Apple Podcasts – Top New Shows

50 years of rare tall grass prairie celebrated

Kristin Bestvater is always glad when she heads to Winnipeg’s St. James neighbourhood and visits the Living Prairie Museum.

“It’s beautiful,” Bestvater said of the 13-hectare site, which is one of the last remaining tall grass prairies in North America. “I don’t know how many other cities would have something like this.”

The Island Lakes resident and her nine-year-old son were among the hundreds of people who gathered at the museum on Saturday to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Designated a park in 1974, it officially became the Living Prairie Museum in 1976 with the opening of an interpretive centre which houses a gallery of exhibits, a gift shop and an observation deck.

Suspension upheld for teen hockey player involved in hazing

A high school hockey player who was found to have been involved in sexualized hazing of rookie teammates lost his suspension appeal.

The youth player was barred from Hockey Canada-sanctioned activities. He was handed the four-year and nine-month suspension from sanctioned hockey after an interim ban issued in March 2024.

He appealed his suspension late last year to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, an independent conflict tribunal, but the centre upheld the youth’s suspension, according to a written decision issued earlier this year.

An independent investigator who probed the hockey player’s actions described the youth as a veteran player who both participated in and co-ordinated the “assigning” of rookie team members to veteran players to perform tasks for them. He himself was “assigned” a rookie, the decision said.

Kinder, gentler drug crackdown finds support, tempered expectations in Main Street area

Drawing a lighter from his pocket, a shirtless man perched on a concrete wall outside United Way Winnipeg’s Main Street headquarters heats a substance in a glass pipe and moves the tube toward his mouth.

Former Selkirk teacher convicted of sexual assault denies latest abuse claim

A former private school teacher convicted of sexual assault against several students has denied he abused the Manitoba man who’s now suing him over different claims of sexual violence.

Kenneth MacKinnon Mealey, a former teacher at St. John’s Cathedral Boys’ School in Selkirk, is named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench earlier this year by a man who was once a student at the school.

Mealey was convicted more than 20 years ago of sexually assaulting several boys at the Anglican private school.

The school in Selkirk — known for its harsh discipline and physically gruelling outdoor exercises — closed more than 30 years ago.

Champion curler Meleschuk never lost his passion for the game

At the height of his curling career, Orest Meleschuk balanced ferocity and finesse like almost no one else.

The Winnipeg product was a fierce competitor skilful enough to thread a rock through a window and find the button.

Known as “The Big O,” he curled competitively for over six decades, finding success at the local, provincial, national and global level, and his longevity on the pebble was notable before lengthy careers became the norm.

Meleschuk is still tied with his good friend John Usackis for the most appearances in the Manitoba men’s provincial playdowns, at 30.

Woman dead in B.C. wildfire as grim video reveals village in ruins

PENTICTON - The wildfire raging near Okanagan Lake in British Columbia's southern Interior claimed the life of an 80-year-old woman as she tried to escape the flames, police said on Sunday, as video footage and grim accounts emerged of nearby devastation.

A statement from Penticton RCMP said the resident of Meadow Valley, northwest of Summerland, B.C., had been trying to flee with a family member "when she died suddenly," believed to be a result of the fire.

Police said the death, reported early Saturday by a witness who was also evacuating, was the only known fatality in the blaze that has forced about 20,000 people out of their homes and left the community of Faulder a smouldering ruin.

The BC Coroners Service was investigating the nature of the woman's death, and police were not aware of any other fatalities in the fire, calling it "a deeply traumatic event," the statement said.