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Disgraced ex-dean landed job at German university after fleeing Winnipeg

Before he was arrested in a posh Paris suburb, the disgraced dean of Manitoba’s only law school — who fled the country following a 2020 expense scandal — kept a low profile at a German university.

Consumer apprehension grows as US retailers adopt AI-assisted pricing tools

U.S. consumers aren't just frustrated with high prices. They're angry and confused about the increasingly high-tech ways that restaurant chains and major retailers are setting those prices.

Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles. Artificial intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like “dynamic pricing” and “surveillance pricing” are stirring anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.

Americans have grown accustomed to changing prices when booking flights, hotel rooms and rides, but the prospect of everyday spending shaped by algorithms they don’t understand and personal data they may not realize they’re sharing has touched a nerve.

“There are major tensions happening right now between who’s really going to have the power with some of these algorithms and usage of bots and AI: the companies or the shopper,” said Katie Thomas, who leads an internal consumer behavior think tank at the management consulting firm Kearney.

Accused used fuel-filled bottle to set blaze that killed two, court hears

Alex Courchene failed once to set a North End church ablaze, then returned a day later and tried again, starting a fire that killed two people living in an upstairs apartment suite, a jury was told Monday.

Waters remain murky in unchartered Hellebuyck trade request territory

ST. LOUIS — The thing about being in unchartered waters is that the answer to the next question isn’t always readily apparent either above or below the surface.

Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel has been doing his best to ensure the upcoming two-game road trip against Central Division opponents doesn’t include a three-ring circus. But with news coming over the weekend that the suspension for goalie Connor Hellebuyck is set to expire on Friday, the club has to prepare for the next step in that process.

The problem, as Arniel conceded during his session on Monday afternoon before the team departed for Missouri, is that some of the hypotheticals need to be eliminated from the equation before the proper response can be determined.

“When it comes to Helly’s scenario, honestly I don’t really have a lot of information,” said Arniel. “I know everybody knows (about) Friday. That’s all we know.”

Katz ‘violated public trust,’ Sheegl lacked ‘moral compass,’ police HQ inquiry commissioner concludes

The final report from the public inquiry into the scandal-plagued Winnipeg Police Service headquarters construction project concludes that former mayor Sam Katz and former city CAO Phil Sheegl broke public trust and engaged in unethical conduct.

And the report, released Monday by inquiry commissioner Garth Smorang, says the cost of the project — transforming a downtown Canada Post office tower and warehouse into the police HQ — soared, in part, because main contractor Caspian Projects overcharged the city by more than $40 million in expenses.

The project’s initial $135-million initial price tag rose to about $209 million in the end. The city purchased the complex in 2009; construction was completed in 2016.

Smorang’s report concludes Katz “violated the public trust” and council code of conduct, and Sheegl suffered from a “complete lack of a moral compass.”