Winnipegger’s film picked for Oscar consideration

Dog feces vandalism shuts down food pantry

A few shelves set up beneath a West End community notice board were meant to offer a place where neighbours could leave food for anyone who needed it.

Towing company hands stolen car back, but not to owner

A Manitoba man says he is dumbfounded after his car was stolen, impounded by a Winnipeg towing company and given back — to someone that wasn’t him.

Cody Lamb lives in the western Manitoba community of Douglas, about 18 kilometres east of Brandon, but spends weeks away from home working on oil rigs in Alberta.

The 24-year-old says on Sept. 11, while away for work, he heard from his girlfriend who told him his car wasn’t in their driveway. Lamb reported the car stolen to Brandon RCMP the same day.

After filing the report, he heard from Steinbach RCMP on Oct. 1 that his car was recovered that day in the community of Mitchell, roughly five km west of Steinbach.

Phoneless concert a beautiful chance to bask in moment

Outside the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, digital billboards flashed fans their singular photo op for the night: “I took this photo before I saw Phoebe Bridgers: The Lost Tour 2026.”

It is, as it is for so many other people, my only documentation of a concert by one of my favourite artists. The American singer-songwriter — who I discovered at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2018 — has had a meteoric rise in the past few years, winning three Grammys in 2024 as one third of Boygenius, the indie-rock supergroup rounded out by Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, and opening for Taylor Swift on select dates of her titanic Eras Tour.

Now, Bridgers is touring in support of Lost Weekend, her third album and first since 2020’s Punisher. It’s a feat of a record, a richly textured meditation on loss and grief, written in the aftermath of the death of her dad, with whom she had a complicated relationship.

So she is in a position to not only play multiple sold-out arena shows, but also insist that those shows be phone-free.

Piece of Winnipeg’s magic history disappears

A piece of Winnipeg’s magic history has vanished, and internationally renowned escape artist Dean Gunnarson is offering a $500 reward to anyone who can make it reappear.

The plaque marked the birthplace of what has become the world’s largest organization of professional and amateur magicians, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, which was founded in Winnipeg more than a century ago.

Gunnarson said fellow magician and local magic historian Bruce Thompson discovered the disappearance Tuesday while on his way to work.

Thompson returned to inspect the site and found what appeared to be evidence it had been forcibly removed.

Landlords will face fines for breaching confidentiality

The province is amending legislation to allow landlords to be penalized if they breach the confidentiality of tenants who break their lease by obtaining a domestic violence certificate.

“Hopefully, now there’s going to be measures in place so that if this happens again, and God forbid it happens again to anyone else, that there would be penalties imposed on landlords who do that,” said one victim whose concerns were published on the front page of the Free Press last month.

Under current legislation, landlords must ensure that any information received from those tenants regarding the termination of the tenancy is kept confidential, but there are no penalties for landlords who violate that section of the act. After hearing from victims put at risk when landlords broke the law by violating their confidentiality, the government announced Monday that it is amending the Residential Tenancies Act to allow for penalties.

The young woman who spoke to the Free Press showed that her landlord copied her alleged abuser in email correspondence that included her personal email address and the domestic violence certificate she obtained in 2025 to end a tenancy agreement early and leave an abusive relationship.