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An ambassador, a petition and 213,000 signatures

You have to admit, they have a point.

As of 7 a.m. on Monday, 209,909 Canadians had signed it. By 9:41 a.m., that number had reached 211,846. By 10:54 a.m., 213,124. And there are months left to sign.

It is an electronic petition to have the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, ousted and sent back to Trump’s America.

The reasons? Well, ambassadors are meant to represent the national positions of their governments and you could argue that Hoekstra is doing exactly that: his blunt pronouncements on things such as Canadian sovereignty sound very much like the words of one Donald Trump, President of the United States.

Close to 5,000 net new health-care workers added since 2023 election, province says

Manitoba has added 4,725 net new health-care workers to the provincial system since the NDP won the October 2023 election, Premier Wab Kinew told reporters Tuesday.

The government’s total includes 370 doctors, 1,464 nurses, 2,152 health-care aides and 607 allied health professionals, a group that includes physiotherapists, dietitians, paramedics, medical lab technologists and others.

Kinew said more doctors and nurses are working in Manitoba than ever before.

“We also know there’s a lot that needs to be done,” he said at a news conference at Seven Oaks General Hospital in northwest Winnipeg.

Letters, Aug. 18

A huge shout out to David Asper, coach Mike Raimbault and his staff, all those involved in game-day and office activities and all the Winnipeg Sea Bears players for an outstanding and very entertaining championship basketball season.

Hayden Panettiere, who starred in ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville,’ dies at 36

Hayden Panettiere, a onetime child star who soared to fame in the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville” while enduring struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, has died. She was 36.

Police said Panettiere was found unresponsive in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday. Lifesaving measures were performed but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

No cause of death has been determined and Panettiere's death remains under investigation. An autopsy found no signs of trauma and police said officers saw no signs of foul play.

The television and film performer, who would have turned 37 on Friday, had been open about her private battles and wrote at length about them in the memoir, “This Is Me,” which came out in May. She described lifelong scars from her early fame, and acknowledged being addicted to alcohol and enduring postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

Two-time cancer survivor trades blows with angry Lake Winnipeg in epic 12-hour fundraising swim

After 12 hours of wind, waves and a painful shoulder, Jonathon Fenton has finished what he started, making it across Lake Winnipeg.

The 62-year-old two-time cancer survivor completed the roughly 26-kilometre swim Sunday, a year after shoulder problems forced him to stop 16 kilometres into his first attempt.

The swim was the second year of Fenton’s Jonny’s Big Swim fundraiser, which supports the Alberta Cancer Foundation, CancerCare Manitoba Foundation and Health Sciences Centre Foundation.

He raised roughly $48,000 this year, bringing the two-year total to about $90,000.

Fundraising rappel from top of downtown tower with persuasive granddaughter leaves 72-year-old exhilarated

It’s safe to say that most people don’t spend Tuesday mornings rappelling 83 metres down the side of a downtown building.

With their 72-year-old grandmother.

But that’s exactly how 23-year-old Morgan Parker started her Tuesday.

Parker and her grandmother Christine Jameus were among 50 Manitobans who took part in Easter Seals’ Drop Zone, raising money for Manitoba Possible, a non-profit organization working to eliminate barriers to full and equal participation for people with disabilities.