Stories in anthology have local connection

Pretty, purple and pernicious plants plaguing Prairies

After noticing mysterious purple flowers popping up in little patches around the Wolseley neighbourhood last summer, Vic Penner didn’t give it too much thought.

However, this summer, the deceivingly beautiful flowers were impossible to ignore.

“They were just everywhere,” said Penner, 37.

Wolseley isn’t the only neighbourhood being overrun by the plant.

Options for selling U.S. alcohol in Canada

U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose tariffs of 50 per cent by Aug. 19 on over 500 Canadian items worth $28 billion. This would threaten 56,000 Canadian jobs and five per cent of our exports.

Residents fear mailbox crime sprees

Some North End residents are concerned new community mailboxes will become a target for vandalism and crime after the base of one was recently lit ablaze — before it was even installed.

The community mailboxes started to show up on Andrews Street within the last two weeks. Some have been installed, while at other locations, only the concrete foundation is in place.

“They just dumped them on the boulevard,” said Stephen Giesbrecht, who lives beside one of the boxes in the St. John’s neighbourhood. “They dumped them on the corner and then they were gone.”

One of the concrete slabs has already played host to a fire and some of the hardware needed to install the mailbox melted.

Free Press arts team shares books for passing the dog days

When most people mention a “summer read” or a “beach book,” the types of writing they’re referring to is lighter fare most of us would consider enjoyable but not overly profound: think cosy mysteries, historical bodice rippers, otherworldy romantasies, fast-paced whodunits, chilling (but not too chilling) horror and, notably as of late, romance novels of all persuasions — perhaps, say, between two hockey players?

But not everyone dives into such popular picks over the summer months. Here’s what the Free Press arts and life team has been poring over in the past months…

Temporary Palaces, by Jeff Miller

If you spent your youth in the late 1990s/early 2000s going to protests, making zines, DIY art or punk rock — or, failing that, reading about it all in Adbusters magazine — and consider yourself a hopeless romantic, this new novel from Nova Scotia’s Jeff Miller is for you. Themes of idealism, artistic integrity, heartbreak and shared trauma are all on the menu for this will-they-won’t they pairing of punk rocker Ben and visual artist Alex, set amid the squats of Ottawa and the art lofts of Montreal.

Letters, Aug 24

The article says the Wolseley Residents Association has fundraised about $20,000 to inoculate publicly owned trees in Wolseley against Dutch elm disease. Ian Dyck is a member of the association’s tree committee, and he says that the Wolseley Residents Association hopes that others will follow their lead. This project will pay for 150 American elms to be protected against the disease for about three years.

Woman pleads guilty in toddler’s death

A woman who pleaded guilty to failing to provide the necessaries of life after her 13-month-old son died of an drug overdose in their Sherbrook Street apartment will serve a sentence of house arrest.

Latasha Stewart, in her mid-30s, was given the conditional sentence order of two years less a day by provincial court Judge Malcolm McDonald last Wednesday over the Dec. 29, 2022 death of her son Romeo.

“The circumstances in this case are truly tragic. As a result of an adult’s careless drug use, a 13-month-old boy lost his life,” said McDonald.

“It’s hard to imagine a clearer … lesson in the dangers of street-drug use in a household with young children present (than) in this case.”