Jewish love story painted in bittersweet strokes

Record number of school trustees win by acclamation

A historic number of school trustees have automatically won their bid to draft classroom budgets and make public education policy in Winnipeg.

‘Amazing honour’: Winnipeg distribution centre continues award-winning ways for McKesson Canada

After a three-year absence, the trophy is back in Winnipeg.

Last week, McKesson Canada named its 120,000-square-foot pharmaceutical distribution centre in the northwest part of the Manitoba capital its Distribution Centre of the Year. The award recognizes the facility’s role in helping essential medications reach communities across the province and some of Canada’s remote regions.

This is the fourth time the Winnipeg facility has earned the company-wide award since it opened five years ago. McKesson previously honoured the centre in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The recognition comes with a trophy, as well as a banner that was hung from the rafters on Thursday.

More than 100 employees work across the centre’s day-and-night operations, processing between 80,000 and 100,000 medication units daily. Last year, the centre distributed more than 21 million medication units while maintaining more than 99 per cent accuracy.

Jewish love story painted in bittersweet strokes

At one point in Daniel Jamieson’s play The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, artist Marc Chagall (Daniel Greenberg) is seen rebelling against the stodgy artists in his native Russian community of Vitebsk, saying that if he wants to paint green cows, he will paint green cows. (Chagall indeed took the green cow as his personal emblem.)

Directed by Ari Weinberg, Jamieson‘s play proceeds with the same kind of counter-intuitive insistence. The play does not project Chagall’s expressionist paintings onto the stage, as we might expect. (For that experience, head off to Beyond Van Gogh at the RBC Convention Centre in July.) Instead, this work, examining Chagall’s love affair with his wife Bella, emulates Chagall’s style through other means, his elegant curves and circles made manifest by a theatre-in-the-round presentation, or in the balletic dance moves between Marc and Bella (Isidora Kecman).

So, yes, the play assumes audience familiarity with the works of Chagall. At the same time, it follows its own rules when it comes to its obligations to convention. For example, this is a musical with only one substantial song over its 75-minute running time (without intermission). But a beautiful song it is, sung in English and Yiddish, written by English composer Ian Ross (not to be confused with the Winnipeg playwright of the same name).

Bittersweet music permeates throughout, courtesy of music director Michael Doherty on keyboards and cellist Tayah Plett. And bittersweet is the proper tone for a story of Jewish lovers living through the early 20th century, encompassing the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust, with Marc and Bella on the move constantly. It is no wonder suitcases are an important design motif here, pressed into service as a cradle or a phone table or a dance floor.

Brandon meat packer thriving on its own

BRANDON — Canada Packers has strengthened its business and laid the foundation for future growth during its first year as an independent company, its president says.

The Brandon-based pork producer, separated from Maple Leaf Foods in October 2025, established its own leadership, strategy, systems, culture and identity while continuing operations across its hog production farms and regional hog barns in southern and eastern Manitoba.

The company’s first year was focused on building a successful standalone business while continuing to serve customers, communities and shareholders, president Dennis Organ said.

“Market conditions over the past year have been more challenging than we anticipated when we became a separate entity,” he said in an email. “Despite that, we continued to execute against our priorities, including increasing processing volumes, maintaining disciplined operations and strengthening the business.”

Sidney Crosby sings praises of Jets' Bjorck, summer training partner Barron

PITTSBURGH — It wasn’t that long ago when the shoe was on the other foot for Sidney Crosby.