Donated tuques for homeless are warm-hearted, handmade therapy for woman who makes them

J’accuse!: Kinew uses French to fry interim Tory leader over alleged caucus subterfuge

NDP Premier Wab Kinew took a dig at the Progressive Conservatives’ leadership change while facing off with Obby Khan’s short-term replacement for the first time in question period Thursday.

It came after interim Tory leader Konrad Narth accused the New Democrats of failing to implement “stronger” bail reform and enforcement measures as promised.

“Now we see there is less crime in Manitoba than there was when the Progressive Conservatives were in government. What are they doing now? Well, they found knives and chased their old leader out,” Kinew said, speaking in French.

“We don’t even know who’s going to be the PC leader next month… next year? We don’t know. What we know is that we’re working on making communities safer.”

Sisters relieved hospital takes accountability after mother’s death

Eight months after losing their mother, two Winnipeg sisters say an internal hospital review has finally given them something they had been seeking since her death: accountability.

Chelsea Mann and Samantha Burns said St. Boniface Hospital officials acknowledged mistakes were made in the care of their mother, Judy Burns, during a recent meeting to discuss the findings of a critical incident review into her death.

The acknowledgement marked a significant departure from an earlier meeting with hospital officials, when they felt their concerns were largely dismissed.

Burns, 68, died on Jan. 21, three days after being admitted, after experiencing rectal bleeding.

Time for AI guardrails is right now

The genie is most definitely out of the bottle.

And while there’s little chance of putting it back in, we should be very concerned that the people who released it from the bottle are now frantically warning us that it has become disinclined to do their — or our — bidding and seems instead to be increasingly intent on following its own whims and granting wishes to itself.

The figurative genie, in this case, is artificial intelligence, or AI, and in recent weeks many of the tech geniuses responsible for its development and introduction into the digital-information realm have begun asking the U.S. government and even the United Nations to impose limits on the pace and breadth of its growth.

Their fear is that, as AI very quickly continues to advance and develops the ability to make independent decisions and essentially think for itself, it will cease to be a tool controlled by its creators and instead will become a species unto itself that might eventually decide it’s better off without humans continually messing things up.

Letters, Oct. 1

Did anyone else see the irony when Premier Wab Kinew announced at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre that Manitoba would adopt permanent Daylight Time (DT) and had hired 17 new psychiatrists this year?

Gillingham talks trash, pledges big bin boost

Scott Gillingham says he would add hundreds of locked garbage bins downtown to prevent unsightly trash piles if re-elected as mayor.

Gillingham led a program that added about 120 locked garbage bins along Portage Avenue and Main Street last fall, after trash was repeatedly strewn around the area. If he wins a second term, he plans to add at least 200 more of the receptacles.

A look at how one locked Main Street recycle/garbage bin in front of city hall fared offers an example of the bins’ success so far, he said.

“Every day, you would see the lids up, and people had been rifling through it, or someone left the lid up and the wind picked up the garbage and (spread) it everywhere. It’s much more difficult now. Once the garbage is in, the garbage stays in,” said Gillingham.

Manitoba man accused of killing five family members dismisses lawyers for second time

WINNIPEG - A Manitoba man accused of killing his three young children, their mother and a teen relative has parted ways with his lawyers for the second time this year. 

Ryan Manoakeesick, who is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, is seeking new counsel because of a breakdown in the  relationship with his lawyers.

"We were hopeful that we would be able to maintain that solicitor-client relationship in good standing with Mr. Manoakeesick. But ultimately his latest instructions to us are inconsistent with the last set of instructions of this week," Crystal Antila, one of the lawyers, told Court of King's Bench Justice Candace Grammond on Thursday.

"And at this point he also wishes to explore the opportunity to find other counsel."