ID’ing mystery gifter will take a bit of work

A mission to make hearing care easier to access

Armando Di Lello was four years old when he was diagnosed with hearing loss in both ears and received his first hearing aids. He doesn’t remember that moment, but he recalls moments that followed.

“Going through elementary, middle school, high school — it was definitely something that was not a positive experience for me,” he said.

Di Lello’s hearing aids were big, bulky and noisy, and he chose not to wear them much of the time.

“I didn’t perceive the benefit as a kid,” he said. “No kid wants to appear different.”

Quiet opening fitting for controversial site

One of this city’s most loudly debated facilities — after all the angst, all the opposition and all the vocal support — began operations in the most low-key way possible.

RCMP investigating four-year-old girl’s death, two younger girls’ injuries in home on First Nation

RCMP are investigating after a four-year-old girl died in suspicious circumstances at a home in Long Plain First Nation over the weekend.

Paramedics called Manitoba First Nations Police Service officers at about 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, asking for assistance at a home where the girl was reported as injured and in medical distress.

Officers helped paramedics with emergency treatment, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two other girls — a one-year-old and a two-year-old — were also found injured at the home. Paramedics took both to hospital. One of the girls was in critical condition, while the other was stable. Both are now stable.

U of M medical student launching MediLuxe Scrubs Ltd.

By the time Kayla Curtis becomes a doctor, she’ll be running at least two businesses.

The fourth-year University of Manitoba medical student is the founder of WPG Local Cleaners Inc., a cleaning business she started in 2024 to fund her education. Today Curtis is launching MediLuxe Scrubs Ltd., a brand that offers functional and fashionable scrubs for women health-care workers.

“I’ve always loved fashion and creativity, and after spending the last several years in medicine, those two parts of my life naturally started to come together,” Curtis said.

What you wear doesn’t make you a better clinician, the 28-year-old Winnipegger added, but function, professionalism and personal expression don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Couple feels flush after porta-potty scare

Talk about a crappy situation.

Two Winnipeg seniors were driving on the Trans-Canada Highway Monday afternoon when they collided with an unlikely projectile: a porta-potty.

Ed and Helen Toews were driving to their cottage in Sioux Narrows from Kenora, Ont., when a portable toilet came loose from the bed of a passing truck and launched into their car.

Ed Toews, 87, was sitting in the passenger seat when a flash of green came into his line of sight.

Fun drop-in last chance to mentor grads of inner-city school with excellent track record

Summer break may be in full swing, but Gonzaga Middle School invited graduates back to the building for water balloon fights and academic, employment and support services this week.

Roughly 30 alumni, including teenagers and twentysomethings, stopped by the grades 6-8 school in North Point Douglas on Tuesday afternoon. They were greeted with slime-making kits, ice cream sundaes and staff ready to answer questions.

The initiative — the final grad drop-in organized this summer — is a new extension of the mentorship and holistic programming baked into the funded independent school’s mandate.

“We have 22- and 23-year-olds coming back and checking in and asking for help on their university papers,” principal Rex Ferguson-Baird said.