Not your average puppet show

Highway-safety upgrades in progress after tragic Interlake crash

Provincial workers have started to update or install safety measures at a rural Interlake intersection where four teenage friends died in a crash on Labour Day weekend.

Pavement markings were repainted at Highway 8 and Provincial Road 229, just west of Winnipeg Beach, ahead of work to refresh worn-down rumble strips, starting Monday, and install flashing lights atop two stop signs, following an assessment earlier this week.

“They will also need to incorporate any information from the RCMP report that might be helpful if we were to consider any additional safety measures at this intersection,” Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor said of department staff.

“The most important thing is safety, and any kinds of changes we make at any intersection actually have to make it safer.”

Canadians loving Carney’s decision to stand tall against floundering U.S. bully

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic political contrast than the one unfolding on opposite sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

Mark Carney is fighting a trade war with Donald Trump, taking the occasional verbal punch from the American president and imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.

And the prime minister is being rewarded for it politically.

Trump, meanwhile, is fighting pretty much everyone he can find — including some of America’s closest allies — and his own voters are increasingly giving him the political equivalent of a raised middle finger. That’s quite a tale of two leaders.

Pokemon thieves clear out collectibles shop

Terri Settle loved watching children walk into her collectibles shop to hunt for their favourite Pokemon cards.

After the latest break in stripped her shelves of much of the inventory, she’s not sure she’ll get to see it again.

Thieves broke into Terri’s Trinkets and Toys on Tuesday evening, punching through a grate and then the store’s bathroom wall to reach the storefront.

They made off with about $6,000 worth of merchandise, including all of the store’s Pokemon cards — about 7,000 of them — along with toys, Lego, jewelry, video games, a debit machine and personal laptop. They even took her vacuum cleaner.

A life's story: ‘Ivor the Driver’ found his calling in the ranching life

Ivor Asham’s family couldn’t have picked a better image to accompany his obituary. There he is, riding Flash, his beloved brown and white quarter horse, a black cowboy hat on his head and a drink in his hand.

Asham owned and operated Birds Hill Park Ranch for nearly 35 years, where he shared his lifelong passion for horses with thousands of visitors. He moved hay, harnessed horses and drove the wagons, introducing himself as “Ivor the Driver.”

Over the years, Asham built a reputation as the quintessential cowboy.

There’s a restaurant at the ranch filled with memorabilia that he collected over the years. Calgary Stampede posters, cowboy boot-shaped shot glasses, a child’s rocking horse, a wagon wheel and numerous photos of legendary actor John Wayne are just some of the items that line the walls.

Education minister’s reasons for revoking teacher’s licence ‘not good enough,’ judge decides

A Manitoba judge has rejected the education minister’s decision to end a teacher’s career because he repeatedly messaged with a 13-year-old girl on social media.

Goodness alive, well in N.L.-set musical

I first saw Come From Away — the true-story musical about the incredible efforts of the residents of Gander, N.L. on Sept. 11, 2001, who welcomed nearly 7,000 travellers diverted to their remote town after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — in 2022, when Broadway Across Canada brought it to the Centennial Concert Hall.

I went in cold, but with blunted expectations; it seemed, on premise alone, like it could tilt too far into shmaltzy sentimentality, that it would be too earnest in its goodness.

So, when I wept until my face was as wet and salty as though it had been slapped by the waves of the North Atlantic, I was pleasantly surprised. I loved it. It’s emotional, yes. It’s sentimental, yes. But you can’t help but feel both buoyed — and, dare I say, patriotic — by the end of it.

Written by Canadians Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away seemed an unlikely hit when it opened on Broadway in 2017. But there was, by then, an appetite for it.