Massive wind farm proposal in Washington state gets new life from Gov. Jay Inslee

Sex offender who changed name sent back to prison

The father of a boy repeatedly abused by convicted sex predator Ryan Knight said he believes his son would have been kept safe had there been a law in place preventing sex offenders from legally changing their name.

Alberta’s gopher museum closed until further notice as owners find new facility

A quirky Alberta roadside attraction that has delighted travellers for decades with its stuffed rodents in tiny costumes is closed until further notice. 

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum, located in Torrington, a hamlet about 120 kilometres north of Calgary, made the announcement online earlier this week.

Laural Kurta, museum director, said she was forced to close the doors because the two historical buildings that house the exhibits need to be replaced. 

"We have done every patch repair, staple, spackle, everything we could possibly do, and it is just at its end," Kurta said in an interview Tuesday. 

Other cities build rapid transit, while we wait

Winnipeg’s civic election campaign has produced no shortage of promises to improve transit safety and fix problems with the new network. Those issues are real and urgent. But they should not distract from a larger failure — while other Canadian urban regions secure billions in federal support to transform their transit systems, Winnipeg is falling further behind.

The Winnipeg Transit Master Plan, approved in 2021, sets the right vision — frequent, reliable service anchored by an expanded bus rapid transit (BRT) network. Yet not a single additional BRT corridor has been approved for construction. The modest network proposed in the plan is not projected to be completed until 2045 or beyond. Despite that, city council voted this summer to delay updating the master plan by two years.

The full BRT network was estimated at $588 million to $1.1 billion in 2020 — or roughly $720 million to $1.34 billion today, after accounting for construction inflation. That is substantial, but modest compared with what other cities are spending. Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Ottawa and Quebec City have rapid transit projects under way or recently completed, totalling about $26 billion and backed by $7.3 billion in federal commitments. Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are spending billions more with federal support.

Other cities build. Winnipeg waits.

Massive wind farm proposal in Washington state gets new life from Gov. Jay Inslee

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday rejected a recommendation to cut a proposal for what would be the state's largest wind farm in half, giving new life to the $1.7 billion project.

Plans for the Horse Heaven wind farm originally included up to 222 wind turbines across 24 miles (38.6 kilometers) of hillsides in the Tri-Cities area of eastern Washington, plus three solar arrays covering up to 8.5 square miles (22 square kilometers).

But last month, Washington’s seven-person Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a clearinghouse for permits required by large projects, recommended slashing the proposal in half because nests of the endangered ferruginous hawk were found in the area, The Seattle Times reported.

Inslee on Thursday rejected the council’s recommendation and told the group to reconsider in hopes of expanding the project closer to its full potential. A Democrat who is not seeking reelection after three terms in office, Inslee has sought to make climate initiatives key to his legacy.