Jeff Conaway dies at 60

Police are asking for the public’s help locating a 34-year-old woman last heard from almost a week ago.

Tamara Stevens, who also goes by Tammy, was last heard from on Sunday last weekend and was reported missing Tuesday morning, said a Thompson RCMP news release Saturday.

RCMP and family are worried for her well-being.

Stevens is believed to be in Thompson and is described as 5'7, with a slender build and long red hair, said RCMP. She also has a piercing on her lip and was last seen wearing black T-Shirt featuring the Twilight character Jacob, pants and work boots.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: We love our grandchildren, but now we’re sick of them. The two sets of parents — our adult children — have been parking their kids out here on the farm with us while they take back-to-back road trips to see their friends. We’ve had enough.

Grandma and I want them to come back and get the “brats” (just joking, they’re nice kids) so we can relax.

You have to be so careful with city kids around the farm who don’t know when they’re going to make a mistake and get hoofed by an animal or run over by a farm implement.

How do we tell our kids the party is over early, and they really need to come back before grandma and I give out?

Mayor Scott Gillingham, in one of his first re-election campaign pledges, has promised to create a level playing field for local businesses to compete with national and multinational bidders on city contracts for goods and services.

It’s not a bad pledge, per se. There are a lot of Winnipeggers who are keenly interested in seeing government do business with other Winnipeggers and Manitobans.

But Gillingham’s newest campaign policy fails to answer two key questions: what, exactly, is a “local” company? And it is beneficial to give government business to local companies over those headquartered elsewhere?

Two recent controversies illustrate the difficulty in obtaining definitive answers.

LOS ANGELES -- Actor Jeff Conaway, who starred in TV's Taxi and the movie musical Grease, has died.

Spokeswoman Kathryn Boole says the 60-year-old actor died Friday morning at the Encino Tarzana Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized in a coma since May 11. His manager, Phil Brock, has said Conaway had tried to treat himself with pain pills and cold medicine while in weakened health.

The actor had long battled drug and alcohol addiction, which he blamed in part on back problems and repeated surgeries. The reality series Celebrity Rehab showed his struggle for sobriety.

Conaway played high school bad-boy Kenickie in the 1978 movie Grease and appeared in the Broadway version of the musical.