Calgarians want website to be comedy destination

Body of second sibling pulled from lake

NUTIMIK LAKE — Twenty-four hours after the body of 10-year-old Maximo Au Ramirez was located in Nutimik Lake, searchers found the body of his 13-year-old brother, Aaron, who had gone into the water to rescue Maximo after he slipped in Saturday.

The announcement was made on social media by Nutimik Lodge in Whiteshell Provincial Park. “Our prayers have been answered” the post said. “Both boys have been recovered.”

Earlier Thursday, their parents said they are surviving their “unimaginable” loss only because of the overwhelming support they have received from the community.

In the afternoon, RCMP divers, the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team and civilian volunteers moved across Nutimik Lake, drones hovered above and media lined the beach as the search for Aaron continued.

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.

Dropping the gloves to make the point

In hockey parlance, it’s called “shedding,” the moment in a game when you are forced to deal with an instigator by dropping (shedding) your gloves for an all-out brawl.

That term is a deep cut from hockey culture that Prime Minister Mark Carney — he of the “elbows up” phenomenon — may need to not only embrace but practise more often in the face of yet another round of overly punitive tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump.

To be fair, under Carney’s leadership, Canada has not exactly rolled over in the face of Trump’s bully-boy tactics.

Yes, Canada has made concessions to placate Trump to further a new continental trade agreement: investing more money to combat the cross-border flow of fentanyl that isn’t actually happening, stalling efforts to tax streaming companies as most European countries already do, and — most recently — giving Trump a cut of profits from the Canadian-made, Canadian-paid Gordie Howe bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

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.

Selfie part of investigation into Grant Park football coach

A selfie of a high school football coach grinning beside a Free Press front-page story about the investigation into his professional conduct has become part of the case.

Doug Kovacs, a resource teacher at Grant Park High School who runs the Pirates football program, was put on leave in the spring.

The Winnipeg School Division employee is the subject of an investigation into allegations that athletes on his AAAA varsity team engaged in hazing that led to at least one player getting injured last year.

The Free Press has learned that on July 8 — the day it was revealed in print that Manitoba’s teacher commissioner had launched a third-party probe — a photo of Kovacs posing with a newspaper began circulating in the football community.

Bridgwater residents fed up with Manitoba Housing eyesore

A weed-covered plot of land in Bridgwater has been left to grow wild all summer, raising the ire of neighbours who say they were told the property is owned by Manitoba Housing and bylaw officers cannot intervene.