Protection plan group rates Apple’s 2 phone releases less durable than last year’s iPhone 5

The true costs of your pet — for everyone

Pets are a problem, but few will discuss the downsides of pet ownership.

50 years of rare tall grass prairie celebrated

Kristin Bestvater is always glad when she heads to Winnipeg’s St. James neighbourhood and visits the Living Prairie Museum.

“It’s beautiful,” Bestvater said of the 13-hectare site, which is one of the last remaining tall grass prairies in North America. “I don’t know how many other cities would have something like this.”

The Island Lakes resident and her nine-year-old son were among the hundreds of people who gathered at the museum on Saturday to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Designated a park in 1974, it officially became the Living Prairie Museum in 1976 with the opening of an interpretive centre which houses a gallery of exhibits, a gift shop and an observation deck.

Local medical scrubs retailer feeling abandoned by U of M, RRC Polytech nursing programs

A Winnipeg uniform store is appealing to medical students to shop locally for scrubs this back-to-school season as it grapples with growing competition online and an apparent shutout by local campuses.

Unimor Healthwear has long ordered uniforms in bulk in navy blue, burgundy and pewter, as nurses-in-training are required to wear those colours based on where they’re enrolled in the province.

“It’s not like it used to be,” Evan Schwartz said about customer traffic to his store at 98 Sherbrook St.

The company’s director estimated he spent about $15,000 to stock up on scrubs in pewter in preparation for the launch of Red River College Polytechnic’s upcoming nursing intake.

Champion curler Meleschuk never lost his passion for the game

At the height of his curling career, Orest Meleschuk balanced ferocity and finesse like almost no one else.

The Winnipeg product was a fierce competitor skilful enough to thread a rock through a window and find the button.

Known as “The Big O,” he curled competitively for over six decades, finding success at the local, provincial, national and global level, and his longevity on the pebble was notable before lengthy careers became the norm.

Meleschuk is still tied with his good friend John Usackis for the most appearances in the Manitoba men’s provincial playdowns, at 30.

Tests: New iPhones less durable than iPhone 5

NEW YORK, N.Y. - As Apple pitches its newest smartphones, users may find something lacking compared with last year's model: They could break more easily.

SquareTrade, a provider of protection plans for gadgets, tested five smartphones, including Apple's new iPhones, to see if they could withstand drops, dunks and other common hazards. Its finding: The latest models aren't as durable as last year's iPhone 5.

The biggest loser, however, was Samsung's Galaxy S4, which failed to work after being submerged in water and being dropped 5 feet off the ground, according to San Francisco-based SquareTrade.

The phone that withstood SquareTrade's torture test best was Google Inc.'s Moto X. The Moto X is the first phone designed with the Internet company as Motorola's new owner. Released in August, the Moto X is also the first smartphone assembled in the U.S.

Gilbert Plains Country Club closes for remainder of season due to flood damage

Scott McCallum has made the trek to the Gilbert Plains Country Club clubhouse countless times.

But this was the first time the golf professional and general manager of the course required hip waders to get to his office.

Walking hand in hand with his wife Lindsay, McCallum didn’t need much time to see the devastation caused by the flash flooding in the Parkland region in late June.

“We’re on a river and it’s a beautiful golf course, but anytime you’re on a body of water you know that you’re taking a chance of events like this happening,” McCallum said in a telephone interview. “To this magnitude, we’ve never seen anything like it before. So, this is new to us.