Somebody needs a holiday

Highway-safety upgrades in progress after tragic Interlake crash

Provincial workers have started to update or install safety measures at a rural Interlake intersection where four teenage friends died in a crash on Labour Day weekend.

Pavement markings were repainted at Highway 8 and Provincial Road 229, just west of Winnipeg Beach, ahead of work to refresh worn-down rumble strips, starting Monday, and install flashing lights atop two stop signs, following an assessment earlier this week.

“They will also need to incorporate any information from the RCMP report that might be helpful if we were to consider any additional safety measures at this intersection,” Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor said of department staff.

“The most important thing is safety, and any kinds of changes we make at any intersection actually have to make it safer.”

Canadians loving Carney’s decision to stand tall against floundering U.S. bully

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic political contrast than the one unfolding on opposite sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

Mark Carney is fighting a trade war with Donald Trump, taking the occasional verbal punch from the American president and imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.

And the prime minister is being rewarded for it politically.

Trump, meanwhile, is fighting pretty much everyone he can find — including some of America’s closest allies — and his own voters are increasingly giving him the political equivalent of a raised middle finger. That’s quite a tale of two leaders.

Retired sportscaster Scott Oake determined as fundraising for women's addictions treatment facility enters home stretch

For now, the patch of land just east of the Victoria Hospital doesn’t look like much: just a field of rocks, mounded dirt, and concrete piles driven into the earth. Yet when Scott Oake looks over the site, he can already imagine how it will look in just over a year’s time, when the new Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is expected to open.

It’s easier to picture this time around. In 2020, when the recently-retired CBC sportscaster and his late wife, Anne, were building their first labour of intermingled grief and love, the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre for men, it was hard for him to wrap his mind around how a raw construction site could transform into a welcoming addictions treatment facility.

When that centre opened in 2021, Oake found it looked “almost identical” to the architect’s renderings. So it’s easy to hope the Anne Oake Centre will be the same. It will be the first facility of its kind, its founders believe, not only in Canada but in North America: a place where 50 to 70 women can pursue sobriety while staying with their children.

“At Bruce Oake there’s a culture of love, and most of all a culture of hope,” Oake said, speaking at the site Thursday after a media conference to announce the final push of the centre’s fundraising campaign. “I can feel it every time I walk into that building. And I know it will be the same here.”

Sunday-night auto aficionados work to steer away from unwelcome elements they say aren’t a part of their tradition

The red 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee out for a cruise on Portage Avenue draws admiring eyes from onlookers on a recent Sunday night, many of them seeing a specimen of the now-rare muscle car for the first time on a Winnipeg street. Or any other street, for that matter.

Longtime car enthusiast Bob Sudoma was behind the wheel, participating in the decades-old show-offy summer tradition.

The Sunday night cruise is built around a simple idea: proud car owners take their beloved vehicles for a spin to meet up with others of the same autophile ilk.

Less-fortunate appreciators, or just curious folks, also gather along the route to watch the highly-polished parade. Portage Avenue is one of cruise night’s best-known stretches.

Ferraro, Skinner getting lay of the land before training camp starts

They’ve both been around the NHL block a bit, but make no mistake, Stuart Skinner and Mario Ferraro are experiencing some “new kid at school” type jitters this week.

The pair were prized July 1 free agent signings by the Winnipeg Jets and are now quickly trying to get the lay of the land — from teammates and systems and structure to restaurants, schools and the best routes to the rink — in what is a frantic time on both a professional and personal level.

“It’s a big change, right?” Ferraro said Wednesday following a pre-training camp skate at the Hockey For All Centre.

“Like moving cities, getting settled somewhere else, with my family, my wife, my daughter, our two dogs. But I think it’s gone really well and smooth. We found a great place here, and we’re really happy with where we’re living.”

The plane truth about a dangerous president

U.S. President Donald Trump has crossed firmly into cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face territory.