Clarification: Food Dyes-West Virginia story

The circle of life — garden-sized

“The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.” — Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), horticulturalist

It’s a chilly day for August — more like fall — but in the garden things are progressing as nicely as if every day this summer had been the perfect combination of sun and showers.

The peonies are spent, their heavy heads with a hangdog look. Soon the petals will fall, revealing the jester-hat seedpods within. The lilacs, too, their beautiful, fragrant blossoms now transformed into brown scruff.

But the day lilies are plumping up, ready for their big reveal. And the roses are still magnificent — dozens and dozens of fuchsia, red, white and coral blooms that turn our stone circle into a heavenly scented bower. It is here where we come after a hard day’s work in the garden, newly scrubbed and wearing fresh clothes, to sit at a little bistro table and have a glass of wine and enjoy the results of our labour.

Clarification: Food Dyes-West Virginia story

In a story published July 30, 2025, The Associated Press reported that West Virginia school districts were removing Cool Ranch Doritos from their menus because the current version contains artificial colors. The story should have made clear that PepsiCo has pledged to remove the synthetic colors this school year.

Frustrated owners won’t rebuild demolished Boujee

The co-owner of a former Main Street restaurant vows he will not rebuild in Winnipeg’s downtown, owing to constant crime and vandalism in the area.

Kanish Sood, who is one of three partners of the now-demolished Boujee Restaurant and Bar, said he did everything he could to keep the building safe from vandals after it was hit by arson last October.

“After that (fire), there is about already 15, 20 times there has been break-in in the property,” Sood said Monday. “We have been informing police continuously that there is continuously break-ins. People are trying to go inside the building and stealing things, but there was no action.”

After Boujee was torched, Sood and his partners locked the building and boarded it up. They also hired private security to monitor it. The break-ins continued.

Fun drop-in last chance to mentor grads of inner-city school with excellent track record

Summer break may be in full swing, but Gonzaga Middle School invited graduates back to the building for water balloon fights and academic, employment and support services this week.

Roughly 30 alumni, including teenagers and twentysomethings, stopped by the grades 6-8 school in North Point Douglas on Tuesday afternoon. They were greeted with slime-making kits, ice cream sundaes and staff ready to answer questions.

The initiative — the final grad drop-in organized this summer — is a new extension of the mentorship and holistic programming baked into the funded independent school’s mandate.

“We have 22- and 23-year-olds coming back and checking in and asking for help on their university papers,” principal Rex Ferguson-Baird said.

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.

RCMP investigating four-year-old girl’s death, two younger girls’ injuries in home on First Nation

RCMP are investigating after a four-year-old girl died in suspicious circumstances at a home in Long Plain First Nation over the weekend.

Paramedics called Manitoba First Nations Police Service officers at about 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, asking for assistance at a home where the girl was reported as injured and in medical distress.

Officers helped paramedics with emergency treatment, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other girls — a one-year-old and a two-year-old — were also found injured at the home. Paramedics took both to hospital. One of the girls was in critical condition, while the other was stable. Both are now stable.