NASA astronaut is released from the hospital after returning from space

Plasma clinic pauses operations in Canada amid ‘unfounded attention’

A plasma collection company is pausing operations in Canada due to ‘unfounded attention’ after two people died following donations at Winnipeg clinics.

Grifols said in a statement Thursday it has “proactively and voluntarily decided to pause plasma collection activities at all its plasma donation centres in Canada,” citing “unfounded attention that has been focused on compensated plasma collection.”

The for-profit donation company came under public criticism after Health Canada investigated the deaths of two people who died after giving plasma in October 2025 and in January. The federal regulator determined the deaths were unrelated to plasma donations.

An interview request with a representative from Grifols was not accommodated.

Ducks Unlimited makes province’s largest-ever conservation-land purchase

A Manitoba landscape that helped save the Giant Canada goose from extinction has now been permanently protected in the province’s largest conservation land purchase in history.

It’s one thing to climb aboard rail-relocation train, quite another to pay for the ride

Anyone who wants a brighter, safer, healthier future for the city of Winnipeg should really want the renewed hopes of rail relocation to finally become reality. And the sooner, the better.

Premier Wab Kinew announced Wednesday the province was going to forge a plan to relocate the Canadian Pacific Kansas City central yards and many of other the lines that run through Winnipeg to a bypass that runs around the city.

This “plan to design a plan” strategy was devised by a task force headed up by former federal MP and cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy, who in 2024 was given a two-year mandate to find the best way to rid the city of some or all of its rail infrastructure.

For the record, Kinew and Axworthy said a relocation would likely take 20 years to complete, which makes this week’s announcement an important statement of intent, but little more. The sobering reality is that this promising idea has been proposed by political leaders, and then abandoned, for decades.

Spotty service, U.S. roaming charges leave Somerset woman calling for answers

A southwestern Manitoba woman is voicing her concerns about cell service in the area after she was billed more than $100 in U.S. roaming charges despite never leaving her community.

Teresa Acheson received a notification on her phone Monday at about 7:30 a.m. saying she had entered the United States and would be charged $13 per day for unlimited calls and text messages.

The only problem is that she was not in the U.S. She was lying in bed at her home near Somerset, some 50 kilometres away from the U.S. border.

“People have said to watch if you’re driving close to the border because you’ll get dinged, but I was sitting at home,” she said Wednesday.

The art of snow and script

Between the Two, Hamideh Behgar’s current solo show at Aceartinc., is a bridging of worlds.

Iran, her homeland, and Canada, her current home. Persian architecture and Prairie landscape. Past and present. Here, there and in between.

Behgar, 38, came to Winnipeg from Iran in 2021 to earn her MFA at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba, which she completed in 2023.

As she was trying to get a handle on what she might do for her thesis — fine art was a newer practice for her; she has a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Applied Science & Technology in Kish, Iran — she spent a lot of time walking in King’s Park.

Moving rail lines outside city would make Winnipeg ‘major transportation hub’

After decades of calls to move rail traffic to the outskirts of Winnipeg, a plan that would benefit residents, railways and taxpayers is now on track, says the former Winnipegger leading the way.

A rail line bypass south of the city, using Crown-owned land and the Manitoba Hydro corridor, would take 20 years to complete, remove 120 railway crossings that are a safety risk and free up about 250 acres of Winnipeg land over time for development, Lloyd Axworthy said Wednesday.

“The visions that we have have to be implemented,” Axworthy said at a news conference announcing the launch of a 90-day feasibility study to move freight rail traffic out of Winnipeg’s urban core along Manitoba Hydro’s southern transmission corridor, connecting east to west along the Perimeter Highway.

The former federal transport minister and Manitoba MP was tasked by Premier Wab Kinew in October 2024 to lead a two-year rail relocation feasibility study.