Koncan’s zahgidiwin/love earns playwright award

Holocaust tour helps Manitoba teachers tackle difficult subject

Casey Whitfield’s voice cracked and he began to cry as he recalled the children’s drawings — one of which depicts an adult being hanged — on display in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Physical activity ‘for every single child’

All high school students will be required to show up for in-person phys-ed classes to graduate as part of a new curriculum announced by the Manitoba government Thursday.

Phys-ed and health are compulsory classes from grades 1 to 12, but students can currently sign up for flexible or self-directed options at the end of their high school careers.

Changes to the curriculum — which apply to all grades, but Grade 11 and 12 students, in particular — will make in-person phys-ed classes mandatory across Manitoba, starting in the 2028-29 school year. The policy is called “Every Body, Every Day.”

“When we talk about health in Manitoba, this is a category where, unfortunately, we’ve been the leader in too many negative areas,” Premier Wab Kinew said at a news conference at Victor Mager School in St. Vital.

Bombers give would-be boo birds their marching orders

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are being criticized by some fans online for booking the University of North Dakota’s marching band for Friday’s game against Montreal.

Fear and loathing in bedbug-infested seniors building

Years of living in a regularly infested suite in an always-infested building have given Lewie Gwyllt nightmares in which he’s wrestling giant bedbugs.

The 64-year-old has lived at 529 Country Club Blvd., a 107-unit seniors’ home run by Manitoba Housing, for nearly eight years. Much of his tenancy has been marked by monthly, but futile, bedbug-eradication treatments.

Gwyllt’s routine is set in stone: he bags his laundry, steams his clothes, and buys covers for any piece of furniture he buys. He has a physical disability and struggles to move things when the pest-control people arrive to spray for the bugs, but he knows the nooks and crannies of his baseboards are a problem spot.

The mental toll has weighed heavily on him. He takes anti-anxiety medication to deal with the stress and despair when the treatments don’t work.

Man who tried to kill pregnant woman pleads guilty

A 21-year-old man has pleaded guilty to attempted murder for cutting a pregnant woman’s throat and repeatedly stabbing her during a home invasion in Erickson in 2023.