Cost of moving homeless $256K: city

The City of Winnipeg has spent about $256,000 to remove homeless encampments from many public spaces since mid-November — a cost the mayor says is well worth it.

Scott Gillingham said that investment has resulted in “good progress” on returning sites to their intended public uses.

“We can’t have children playing in playgrounds where (there are) needles. Those belong to the public. Those are not places for encampments,” said Gillingham.

A city protocol took effect Nov. 17 that bans homeless camps from transit shelters, playgrounds, pools, spray pads, recreation facilities, schools, daycares, adult care facilities, traffic islands and medians, bridges, docks, piers, rail lines and rail crossings, as well as wherever the camps obstruct traffic or pose a “life safety issue.”

Six blazes extinguished by Winnipeg firefighters

Winnipeg firefighters extinguished six fires in a span of about 10 hours beginning Tuesday evening and continuing into the early hours Wednesday.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews were first sent to a bi-level home in the Elmhurst neighbourhood shortly after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, a city news release stated.

All of the residents were able to evacuate before crews arrived.

Firefighters attacked the fire from inside the Chiswell Cove house and had it under control by 8:11 p.m.

Kinew threatens billion-dollar fines for tech giants ignoring social-media ban for youths

Manitoba may impose billion-dollar fines on tech companies that violate a proposed ban on social media and AI chatbots for youths under the age 16.

‘That’s not attempted murder?’: shooting victim’s father rails at Crown, justice system

Last November, Machuor Akau held a loaded Luger handgun to his girlfriend’s cheek, told her he “should kill (her) now,” and shot her, shattering the inside of her mouth and leaving her with life-changing injuries.

Proposed social-media ban for Manitoba children gets likes, thumbs-down

Mia Danyluk had a YouTube channel before she reached double digits. She was 11 years old when she signed up for Snapchat. In Grade 9, she joined Instagram.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was on social media that she learned about Manitoba’s plan to ban children and youth from accessing these platforms.

The irony was not lost on her — a 16-year-old who was raised in Winnipeg and on the borderless online world.

“We’re seeing younger and younger kids grow up with an iPad instead of toys in their hands. If we’re exposing kids to screens, we need to teach them online safety,” the high schooler said.

‘Vile acts’: Teen, 17, accused of mowing down geese in parking lots

Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy accused of using his vehicle to kill four Canada geese and injure another in three separate incidents on Saturday night.

Winnipeg Police Service investigators believe the teen, while driving a white 2024 Subaru Solterra, intentionally ran over five geese in three different south Winnipeg parking lots in short succession, said police spokesman Const. Claude Chancy.

“It’s not good to see,” Chancy said of the unusual animal cruelty case. “You can understand how people are angered by such vile acts.”

In the first incident, a sleeping goose was run over and injured shortly before 10 p.m. in a parking lot on Henlow Bay, off Scurfield Boulevard. Chancy said he did not know what happened to the goose after it was injured.

Winnipeg photographer captures striking stills that market major motion pictures

Eric Zachanowich is the most famous photographer you’ve probably never heard of.

He’s worked with Tinseltown heavyweights such as the late Robert Redford, Ralph Fiennes, Laura Linney, Woody Harrelson and Anya Taylor-Joy, and even appeared in Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson’s wrestling biopic The Smashing Machine, disguised as, you guessed it, a photographer.

“It was for one of the opening scenes so I could shoot Dwayne Johnson walking to the ring. I made the final cut of the movie — although it’s hard to place me — and also got a spectacular photo that was used heavily during marketing,” says Zachanowich, 32.

More often than not, he operates as a silent observer on the sets of cinema blockbusters and prestige television dramas alike, his lens capturing the world’s biggest A-listers at their most vulnerable and intense moments.

Man dead, two others injured in North End assault

A 23-year-old is accused of killing one man and seriously injuring two others in an assault at a housing complex in Winnipeg’s North End early Monday morning.

Winnipeg Police Service officers were called to the 200 block of Stella Walk, near King Street, just before 3:20 a.m. on Monday, where they found two injured men outside and one inside a nearby suite. Police gave the men emergency first aid before paramedics arrived in an ambulance to rush them to hospital.

The two men found outside, 23 and 27, were taken to hospital in unstable condition, but were later stabilized. The man found inside the suite, who was in critical condition, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Homicide detectives have identified the dead man as Robson Isaac Sinclair, a 49-year-old from Fisher River Cree Nation who lived in Winnipeg.

Liberals target affordability to meet era of uncertainty in spring fiscal update

OTTAWA - The federal Liberals say they're putting the windfall from an unexpected boost in revenues into measures to make life more affordable, build up the economy and promote the skilled trades.

But Ottawa's spring economic update also sees some darker clouds on the horizon as uncertainty over the Iran war and U.S. tariffs threatens growth in the years ahead.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne on Tuesday tabled Canada Strong For All, a mid-year fiscal update that includes $54.5 billion in new costs and spending since Budget 2025.

Improved revenues and reduced expenses elsewhere allowed the government to include $37.5 billion in net new spending in the spring economic update without pushing up the annual deficit.

Northern health authority lifts emergency declaration on staff shortage

Manitoba’s northern health authority lifted its emergency declaration one day after it was issued as it prepared to meet with the nurses union to discuss a critical staffing shortage.