Smart, assured Predators respects B-movie qualities

Free fix is in: repair café aims to keep items out of landfills

Stephen Kirk wants to give people a chance to fix items they’re not ready to let go of.

The Spence Neighbourhood Association staffer took notice when repair cafés started popping up around the world, and he decided to bring the idea to Winnipeg.

The café invites people to bring broken items like bikes, clothes and small kitchen appliances to the association’s headquarters to get free repairs by a team of skilled volunteers.

“Certainly in our neighbourhood, a lot of people’s motivation is economic, they would rather fix it than have to buy a new one,” said Kirk, the environmental and open spaces coordinator for the Spence Neighbourhood Association.

Men accused in commercial break-in spree were wearing ankle bracelets

Two men in electric ankle bracelets who were being monitored by justice officials have been accused in a two-month spree of commercial break-ins, vehicle thefts and other property crimes.

City police have charged one of the suspects and are searching for the second.

About $140,000 worth of property, including trailers, lawn equipment, motorcycles and bicycles, was reported stolen in 13 incidents in Winnipeg and the Rural Municipality of Headingley between April 20 and June 28, the Winnipeg Police Service said.

Both suspects were wearing electronic monitoring bracelets during that time.

Close to 5,000 net new health-care workers added since 2023 election, province says

Manitoba has added 4,725 net new health-care workers to the provincial system since the NDP won the October 2023 election, Premier Wab Kinew told reporters today.

The government’s total includes 370 doctors, 1,464 nurses, 2,152 health-care aides and 607 allied health professionals.

“We know how hard health-care workers are working right now, and we know patients are waiting too long for care,” Kinew said in a news release. “Our hospitals and front-line health-care teams are under significant pressure, and the people working in them continue to step up for Manitobans every single day.”

He said the additional workers are helping health-care teams to respond to pressure and care for more patients.

Kinew pledges temporary ER in Dauphin by Labour Day

Dauphin’s 8,400 residents, ravaged by floodwaters from unprecedented rainfall in June that has left the city without its hospital for the entire summer, will have a temporary but functioning ER shortly, Premier Wab Kinew promised Monday.

Daycare, family centre addition will turn care home into intergenerational community hub

Seven-year-olds and 70-somethings will socialize daily when a 152-spot daycare opens inside of a seniors’ residence in Winnipeg in a couple of years.

Construction on a new wing of the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre is scheduled to begin this fall, it was announced Monday.

The project won’t be complete for at least 22 months, but it’s already being touted as a made-in-Manitoba model for intergenerational community hubs across the country.

“It’s a real good idea to mix the younger generation with the older generation,” said Allan Rutherford, a 79-year-old resident of the 200-bed personal care home in Linden Ridge.

Smart, assured Predators respects B-movie qualities

PREDATORS is B-movie Nirvana, a dark, serious take on a minor science-fiction classic that respects the qualities that made it a cable-rerun favourite. It's got plot, performances, production values, great casting and tautly choreographed action.

Fanboys will jump foursquare upon this movie.

Produced by Robert (Sin City) Rodriguez, who took a pass at reviving the franchise some years back, and directed by Nimrod Antal, the film assaults viewers (in a good way) from Frame 1. You know you're off to a good start when the movie begins with an unconscious Adrien Brody plummeting through clouds while the alarm wired to his undeployed parachute blares its warning: impact imminent.

That desperate situation is nothing compared with what awaits him on the ground. Brody has landed in a dense jungle with odd trees and bizarre animal life. His companions: a Mexican gangbanger, a silent Yakuza, a Russian infantryman, a sociopath on the FBI's Most Wanted List, a sultry South American sniper, plus assorted stone-cold killers. They all remember a bright light blinding them while they went about their daily death-dealing, then free-fall. Realization dawns. They're in an alien hunting preserve and it's open season on humans.