn't need Canadian or Mexican cars, lumber or energy.

CP NewsAlert: Ottawa moves to bar kids under 16 from social media, regulate chatbots

OTTAWA - The Liberal government’s new online safety legislation would force social media platforms to block access for kids under 16.

The government says social media platforms can obtain an exemption if they have put in place sufficient safeguards.

Platforms that offer adult content would not be able to obtain an exemption.

The bill introduced in the House of Commons today would also regulate the companies behind AI chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act responsibly through measures like crisis intervention protocols.

Province orders RM to take out loan — from the province — to deal with fiscal shortfall

A rural Manitoba community once subject to an RCMP investigation into “financial irregularities” has been forced to take out a loan to shore up a fiscal shortfall of nearly $2.5 million.

The move from the Rural Municipality of Lakeshore comes after Municipal Minister Glen Simard took the unusual step of ordering the local government to borrow the funds from the province and replenish its accounts following years of deficits.

Residents from the community — located about 230 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, near Dauphin — were angered to learn of the plan, which was outlined by local council members and provincial officials during a public hearing Monday afternoon.

According to a repayment document provided during the hearing, the RM of Lakeshore intends to repay the loan by increasing taxes for the approximately 1,200 residents. The borrowed money is to be repaid over the next decade, at an estimated interest rate of five per cent per year.

Restaurant bridges divide at the dinner table

Riverine origins matter at Baro, an eatery just west of the Health Sciences Centre on Notre Dame Avenue, but don’t overlook the connective power of the hyphen on the street-facing sign at chef Tammy Fekadu’s Ethiopian-Eritrean cuisine.

A waterway that rolls for more than 300 kilometres in the Ethiopian highlands, serving as a major cultural and economic thoroughfare for the nearby Gambella region as well as the South Sudanese state to the west, the Baro River is a reminder of communal reliance on precious natural resources, says Fekadu’s eldest daughter, Samra Solomon.

The hyphen is a bridge spanning political divides for Winnipeggers whose homelands have been engaged in decades of ongoing territorial tensions and civil war.

“My mom almost hesitated to call it ‘Baro Ethiopian-Eritrean Cuisine,’ just because some people might not be happy with that politically and maybe even morally,” says the 26-year-old Solomon, who manages the restaurant on top of a full-time job in the insurance business.

‘One more step… to re-imagine downtown’: Air Canada Window park redesigned as colourful Indigenous-themed meeting place

A downtown park at 355 Portage Ave. has been redesigned as a safe, bright and colourful gathering place.

Now supporters of the $3.75-million redevelopment will strive to keep the updated Air Canada Window park in that state, shaking its past issues with open drug use and other social challenges.

“Today, it’s just one more step… in the ongoing work that we’re doing to strengthen and to rebuild and to re-imagine downtown,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The renovated park features gardens with Indigenous plants, large trees, a curved metal sculpture with blue and green pieces, wooden benches and a multi-purpose stage, with the words “I want to see you dance when the drum beats” etched into its base.

Brandon police officer charged with assault for conduct in arrest of teen after school sword attack

Manitoba’s police oversight agency has charged a Brandon Police Service officer with assault in relation to his conduct while arresting a teenage boy during a sword attack at a high school in the western Manitoba city last June.

Odd pairing of Kraft Dinner and cheesecake a hit for city bakery

It’s the food mashup that appears, at first glance, to be a match made in culinary purgatory.

Featuring a Canadian childhood staple baked into a New York-style cheesecake, the star of the show is the ubiquitous blue-and-yellow box lurking in nearly every pantry across the country.

It’s the ultimate time-saving saviour — firmly lodged in memories as a comforting dinner rapidly whipped up and just as swiftly snarfed down between after-school activities and homework.

But now Kraft Dinner is stepping boldly — some might even say wildly — out of its lane.

Embalming younger brother ‘hardest decision of my life’

Michael Vogiatzakis has spent his career helping grieving families navigate the deaths of their loved ones.

But nothing prepared the longtime funeral director for embalming his 51-year-old brother Kyriakos Vogiatzakis after he died following a prolonged attack outside his Portage Avenue restaurant nearly two and a half years ago.

Michael Vogiatzakis and fellow funeral director Michael MacIvor identified Kyriakos’s body at the Health Sciences Centre morgue and brought him back to Voyage funeral home where Vogiatzakis made “the hardest decision of my life,” he told court at a sentencing hearing Tuesday for his brother’s killer, Curtis Dalebozik.

“Was I going to embalm my little brother? I decided that no matter how hard, that it would break my heart, I wanted to take care of Kyriakos myself alongside MacIvor,” he said.

The Forks celebrates decade of hospitality at The Common

The Forks marked the milestone Tuesday evening with a celebration that included live music, a photo booth and drink specials.