The story’s the thing in entertaining reinvention of Jack and the Beanstalk story

Gillingham in lead with decided voters

A cloud of uncertainty is hanging over Winnipeg as October’s municipal election nears.

Three months after a poll showed more than 40 per cent of Winnipeggers wanted to see someone other than current mayor Scott Gillingham elected, a new Abacus Data poll indicates more than half of Winnipeg voters are undecided heading into next month’s civic election.

Of decided voters, 55 per cent favour Gillingham compared to 23 per cent for former councillor and provincial cabinet minister Kevin Klein and 11 per cent for funeral director Mike Vogiatzakis.

Of all respondents, just over 50 per cent said they were unsure while 13 per cent said they will not vote.

Siloam Mission, WFPS discussing on-site paramedic to reduce staggering number of emergency calls

Winnipeg’s fire-paramedic service and its largest homeless-serving organization are discussing what it would look like to station at least one paramedic at Siloam Mission, as emergency calls to the downtown facility surge.

The ongoing discussions come as Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews were dispatched 1,771 times during the first eight months of the year to the two adjacent Siloam properties at 303 Stanley St. and 300 Princess St.

WFPS said most of the calls were related to overdoses or other consequences of substance use, with the total nearly double the 854 calls recorded over the same period last year. By comparison, there were 831 calls during the same span in 2024, and 591 in 2023.

“The number of emergency calls isn’t sustainable for us as a service, but it’s certainly not sustainable for them as an agency trying to provide services,” WFPS chief Ryan Sneath told the Free Press. “And they recognize that they’re impacting emergency services, not them specifically, but the site in a significant way.”

Klein has burned bridges with PM, Gillingham says

One mayoral candidate accused another of writing a column so critical it could compromise his ability to work with the federal government.

Cabernet Sauvignon star of wine festival

The Winnipeg Wine Festival will celebrate the king of red wine grapes next weekend — the theme of this year’s festival, which takes place Sept. 25 and 26 at the RBC Convention Centre, is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cab Sauv, as it’s also known, is the world’s most widely planted wine grape of any colour, first coming to prominence in the 1800s in France’s Bordeaux region, where the grape is still popular. Rather than single-variety wines, Bordeaux reds tend to be blends, with those coming from the left bank of the Gironde estuary being Cabernet-dominant, while right-bank wines are Merlot-dominant, with Cabernet Sauvignon playing a supporting role. Cabernet and Merlot work well together and many other countries have followed suit in blending the two.

A team at University of California Davis put Cabernet Sauvignon through a DNA test in 1996 and discovered its parent grapes are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc — it’s likely that at some point the two varieties, planted next to each other in some vineyard, crossed and mutated and became the grape we know today. (Someone growing grapes in the 19th century must have had an inkling of what was up, as the grape has been called Cabernet Sauvignon since long before the DNA test.)

Flavour-wise, most Cabernet Sauvignon wines are big and bold, with a core of deep dark berry flavours, some graphite and spice notes and relatively bright acidity. It’s a grape that is well-suited to barrel aging, with most examples seeing at least some time in wood.

Hellebuyck standoff caused by… Nathan MacKinnon?

Looking for someone to blame in the Connor Hellebuyck fiasco and cast as public enemy No. 1? How about long-time Winnipeg Jets nemesis Nathan MacKinnon?

Allow us to explain as we fire up the time machine and head back to February in Italy.

Oh, what could have been if MacKinnon had been able to score on what appeared to be an open net late in the third period of the men’s gold medal game with Hellebuyck down and seemingly out of position.

Instead, the star forward fired wide, keeping the score deadlocked at 1-1 as the clock ticked down on regulation.