Rising stars

Fun drop-in last chance to mentor grads of inner-city school with excellent track record

Summer break may be in full swing, but Gonzaga Middle School invited graduates back to the building for water balloon fights and academic, employment and support services this week.

Roughly 30 alumni, including teenagers and twentysomethings, stopped by the grades 6-8 school in North Point Douglas on Tuesday afternoon. They were greeted with slime-making kits, ice cream sundaes and staff ready to answer questions.

The initiative — the final grad drop-in organized this summer — is a new extension of the mentorship and holistic programming baked into the funded independent school’s mandate.

“We have 22- and 23-year-olds coming back and checking in and asking for help on their university papers,” principal Rex Ferguson-Baird said.

Ducks Unlimited makes province’s largest-ever conservation-land purchase

A Manitoba landscape that helped save the Giant Canada goose from extinction has now been permanently protected in the province’s largest conservation land purchase in history.

Plasma clinic pauses operations in Canada amid ‘unfounded attention’

A plasma collection company is pausing operations in Canada due to “unfounded attention” after two people died following donations at Winnipeg clinics.

Grifols said in a statement Thursday it has “proactively and voluntarily decided to pause plasma collection activities at all its plasma donation centres in Canada,” citing “unfounded attention that has been focused on compensated plasma collection.”

A Health Canada investigation highlighted several concerns with the for-profit operator, which resulted in a notice of a non-compliance rating issued for a clinic in Winnipeg, located at 693 Taylor Ave.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Marjorie Michel said the safety of Canadians must always come first.

‘Disrespectful’: residents frustrated after Wyatt arrives hour late to committee meeting

Several Winnipeggers attending a city development hearing on Thursday expressed frustration that one councillor arrived about an hour late, delaying the matter from being heard.

Coun. Russ Wyatt, who continues to attend city hall while facing criminal charges, began participating in the 9:30 a.m. East Kildonan-Transcona community committee meeting at 10:35 a.m.

A resident who hoped to speak at the meeting about a development plan in south Transcona noted the tardiness led the committee to bump the topic down on its agenda, while dozens waited to speak on it.

Christina Pyra eventually opted to leave city hall instead of waiting for her turn to make a presentation, to avoid missing a work commitment.

The art of snow and script

Between the Two, Hamideh Behgar’s current solo show at Aceartinc., is a bridging of worlds.

Iran, her homeland, and Canada, her current home. Persian architecture and Prairie landscape. Past and present. Here, there and in between.

Behgar, 38, came to Winnipeg from Iran in 2021 to earn her MFA at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba, which she completed in 2023.

As she was trying to get a handle on what she might do for her thesis — fine art was a newer practice for her; she has a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Applied Science & Technology in Kish, Iran — she spent a lot of time walking in King’s Park.

Icy relationship with U.S. beginning to thaw at border, data shows; American visits to Manitoba hit five-year high

As Canadians begin to lower their elbows and start to cross the U.S. border again, Americans are coming to Manitoba in numbers not seen in years.