Wooed by wood, Cedarella founder takes pride in handcrafted designs

Marina Bulan is the founder of Cedarella, a two-year-old venture that turns out eye-catching wood products such as jewelry, kitchen decor, children’s toys and, most recently, metre-high outdoor planters that double as home street-number indicators.

Ahead of immigrating to Winnipeg a decade ago from their native Russia, Bulan and her partner thought it would be prudent to conduct some research on their soon-to-be new home, a city they knew next to nothing about.

Imagine their surprise as they were viewing the 2007 surrealist film My Winnipeg, which comically blends historical facts about our burg with what Winnipeg-born writer/director Guy Maddin has termed “mystical hypothesizing.”

(For instance, there is no proof that, as reported in the award-winning flick, Winnipeg is the sleepwalking capital of the world, and that residents keep keys to their former abodes on their person in the event they turn up there during a bout of somnambulism.)

Residents fear mailbox crime sprees

Some North End residents are concerned new community mailboxes will become a target for vandalism and crime after the base of one was recently lit ablaze — before it was even installed.

The community mailboxes started to show up on Andrews Street within the last two weeks. Some have been installed, while at other locations, only the concrete foundation is in place.

“They just dumped them on the boulevard,” said Stephen Giesbrecht, who lives beside one of the boxes in the St. John’s neighbourhood. “They dumped them on the corner and then they were gone.”

One of the concrete slabs has already played host to a fire and some of the hardware needed to install the mailbox melted.

Préserver à bout de bras

La Maison Gabrielle-Roy s’apprête à abattre trois ormes plantés devant le musée depuis 1905. Une décision prise à contrecœur pour assurer la sécurité du bâtiment et du voisinage, mais qui illustre surtout les défis financiers auxquels sont confrontés les petits organismes patrimoniaux, contraints de jongler entre entretien, programmation culturelle et ressources limitées.

Avec beaucoup de peine, la Maison Gabrielle-Roy va de l’avant pour faire abattre les trois ormes qui trônent devant le musée depuis plus d’un siècle.

Du fait de leur grand âge et de la météo difficile de ces derniers mois, c’est un peu dos au mur que le conseil d’administration a pris la décision de couper ces arbres.

Une décision jugée “très importante” par la présidente du CA Louise Plamondon.

Ahava Rabba’s alternative service attracts alternative Jews

Winnipeg Jewish community members have always had several options to choose from when it comes to deciding where to attend High Holiday services.

Those options have included local ultra-orthodox, orthodox, conservative and reform synagogues — many of which have shut down, moved or merged over the decades — as well as a variety of other alternatives that have been offered on and off at summer camps, nursing homes, private homes, hotels and rented spaces throughout the city.

When the 2026 High Holidays begin with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year at sunset on Friday, Sept. 11, there will be one more option for community members to consider.

That option is a new service being hosted on the second morning of the holiday, Sept. 13, by Ahava Rabba, a fledgling grassroots congregation that began meeting almost a year ago and is coming together for the Jewish New Year for the first time ever. Ahava Rabba, which translates from the Hebrew as Abundant Love, takes its name from the blessing that observant Ashkenazi Jews recite every morning just before the Sh’ma, Judaism’s central declaration of faith.

Former Hong Kong vigil organizer strives to mark Tiananmen crackdown despite convictions

HONG KONG (AP) — Tang Ngok-kwan still occasionally visits the places where Hong Kong once publicly remembered Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Though Tang's fellow activists were locked up in prison, accused of inciting subversion, and an annual candlelight vigil they previously organized to mourn the crackdown's victims vanished, the 58-year-old continues to personally and discreetly remember the event, which is a political taboo on mainland China.

At Victoria Park, where tens of thousands of people once gathered for the only large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown in China, Tang bowed on the eve of the anniversary and read off a list of the victims in a low voice. He sometimes returns to two university campuses where commemorative sculptures once stood, even though most traces of their existence already have vanished.

Two of Tang's former colleagues were convicted Friday under a Beijing-imposed national security law, facing a maximum prison term of 10 years. Their vigil organizing group also was found guilty. Government-approved judges ruled the pair had incited others to overthrow the leadership of China’s Communist Party through unlawful means.

Federal officials announce water cuts as Colorado River supplies continue to plunge

Federal officials announced sharp water cuts for the next two years on Friday for three Western states that rely on the imperiled Colorado River.

Under the Bureau of Reclamation's plan, California, Nevada and Arizona will collectively reduce water use by 1.25 million acre-feet (about 1.54 billion cubic meters) annually during that period, with the possibility of larger cuts depending on conditions.

