Today’s horoscope

Decrease in crime an inconvenient truth for Poilievre

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have apparently decided that facts are an obstacle to their crime narrative.

Cross Lake pro blueliner walks away from sport he loves to live and work in northern community he loves even more

CROSS LAKE — It’s a hot, hazy Tuesday evening in northern Manitoba, and Jericho Blacksmith and his buddies are gathered inside a baseball dugout.

There isn’t a glove or bat in sight.

Instead, the young men are engaged in a loud, good-natured race to see who can get blackout drunk the fastest, passing around bottles and cans purchased from the local vendor, which had just been restocked when the weekly truck rolled into town earlier that day.

“Honestly, everything can be pretty brutal around here,” says the 26-year-old lifelong resident, pointing to isolation, a lack of opportunity and relentless boredom.

Automation reaches new heights on farm

LANGHAM, Sask. — The thousands of farmers from across the Prairies who flock to the annual Ag in Motion show every July seem oblivious to the possibility the technology on display could one day replace many of them.

Families with children in tow, Hutterite colony workers, grandparents and young couples just starting out roamed through the 600 or more exhibitor displays, amazed at how everything about farming just keeps getting bigger, more efficient and increasingly more automated.

It’s now possible to seed using a 100-foot-wide drill — a 12-foot jump over the widest available a few years ago — provided the farmer can afford a tractor with enough horsepower to pull it. Those sell for around $850,000 and up.

Granted, the number of farms with enough acres to justify that kind of width and drawing power is still relatively small, but farms continue to grow. And it’s no secret the number of people who have the interest, skills and financial wherewithal to run them continues to shrink.

Former Tory cabinet minister runs for Brandon trustee

BRANDON — Jim McCrae, a former attorney general of Manitoba, has registered to run for a seat on the Brandon School Division board of trustees.

McCrae, 77, had a long political career as a Tory cabinet minister and before that, a Brandon city councillor.

He said his decades of public service and education experience have prepared him to contribute to the governance of the school division.

“My last cabinet position was as minister of education and training. I travelled extensively in Manitoba and met with many teachers and others involved with the education of our children,” McCrae told the Brandon Sun.

Up to the challenge

There may not be another restaurant in Manitoba that can say it has welcomed visitors from as many communities across the province and beyond as the Somerset Food Bar & Lounge has this summer.

In just over a two week span, visitors from more than 100 towns have come out to the family-owned restaurant tucked away in Somerset, a community of roughly 450 people in the Pembina Valley 130 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

It started as a challenge, “60 Towns in 60 Days,” where the restaurant wanted to document how many different places they could reach, as it often sees people travelling across Canada stop at the restaurant. The goal was also to encourage people to make a drive they normally wouldn’t.

“The more we started sharing, the more people really started getting behind it, and it turned into this really big thing fairly quickly,” said Jay Friesen, restaurant manager.

Ref ‘dominates’ game in Sea Bears loss to Honey Badgers, says coach

Following a festive Christmas-in-July-themed Saturday afternoon inside Canada Life Centre, Winnipeg Sea Bears head coach Mike Raimbault didn’t mince words about who he thought was the Grinch in a hard-fought 88-86 loss to the visiting Brampton Honey Badgers that ended in controversy.

As the Sea Bears owned a one-point lead in Target Score Time, Brampton guard Sean East II was awarded three free throws — all of which he converted — after a questionable foul called on Teddy Allen by official Perry Stothart.

Raimbault, who has been known to bite his tongue on such topics, left nothing to the imagination about where he stood on the game-deciding judgment made in a game that had major post-season implications.

“I just felt like it was a fitting ending to the game where Perry Stothart had dominated the flow of the game from the start,” he said. “For him to call a bit of a guess foul and end the game on the foul, I felt like it’s disappointing that he can come in and dictate how the game’s going to be played and flow, and (that) continues to be a bit of an M.O. for him. So I think we’re disappointed with the fact that the league continues to let that happen.”