Winnipeg-born Deanna Durbin gets her due on DVD

Convicted harasser accused of targeting old, new victims, including judge

Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton, who was sentenced to six years in prison for mercilessly harassing two people she believed had wronged her, as well as other crimes, wasted no time when her sentence ended to launch fresh attacks on victims new and old, including the judge who convicted her, court documents allege.

The 58-year-old former nurse was arrested last month after Winnipeg police “became aware that (Ciochon-Newton) was engaging in aggressive and harassing behaviours again, starting almost immediately upon the expiry of her parole conditions” on May 13, Det. Sgt Kylie Case wrote in search warrant documents obtained by the Free Press.

Ciochon-Newton is charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel. She remains in custody.

Search warrant documents say provincial court Judge Keith Eyrikson learned in late August that Ciochon-Newton had emailed CBC Manitoba days earlier and threatened him.

Hockey teams scramble after two city arenas put on ice

Instead of ice, Barry Bonni walks onto a dull concrete surface at the Terry Sawchuk Memorial Arena on Thursday.

The arena, as well as the West Kildonan Memorial Arena, have had to close after failing inspections. Predictably, the city’s hockey community is in a tailspin because ice time is so precious.

“We’re now in panic mode,” said Bonni, president of the River East Royal Knights on Thursday. The Sawchuk arena is the team’s home rink.

Bonni, who is a living legend in Manitoba’s hockey community, said the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League club is scrambling to find ice time.

Manitoba Hydro to replace dozens of electrical substations over 20 years

Manitoba Hydro is promising fewer power outages in Winnipeg once it replaces or converts 41 electrical substations in a project the utility says will last up to 20 years and cost as much as $1.2 billion.

Federal data on Winnipeg's number of homeless people inaccurate, advocates say

The head of End Homelessness Winnipeg says she has no confidence in data about the city’s homeless population due to problems with the federal system that tracks those numbers.

Health ministers meeting ends without long-term funding commitment from Ottawa

Canada’s health minister failed to deliver the promises of long-term funding increases that her provincial and territorial counterparts, who were gathered in Winnipeg this week, had been seeking.

Instead, Marjorie Michel reiterated the federal government’s commitment to working collaboratively towards renewing bilateral funding agreements and to meet again before the end of the year to discuss long-term funding.

“The decision we all agreed on is to have our public service… start the work on what will be the next step for the next negotiation on Canada Health Transfer and other agreements,” Michel said Friday at a news conference after meeting with the other health ministers.

When asked why the federal government couldn’t commit to maintaining funding levels geared, at a minimum, to the rate of inflation over the long term, Michel said that it’s time to update agreements signed a decade ago.