Rock ‘n’ roll damnation

RCMP investigating four-year-old girl’s death, two younger girls’ injuries in home on First Nation

RCMP are investigating after a four-year-old girl died in suspicious circumstances at a home in Long Plain First Nation over the weekend.

Paramedics called Manitoba First Nations Police Service officers at about 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, asking for assistance at a home where the girl was reported as injured and in medical distress.

Officers helped paramedics with emergency treatment, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other girls — a one-year-old and a two-year-old — were also found injured at the home. Paramedics took both to hospital. One of the girls was in critical condition, while the other was stable. Both are now stable.

Rock ‘n’ roll damnation

In 2015, it's nice to know AC/DC remains one of the world's top concert draws. This cements the notion rock 'n' roll is a tired and faded institution, so bereft of new ideas it's forced to peddle extremely old ones to an audience that isn't even interested in anything new, anyway.

This is, of course, unfair. There are thousands of recording artists still trying to add something to the creative conversation that began in the 1950s, when rock 'n' roll emerged as a fusion of the blues, country, jazz and folk.

AC/DC, however, has long occupied a special, ignominious place as a rock 'n' roll anachronism. The Australian band, which will return to Winnipeg on Sept. 17, was relevant in the 1970s at the dawn of what was then known as hard rock, when chunky power chords and lengthy guitar solos had yet to become clichés.

By the 1980s, AC/DC was a corporate-rock institution, selling recycled and increasingly formulaic versions of its own ideas. In the 1990s, it was a touring nostalgia revue, offering something familiar and comforting to audiences who weren't impressed by the mainstreaming of the punk and indie esthetic and certainly didn't care for hip hop, which by then had eclipsed rock 'n' roll as the dominant pop-music genre.

Mom grieves loss of daughter, 4, on Long Plain First Nation

The mother of a four-year-old girl killed and two other children injured on Long Plain First Nation said she raised concerns about their care months before her daughter’s death.

Transcona councillor faces new sex assault charge

A city councillor charged with sex assault earlier this year faces new sex charges in a separate incident, in a case Winnipeg’s mayor called “deeply concerning.”

Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt, 56, was charged Monday with sexual assault and administering a noxious thing with intent to aggrieve or annoy over an October 2023 incident.

Allegations of a 2023 assault were reported to the Winnipeg Police Service in April, a month after Wyatt was charged with sex assault in relation to a 2025 incident.

In the 2023 incident, a man told police he become acquainted with Wyatt through a website in July of that year and said they met in person on more than one occasion.

The circle of life — garden-sized

“The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.” — Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), horticulturalist

It’s a chilly day for August — more like fall — but in the garden things are progressing as nicely as if every day this summer had been the perfect combination of sun and showers.

The peonies are spent, their heavy heads with a hangdog look. Soon the petals will fall, revealing the jester-hat seedpods within. The lilacs, too, their beautiful, fragrant blossoms now transformed into brown scruff.

But the day lilies are plumping up, ready for their big reveal. And the roses are still magnificent — dozens and dozens of fuchsia, red, white and coral blooms that turn our stone circle into a heavenly scented bower. It is here where we come after a hard day’s work in the garden, newly scrubbed and wearing fresh clothes, to sit at a little bistro table and have a glass of wine and enjoy the results of our labour.

Signs the Carney approach is working

It was, if nothing else, a glowing review in trying times.

Matt Winkler, the editor in chief emeritus of Bloomberg News, spoke last week on Bloomberg Business News Daily about a recent Bloomberg analysis of the performance of the Canadian economy, and this country as a target for investment

“This is one of the greatest periods for overseas investment in Canada that we’ve seen in the century, and it may be unprecedented, because we have to wait for the rest of the year. … Money is pouring into Canada like we have not seen from everywhere. Stocks and bonds are the obvious beneficiaries,” Winkler said. He argued that Canada is both liked and seen as reasonable.

“The point is… Canada since Mark Carney became prime minister in 2025, has outperformed everyone in America and also the Eurozone and anywhere in the world. The 10 largest stock markets in the world, Canada appreciated the most, more than 40 per cent. … Its bond market is also doing great, partially because the inflation rate in Canada, unlike the Eurozone or America, is actually trending lower, and is outperforming both the Eurozone and the U.S.”