‘Little Mosque on the Prairie’ creator among finalists for Leacock Medal for Humour

School violence deplorable

Re: Student violence surges, MGEU says (Oct. 17)

It’s heartbreaking to read and hear stories of school staff being physically and emotionally abused. Students are increasingly coming to the classroom with very complex needs. Staff hours lost to this abuse are surely increasing.

Money and resources are always scarce when it comes to funding education. Stories of para-professionals having to accommodate and work with a plethora of classroom needs are not uncommon.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I just ran into the short-haired girl I was crazy in love with back in high school. She wore all black clothes, kind of looked like a guy, but used dark lipstick and dyed her hair different weird colours. She always looked like a scary, powerful woman and she loved to tease me, because I was shy back then.

She was standing there in the sun, and I liked her new look — blue-black hair, dressed in a black suit, hot-looking and powerful as ever! But after we started talking, she suggested we go catch up over a drink and lunch.

After eating and drinking a lot on my tab, she was a bit tipsy and confessed she already has a boyfriend she quite likes, because he doesn’t bow down to her.

To get even, I told her I had a girlfriend, “but that could change.” Then I paid the tab. She finally liked something about me!

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BRANDON — Charges were stayed mid-trial for a man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in an abandoned house after the youth admitted during cross-examination she was lying about what happened.

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison peppered the 15-year-old victim with questions in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench on Monday, suggesting she feared getting in trouble if she now spoke the truth, despite previously telling police his client, 22, inappropriately touched her in a July 2024 incident.

The girl, who can’t be identified due to a publication ban, initially held firm in her testimony, saying, “No, he did touch me inappropriately,” before Harrison posed the question again, and she answered, “I can’t really understand.”

Harrison asked the question a third time, saying, “I’m going to suggest that you’re concerned that if you tell the truth that he didn’t touch you, that you may get in trouble. That’s the situation, isn’t it?”