Week 1: Paris Olympics in photos Posted: 12:34 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 2, 2024

Federal government to build $267-M emergency research lab in Winnipeg

The federal government says it will build a $267-million medical countermeasures laboratory in Winnipeg with the goal of preparing Canada for future pandemics or outbreaks.

Expected to open in 2033, the national site will help the country develop vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tools, Winnipeg Liberal MP Terry Duguid said.

“This is a big deal for our city and for our province, a big deal for life sciences in Canada,” he told reporters Wednesday. “This facility is going to help protect the nation and help protect the world.”

Ottawa said the site — to be located next to the National Microbiology Laboratory’s Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health on Arlington Street, just north of William Avenue — draws on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trucking operation linked to fatality in Brandon shut down by Alberta government

The Alberta government has shut down Conquer Transport Inc., the trucking company linked to a crash near Brandon in which a 49-year-old woman, who had the right of way, was killed.

Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s transport minister, said the province launched an investigation into Conquer Transport after one of its semi-trucks ran a stop sign on May 27, 2026 at Highway 110 at Richmond Avenue East.

The semi hit an SUV driven by Xiaoyun Zhang, a Chinese immigrant who worked at the nearby pork processing plant. She died at the scene and the truck driver, 35-year-old Brijpal Panwar, has been charged with dangerous driving causing death.

“Our investigative team went out and … saw numerous non-compliance issues, whether it was hours of service with their drivers not being recorded properly, vehicle maintenance and inspections being insufficient, their safety program also being insufficient.”

Canad Inns puts Portage Avenue hotel, MET, office building ‘connected campus’ up for sale

Downtown entrepreneurs are watching with wary eyes as a prominent hotel and event centre hits the market.

A measure of hope a decade after senseless death, injustice

I’m a few hundred kilometres from the farm near Biggar, Sask. — the place where 22-year old Colten Boushie from Cree Red Pheasant First Nation was shot and killed by farmer Gerald Stanley precisely 10 years ago.

“You need to remind people about the 10-year anniversary,” a nearby, rural school principal tells me at the education conference I just finished speaking at.

“That death is a wound that continues to bleed in all of us,” a principal from Regina adds. “I hear about it from our students all the time.”

On Aug. 9, 2016, Boushie’s death entered the Canadian consciousness, representing what then-Saskatoon mayor Charlie Clark declared “a defining moment for this community and this country.”

Police resuming drug-enforcement crackdown, working with outreach community

Winnipeg police are relaunching a drug enforcement campaign in some neighbourhoods Friday after they say a 10-day sweep led to more than 100 arrests and a drop in reported crime earlier this summer.

Police said the renewed initiative, targeting open drug use and trafficking, will continue into November with an outreach-first approach and a partnership with a coalition of community groups in response to criticism of the initial campaign.

“While there was a great deal of support for the enforcement actions we undertook to address public safety issues, there was also criticism about the lack of collaboration,” Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers told reporters.

“At that time, I acknowledged that community organizations should have been part of our efforts. Hence, we’re here today.”

New sci-fi/fantasy bookstore a welcome addition

A new chapter has begun in Winnipeg’s literary landscape with the opening of science fiction and fantasy bookstore Other Places Books.

Located at 436 Graham Ave., the queer-owned and operated shop is the latest in a host of genre bookstores to have opened in the city over the last few years. In addition to longtime mainstay Whodunit? Mystery Bookstore (163 Lilac St.), the local scene now also features a horror bookstore (Raven’s End Books, which opened at 1859 Portage Ave. in 2024) and a shop focused on romance (Bound to Please, which opened at 995 McPhillips St. earlier this year).

The 900 titles currently in stock at Other Places, which opened Tuesday, span a range of sci-fi and fantasy sub-genres, with a particular focus on queer writers and storylines. The bookstore is the brainchild of Didi Chanoch, who moved to Winnipeg from Israel in 2025 after the Canadian federal government began offering work permits to those in Israel and Palestine looking to leave the area due to the conflict.

Winnipeg ended up on Chanoch’s radar in large part due to a more reasonable cost of living than other Canadian cities.