Arizona will see the biggest cuts, while states upstream — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — do not face any for now.

Meanwhile neighboring Mexico will reduce its intake by 250,000 acre-feet (about 310 million cubic meters) under a U.S.-Mexico treaty.

Rail-traffic alert beacons, signs will give drivers chance to change routes, save time

A new rail-crossing alert system will help Winnipeg drivers avoid train delays.

Roadside TRAINFO beacons and digital message boards will now flash at locations prior to select rail crossings. They will alert drivers to approaching trains, with adequate time to let them choose an alternate route and avoid the wait.

The flashing beacons are now located at the following high train-traffic spots:

Pandora Avenue at Day Street, Redonda Street and Ravenhurst Street, to note trains at the Ravenhurst rail crossing north of Dugald Road.East and west of the multiple rail crossings on Marion Avenue between Archibald Street and Lagimodiere Boulevard, to note trains along the corridor.At the intersection of McGillivray Boulevard and Waverley Street, to note trains crossing McGillivray at Pembina Highway.Digital message sign boards will also be placed on Sterling Lyon Boulevard and Kenaston Boulevard to note when trains are present at the McGillivray/Pembina crossing.

Tempers are flaring, fists are flying around the NFL during joint practices

Joint practices are out of control when an easygoing, fun-loving guy like Jameis Winston is throwing punches and getting decked in the middle of a brawl.

Tempers have been flaring around the NFL as many teams are practicing against each other ahead of preseason games.

Winston was at the center of a fight between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins on Thursday.

The Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints were fined $500,000 apiece by the NFL after a brawl-filled joint practice Tuesday.

Winnipeg’s postwar architecture well-documented by online archive

We live in a city rich with Chicago School high rises, mid-century modernism and much more. And, for the past three decades, Paul Clerkin has amassed arguably the most comprehensive archive of this architecture.

Rescuers use new tech to save caver trapped vertically in Alberta’s ‘Psych Squeeze’

A caver has been rescued after being trapped underground at the Rat's Nest Cave in Canmore, Alta., in an operation that deployed volunteer-built underground radio technology for the first time.

Search and Rescue Alberta said the man became pinned in a tight spot known as the "Psych Squeeze" around 11:30 a.m. last Saturday.

The Alberta/BC Cave Rescue team was called in, and hammer drills were used to remove rock. The caver, who was trapped vertically, was eased out in a process measured in "inches per hour."

"Cave rescues are very rare and it's even rarer to have to have someone stuck in a tight space and can't free themselves," said Christian Stenner, provincial coordinator with the Alberta/British Columbia Cave Rescue Service, in an interview Friday.

Rural residents ‘outraged’ property owner charged after shots fired during confrontation with alleged thieves: MLA

A rural Manitoba MLA says he has heard from constituents who are “shocked and outraged” that a 66-year-old man is facing charges after he fired shots at a group of people accused of stealing from his property.

‘How can we grow back the herd in Canada?’

Amid high beef prices and trade uncertainty, a Farm Credit Canada executive touched down in Winnipeg with a message: it’s time for cattle producers to grow.

“What they face right now is … opportunity,” said Jean-Philippe Gervais, the federal Crown corporation’s executive vice-president of agricultural production.

Gervais was representing FCC, the country’s top agricultural lender, at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference.

He spoke to the Free Press ahead of his keynote speech Thursday afternoon. Hundreds of cattle farmers and industry leaders gathered at the RBC Convention Centre for the four-day event, which began on Monday.

2 organizers of Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigils convicted in national security case

HONG KONG (AP) — Two former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigils in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were convicted Friday for what the government-approved judges ruled was inciting others to overthrow China’s communist leadership.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under a China-imposed national security law that has effectively crushed the city’s previously thriving pro-democracy movement. They face a maximum prison term of 10 years. The alliance was also found guilty.

The three judges ruled that the alliance’s call to “end one-party dictatorship” aimed to end the ruling Communist Party’s leadership status under the constitution, and that the “end” in the phrase carried the meaning of “overthrowing” and “undermining.”

In the verdict, they wrote that the defendants persisted in the call after the law's introduction, neglecting that it was in breach of the constitution, which states the party's leadership is a defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. That falls within “other unlawful means” under the security law, the judges said.

Wolseley residents put down roots to save elms

A neighbourhood group that raised thousands of dollars to inoculate publicly owned trees against Dutch elm disease hopes others will follow their lead.