Your forecast
Sunny. Wind from the north at 20 km/h gusting to 40 becoming light early this morning. Wind becoming south 20 this afternoon. High -14 C, wind chill -33 this morning and -22 this afternoon. Risk of frostbite. UV index 1 or low.
This past year was the third warmest on record and stood on the cusp of surpassing a major climate threshold globally, according to new data from the European climate agency.
The Copernicus data indicates 2025 was about 1.47 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels, following the previous year’s record-setting 1.6 degrees. When 2023 is added to the mix, it’s the first three-year period on record to exceed 1.5 degrees, the data suggests. The Canadian Press has more here.
An aerial crew works on an out-of-control wildfire just north of Squamish, B.C., in June 2025. (Tijana Martin / The Canadian Press files)
What’s happening today
🎭 Murder on the Orient Express opens tonight at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, 174 Market Ave.; showtimes and tickets available online. Ben Waldman has a preview here.
Murder on the Orient Express director Kelly Thornton and set designer Brian Perchaluk. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)
🍁 Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Beijing for a short but consequential visit, as China and Canada try to move past years of diplomatic tensions and Ottawa pushes to double non-U.S. trade by 2035. The Canadian Press reports.
Today’s must-read
Former Winnipeg Police Service constable Elston Bostock trafficked drugs, interfered with crime scenes, fixed traffic tickets for friends and other officers and shared confidential information that put the public in harm’s way during an eight-year run of criminality.
But in May 2021, when Bostock shared a cellphone photo he took of a partially naked woman who had died from a drug overdose, he earned “the unenviable distinction of being the only other officer (in Canada) to ever defile his badge in such a way,” Crown attorney Ari Millo told King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne at a daylong sentencing hearing Tuesday.
That crime, Millo said, “represents a complete abdication of the professional duties of compassion (and) humanity expected of a police officer at a moment of profound human loss.” Dean Pritchard has the story.
(Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files)
On the bright side
One of the best-preserved ancient Roman homes on the Palatine Hill is opening to the public for the first time, albeit via a livestreamed tour of its hard-to-reach underground frescoes and mosaics.
The House of the Griffins was first discovered during the excavations in the early 20th century of the Palatine Hill, the verdant hill that rises up from the Roman Forum and dominates views of central Rome today with its striking red brick ruins.
The hill, located just off the Colosseum, was known for temples and homes of leading citizens during Rome’s Republican era, which is traditionally dated from 509 B.C. to 27 B.C. It became the aristocratic quarter during the Roman Empire that followed, when new palaces were built on top of the older homes. The Associated Press has more here.
Colosseum Archeological Park guide Valentina uses a head-mounted device to livestream a guided tour of the newly-restored underground House of Griffins. (Andrew Medichini / The Associated Press)
On this date
On Jan. 14, 1935: The Winnipeg Free Press reported aviator Amelia Earhart completed the first solo flight from Hawaii to California, landing at Oakland. A plebiscite in the Saar region over whether it would rejoin Germany, become part of France, or remain under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations, showed voters overwhelmingly opt to rejoin Germany, despite vocal opposition from an anti-Nazi organization. Winnipeg saw its first set of triplets born in several years, two girls and a boy. 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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