French singer Patrick Bruel in police custody over alleged rape and sexual assault

Manitoba’s small oil, gas sector lists 31 ownerless sites — far cry from thousands in Alberta, Saskatchewan

As other western provinces struggle to address the environmental and economic fallout from an accumulation of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells, only a tiny portion of Manitoba’s petroleum infrastructure is sitting idle and unclaimed.

But it’s unclear if the province’s small roster of orphan wells is the byproduct of effective regulation — or an historic lack of departmental oversight.

Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is relatively small and generally opaque. None of the experts contacted for this story had direct knowledge of the province’s orphan well landscape.

“My lab has probably measured the most non-producing wells in the country. I don’t think anybody I know is working on it (in Manitoba) who are in the academic realm,” says Mary Kang, an associate professor in civil engineering at McGill University in Montreal.

Firefighter admits to conditional sentence breach

A Winnipeg firefighter previously jailed for criminally harassing two different women has been released from custody after admitting to breaching a conditional sentence order.

Christopher Goethals, 59, was arrested July 21 after an alert from his ankle monitor six days earlier showed he had driven within 400 metres of the workplace of a former girlfriend he had been ordered to have no contact with.

Goethals pleaded guilty Wednesday to not being in possession of a copy of his conditional sentence order, a requirement of his sentence.

Crown attorney Amanda Heslop withdrew a breach charge related to Goethals’ electronic monitoring conditions and stayed a third charge of disobeying a court order.

Relief, reproach from law school staff after disgraced ex-dean’s arrest in France

The overseas arrest of a disgraced former law dean who defrauded the University of Manitoba out of more than $600,000 is being met both with relief and renewed frustration in the local legal community.

Two U.S. presidents, and America’s decline

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” — Abraham Lincoln in his Cooper Union address, given in New York City in 1860.

“When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60 per of the oil in the world. So it’s perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils.” — U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to the United Nations on Tuesday. (And a point of clarification — combining U.S. and Venezuelan oil would amount to 22 per cent of global oil reserves.)

It is quite the juxtaposition: Lincoln speaking in one of his strongest speeches, making the case that slavery should not be extended to the Northern Territories of the U.S. It was a sentence — the closing line in his speech, in fact — which argued that moral truth and justice will prevail against brute force, and that moral behaviour will, in itself, become power.

Donald Trump essentially argued that the obverse is true: that brute force justifies all behaviour — saying that might is right. The end of seizing control justifies the means, the means in this case being an invasion of Venezuela and the end being gaining de facto control of an independent nation’s resources.

‘Extremely disappointed’: hunters being turned away near Bloodvein First Nation, Manitoba Wildlife Federation says

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation says hunters are again being refused access to land near Bloodvein River First Nation, a year after leadership told court it would let them through.

Husband of rival sex club owner accused in attempted bathhouse bombing

A Winnipeg bathhouse owner says he was shocked to learn the man accused of planting a pipe bomb outside his business is married to the owner of a competing sex and lifestyle club.

Christopher Gregoire, who recently took ownership of AQ Sauna, said a live pipe bomb was found by a “heroic patron” outside the club, formerly known as Aquarius Bath House, in the early morning hours of Sept. 11.

On Thursday, the Winnipeg Police Service announced Erik Lymen Olson, 59, was facing multiple charges in the incident. Olson is the husband of Adonis Men’s Spa owner Doug Pomanski.

“This is wild,” Gregoire said after learning of the charges.