Spain makes face masks mandatory in hospitals and clinics after a spike in respiratory illnesses

Opening of Portage and Main shows even seemingly insurmountable impasses can be overcome

There are places in a city that become more than places. Portage and Main is one of them. For generations of Winnipeggers, the intersection has represented downtown, traffic, development and civic identity. Its reopening to pedestrians in 2025, after 46 years of closure, was about more than crossing a street. It was a reminder that decisions made by one generation can shape the choices available to another — and that even seemingly permanent decisions can be reconsidered.

I have spent much of my professional life thinking about Winnipeg as a planner, working in public, private and non-profit settings. My PhD research gave me an opportunity to examine Portage and Main differently: not simply as a debate about cars and pedestrians, but as a window into how power operates in a city. I reviewed 569 archival documents spanning the 1960s to the present, interviewed 48 planners with experience in Winnipeg, and mapped the relationships between planners, politicians, developers, engineers, residents, businesses and advocacy groups.

What emerged was a story about how planning decisions become embedded in a city’s institutions, agreements, infrastructure, professional practices and political expectations — shaping not only what gets built, but who gets to influence what gets built.

The closure of Portage and Main in 1979 did not remain a decision confined to a particular political moment. Over time, it was reinforced by development agreements, physical infrastructure, property relationships, traffic-engineering practices, administrative routines, and public narratives about mobility and downtown revitalization. The people who made many of those original decisions eventually left office. The arrangements they created remained. Later planners inherited them.

Connor Hellebuyck breaks silence after trade from Jets

It took until the very end of his introductory news conference Saturday — right around the 15-minute mark — before Connor Hellebuyck was finally asked the question that hockey fans back in Winnipeg were likely waiting for.

“Is there anything you’d like to say to Jets fans?” a reporter who covers Hellebuyck’s new team, the New Jersey Devils, put to him during the session held inside the Prudential Center in Newark.

A short pause followed.

“I mean, there’s a lot. There’s a lot that I need to say,” Hellebuyck began, no doubt raising plenty of eyebrows around here and the hockey world in general.

Echoes of Idle No More as Carney set to meet with First Nations

The prime minister, premiers and First Nations leaders will meet in Ottawa Monday to discuss a host of issues, including Indigenous involvement in energy and resource development projects.

School division’s mental-health liaison helps students in crisis access help faster

A youth experiencing a mental-health crisis at a River East Transcona school was connected with specialized care within hours this fall, offering an early example of how a new partnership is helping students in distress.

After the teen made statements that raised safety concerns, school administrators contacted a newly appointed mental-health crisis liaison, who arrived within 30 minutes, assessed the situation and met with the student, their family and school staff.

By the end of the morning, the student was admitted to a crisis stabilization unit for several days, and arrangements were made for followup therapy.

The intervention was possible because of a pilot partnership between RETSD and The Link: Youth and Family Supports, which began at the start of the school year.

Dustin Byfuglien gets warm welcome at alumni game

To say that Dustin Byfuglien wasn’t a fan of the spotlight is an understatement of epic proportions.

The guy with the personality that was larger than life preferred to keep that side of him mostly contained behind the hallowed halls of the Winnipeg Jets locker room.

Since he unexpectedly stepped away from the game in the fall of 2019, Byfuglien has limited his rare interviews to discussions about fishing, happily leaving the NHL game in his rearview mirror.

But on Saturday morning, there was Byfuglien standing in the newly-renovated Jets’ dressing room, holding court with a group of reporters hanging on his every word prior to the alumni game that was part of the 2026 Heritage Classic.

Mayor Gillingham poised for repeat

Incumbent mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham remains in the lead among decided voters in a new poll that suggests a majority of Winnipeggers want change ahead of Wednesday’s election.

Gillingham was backed by 36 per cent of decided voters in an Abacus Data survey released Friday, followed by candidates Kevin Klein (19 per cent) and Mike Vogiatzakis and a surging Noah Redden, who were tied for third (both at 14 per cent).

While a majority of respondents expressed a desire for a new mayor, Curtis Brown, a vice-president with Abacus, said “none of the other candidates has convincingly made the case that they represent the best change.”

“In the absence of that, Scott Gillingham definitely has the advantage. He looks likely to be able to win,” Brown said.