Scammers leave Winnipeg woman penniless

A Winnipeg woman was forced to rely on her 91-year-old mother to pay her rent after scammers claiming to be from a bank left her penniless.

Lisa Taron, 62, who lives on a fixed income in subsidized seniors housing, is out thousands of dollars after scammers were able to get into her bank account and clean it out before she could get it stopped.

Now, Taron is warning others about how she was scammed, because if it hadn’t been for her elderly mom, she would be on the street.

“This left me crushed. No money for rent, food, medication, bus pass. I had to borrow money from my 91-year-old mother who keeps asking me, now, when she is getting her money back. What would I have done without the bank of mom?” she said.

Shared Health lacks data to predict future staffing needs

Shared Health — which is tasked with planning future health-care staffing requirements in Manitoba— has no “responsive records” to show workforce modelling or a forecast of future staffing needs.

That lack of data, the result of a freedom of information request, perpetuates labour shortages and harms patients, critics say.

Noah Schulz, provincial director of the Manitoba Health Coalition, deemed Shared Health’s response to the request “really frustrating.”

“They say, ‘We are working on a HHR plan.’ That should be already done,” he said.

Winkler-product records first career major league hit, walk-off RBI single

Have yourself a week, Tristan Peters.

Nearly two decades after Corey Koskie recorded the final hit of his big-league career, another Manitoban is beginning to write his own story at the highest level.

If the past seven days are any indication, it’s going to be a real page-turner.

Peters, the pride of Winkler, started this MLB season with a bang, belting his first career hit last Saturday in Milwaukee — a line-drive double to left field off Brewers right-hander Chad Patrick.

Dunstone beats Scotland 9-7 in semis, will play for world men’s curling gold

OGDEN - Canada's Matt Dunstone will be playing for a gold medal on Saturday at the world men's curling championship.

The Winnipeg-based team defeated Scotland 9-7 in a thrilling semifinal Friday evening, scoring a deuce in the ninth to go ahead 8-7 and then stealing one in the 10th to beat Ross Whyte's squad.

The teams were tied 3-3 after five ends, Scotland went up 5-3 in the sixth and Canada scored three in the seventh to take a 6-5 lead. Scotland responded with a deuce in the eighth to go ahead 7-6.

Earlier in the day, Canada defeated Italy's Stefano Spiller 9-7 in a qualification game.

Convicted mail bomber loses parole-denial appeal

Convicted mail bomber Guido Amsel has lost his fight for full parole, after his appeal for release was shot down by the Parole Board of Canada.

In 2018, Amsel received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years for the attempted murders of his ex-wife Iris Amsel and lawyers Maria Mitousis and George Orle in 2015 by mailing explosives to them. One of the bombs, placed inside a hand-held tape recorder with instructions to press the “play” button, exploded in Mitousis’s office, resulting in the loss of her right hand.

He was also sentenced to 12 years minus time served for an earlier attempt to murder his ex-wife in 2013.

He was 59 years old in August, when he appeared before the board to argue for full parole. Had it been granted, he would have been released from federal custody and deported to Germany, where he was born and lived for decades.

Fewer than 2,500 Manitobans declare intention to turn over prohibited firearms in federal buyback program

The federal government’s deadline for Canadians to declare ownership of prohibited assault-style firearms and get paid for them passed Tuesday with 2,442 Manitobans indicating they will surrender their guns.

“There’s very little uptake,” Manitoba Wildlife Federation senior policy adviser Chris Heald said Thursday.

The federation has slammed Ottawa for regulations targeting law-abiding hunters and sport shooters, rather than criminals.

“I think there’s a lot of mistrust with the federal government and the way they handled this whole file,” said Heald.

Judge delays sentencing for hockey coach convicted of sexually assaulting player

Sentencing for a former youth hockey coach guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing one of her players for more than a year has been delayed a second time.

Baby black bears orphaned after mother killed

Manitoba Conservation is investigating the killing of a mother bear who was illegally shot this week.

The location of a bear’s den north of Balmoral was posted to social media a few weeks ago, according to Judy Stearns, who co-owns Black Bear Rescue Manitoba with her husband.

Stearns warned the online audience not to disclose the co-ordinates out of fear something bad could happen.

“I did a post on our Facebook page to get the word out that people shouldn’t be doing this,” she said Wednesday.

2 US aircraft shot down as war in Iran escalates. At least 1 crew member is missing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran shot down two U.S. military planes in separate attacks Friday, with one service member rescued and at least one missing, in a dramatic escalation since the war began nearly five weeks ago.

It was the first time U.S. aircraft have been downed in the conflict and came just two days after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the U.S. has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast.”

One fighter jet was shot down in Iran, officials said. A U.S. crew member from that plane was rescued, but a second was missing, and a U.S. military search-and-rescue operation was underway.

Neither the White House nor Pentagon released public information about the downed planes. In a brief telephone interview with NBC News, Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue efforts but said what happened would not affect negotiations with Iran.

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill 8 as Kyiv holds door open for Easter truce

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian strikes killed at least eight people across Ukraine on Friday, including in a “massive” missile and drone attack near the capital, local authorities reported.

Ukrainian officials claim the Kremlin is changing its tactics to increase civilian suffering, shifting to daytime barrages and preparing to target more key infrastructure.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signaled Kyiv's openness to a potential Easter truce. The holiday is celebrated on April 12 in Ukraine and Russia.

Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is preparing for a shift in Russian aerial tactics, with intelligence indicating that future attacks will move beyond energy infrastructure.