WAG removing former director Eckhardt’s name, continuing probe over Nazi allegations

Backstreet Boys’ 12-show Toronto run offers millennials a ticket to simpler times

When Chelsea Smith heard the Backstreet Boys were coming to Toronto, she had a simple message for the five men who soundtracked her childhood.

“Here's my credit card, take all my money.”

The 35-year-old Vancouver fan wasn’t bluffing. Having already travelled to Las Vegas to see her teenybopper crushes, she's now preparing to fly across the country for two Toronto concerts, spending roughly $600 on tickets alone.

And she's hardly the only millennial willing to pay a tidy sum to party like it’s 1999.

Disgraced ex-dean landed job at German university after fleeing Winnipeg

Before he was arrested in a posh Paris suburb, the disgraced dean of Manitoba’s only law school — who fled the country following a 2020 expense scandal — kept a low profile at a German university.

Officials say catastrophic base fire was known ahead of time, allowed to burn

Canada's military says a grass fire that killed four soldiers and sent scores more to hospital with bad burns was known well beforehand but not considered a threat.

Maj.-Gen. Wade Rutland, commander of 1st Canadian Division, says the grass fire was a kilometre away and considered sufficiently under control that training exercises were allowed to continue Saturday afternoon at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in central Alberta.

However, he said conditions — including a violent, sudden windstorm — sent those flames racing over the Prairie landscape at lightning speed, landing right on top of the soldiers.

"This was a very uncommon occurrence," Rutland told a news conference Sunday.

WAG removing former director Eckhardt’s name, continuing probe over Nazi allegations

Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq has begun the process of removing Ferdinand Eckhardt’s name from the main entrance hall, website and other gallery materials following recent allegations that the former WAG director was a Nazi supporter while living in Germany in the 1930s.

A statement about the decision, based on an independent internal investigation, was posted on WAG-Qaumajuq’s website in December.

The gallery says it is continuing to research the source of donations made by Eckhardt and the Eckhardt-Gramatté Foundation (his late wife was the composer and musician Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté), and if any Nazi-confiscated art is discovered in the collection, “all efforts would be made to return it to the rightful owners or their heirs.”

“The gallery has been doing this research for several decades; and while no gaps in the ownership in the Eckhardt-Gramatté Collection at WAG-Qaumajuq have been found, this investigative work has not been concluded.”

Detox centre ready but staffing challenges persist

Peter McMullen’s decade-long struggle with addiction gives him insight into the challenges Lighthouse Mission hopes to address with a new Main Street detox facility focused on connecting people with longer-term treatment.

McMullen, executive director of Lighthouse Mission, knows how difficult it can be to navigate Winnipeg’s addiction treatment system, particularly when someone is ready to seek help but the services they need aren’t immediately available.

Now, after years of planning and a lengthy renovation of two century-old buildings, the downtown organization is preparing to open a 10-bed detox facility at 667 and 669 Main St., with five beds each for men and women.

The facility could begin accepting clients as early as November, provided Lighthouse Mission can overcome one final hurdle: recruiting enough staff to operate it.