Literary fest delivers busy home stretch

Towing company hands stolen car back, but not to owner

A Manitoba man says he is dumbfounded after his car was stolen, impounded by a Winnipeg towing company and given back — to someone that wasn’t him.

Cody Lamb lives in the western Manitoba community of Douglas, about 18 kilometres east of Brandon, but spends weeks away from home working on oil rigs in Alberta.

The 24-year-old says on Sept. 11, while away for work, he heard from his girlfriend who told him his car wasn’t in their driveway. Lamb reported the car stolen to Brandon RCMP the same day.

After filing the report, he heard from Steinbach RCMP on Oct. 1 that his car was recovered that day in the community of Mitchell, roughly five km west of Steinbach.

Dozens of Uber, Lyft drivers switched to cheaper insurance coverage: MPI probe

Ride-service drivers have been defrauding Manitoba Public Insurance by improperly insuring their vehicles as for personal use.

The public insurer and the City of Winnipeg, which regulates ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, discovered the widespread fraud after MPI conducted a review in December last year.

“When a driver changes their coverage from ride-share insurance to a personal vehicle coverage and continues to operate as a ride-share driver, that is fraud, plain and simple,” said MPI chief executive officer Satvir Jatana at a news conference Thursday.

MPI’s review looked at a random sample of 408 ride-hailing vehicles and found 108 were operating without the proper vehicle-for-hire insurance coverage. In order to register with the city as a ride-service driver, a vehicle must have such insurance and proof must be provided to the ride-booking company.

Crime spree lands accused murderers behind bars

Three men have been sentenced to jail terms for a commercial robbery spree in southern Manitoba launched just two weeks after they are accused of killing a 19-year-old man in Abbotsford, B.C.

Twenty-two-year-old Ravdeep Gill of Winnipeg, pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of robbery and Harmandeep Gill, 27, of Brampton, Ont. and Jaskaran Singh, 21, of Surrey, B.C., each pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery for a 10-day crime blitz that targeted gas bars in Swan Lake, Teulon and St. Laurent, and a meat shop in Winnipeg.

Ravdeep Gill was sentenced to four years custody while Harmandeep Gill and Singh each received sentences of 30 months.

According to B.C. media reports, all three men are charged with first-degree murder in a Feb. 1, 2025 killing in Abbotsford that police there described as a targeted hit.

Dog feces vandalism shuts down food pantry

A few shelves set up beneath a West End community notice board were meant to offer a place where neighbours could leave food for anyone who needed it.

Landlords will face fines for breaching confidentiality

The province is amending legislation to allow landlords to be penalized if they breach the confidentiality of tenants who break their lease by obtaining a domestic violence certificate.

“Hopefully, now there’s going to be measures in place so that if this happens again, and God forbid it happens again to anyone else, that there would be penalties imposed on landlords who do that,” said one victim whose concerns were published on the front page of the Free Press last month.

Under current legislation, landlords must ensure that any information received from those tenants regarding the termination of the tenancy is kept confidential, but there are no penalties for landlords who violate that section of the act. After hearing from victims put at risk when landlords broke the law by violating their confidentiality, the government announced Monday that it is amending the Residential Tenancies Act to allow for penalties.

The young woman who spoke to the Free Press showed that her landlord copied her alleged abuser in email correspondence that included her personal email address and the domestic violence certificate she obtained in 2025 to end a tenancy agreement early and leave an abusive relationship.

Nurses disciplined for botched IV infusion

Two nurses working at the Grace Hospital have been reprimanded and fined $2,500 each for an IV infusion gone bad and an attempted coverup.

The incident happened on November 23, 2023 when a nurse asked a colleague to set up an IV infusion on him in an unused operating room.

During the attempted IV start, the nurse lost consciousness. The nurse who attempted the IV drip and another who was in the room called for help and several staff responded.

The nurse regained consciousness and vomited, but recovered and continued to work his shift, a March 18 decision by the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba says.