Your forecast
Increasing cloudiness early this morning. Clearing late this afternoon. Wind up to 15 km/h. High -15 C, wind chill -33 this morning and -23 this afternoon. Risk of frostbite.
What’s happening today
Manitoba-born Robert E. Hawkins launches She Won The Vote For Women: The Life and Times of Lillian Beynon Thomas at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location in an event hosted by the Council of Women of Winnipeg.
In his book, published by Great Plains Press, Hawkins details Thomas’s work as a columnist for Prairie Farmer (and the Manitoba Free Press), her involvement in the women’s suffrage movement and her move to New York with husband Alfred Vernon Thomas during the First World War. You can read an excerpt here.

From left: Dr. Mary Crawford, Lillian Beynon Thomas, Winona Flett Dixon and Amelia Burritt with the PEL petition in 1915. (Archives of Manitoba)
Today’s must-read
Six people were apprehended as they tried to sneak into Manitoba from the U.S. last week, amid tightened security at the border in the face of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to clamp down on illegal migrants and drugs.
An aircraft equipped with thermal imaging technology guided officers on the ground to find the six people who were travelling in frigid temperatures in the dark on Jan. 14, RCMP said Wednesday.
“They were from multiple countries of origin,” said RCMP Assistant Commissioner Lisa Moreland, who said the investigation is ongoing.
Moreland said the aircraft’s ability to respond quickly was instrumental in ensuring the migrants weren’t harmed by the freezing temperatures, which dipped below -20 C. Scott Billeck has the story.

The RCMP Federal Policing Northwest Region has increased security by adding regular Black Hawk helicopter flights along the Manitoba border with the United States. (Supplied)
On the bright side
A new solar panel designed to power experiments involving sea ice will help the University of Manitoba save cold cash.
The $30,000 solar panel will reduce the hydro bill, plus excess power generated by it can be put on Manitoba Hydro’s grid.
Debbie Armstrong, an instructor in the environment and geography department, who is a technician at the ultra-clean trace elements laboratory, wrote the proposal to acquire the panel. Kevin Rollason has more here.

The solar panel is expected to replace about 27 per cent of the electricity used by all of the monitors and machines connected to the University of Manitoba’s Sea-Ice Experimental Research Facility. (Supplied)
On this date
On Jan. 23, 1968: The Winnipeg Free Press reported Liberals in Western Canada were abandoning a “favourite son” strategy in the search for a leadership candidate who would project a pro-western image, in favour of a more subtle approach, ahead of the party convention in April, where a successor to outgoing leader Lester Pearson would be chosen. Guards at Headingley Jail, who had been threatened with knives, were commended for foiling a mass prison break. Read the rest of this day’s paper here. Search our archives for more here.

Today’s front page
Get the full story: Read today’s e-edition of the Free Press.

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