Curling show doesn’t quite clear the hog line

‘Frustrated’ Selkirk nurses plead for help

The province must take immediate action to increase low staffing levels that are putting Selkirk emergency room nurses at risk, a letter sent to the premier and health minister says.

The letter, sent by the Manitoba Nurses Union and signed by 35 ER nurses, detailed multiple recent incidents at the Selkirk Regional Health Centre. In one case, a nurse was stabbed with a pen by a patient who had been waiting 24 hours for care. In another case, a nurse was bitten by a patient.

“Nurses in that emergency department are extremely frustrated,” said Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson. “This is not something that happened in the last month — or overnight — these are problems that have been growing.”

The five-page letter was sent Tuesday to Premier Wab Kinew, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and leaders of the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority. It contained 10 requests to improve safety inside the emergency department, including establishing safer nurse-to-patient staffing levels, eliminating the practice of “single physician coverage” in the emergency department and implementing an institutional safety officer around the clock.

Rural Manitoba homeowner charged with shooting at accused thieves

A homeowner in southern Manitoba has been charged after he fired shots at a group of people accused of stealing from his property, police say.

Officers were sent to the Rural Municipality of Dufferin Saturday after a report of a theft in progress. RCMP said four people went to the property, located about 95 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, and returned later the same day driving two vehicles stolen from Watrous, Sask.

The owner of the property, a 66-year-old man, saw the suspects on a motion-activated camera and saw someone transferring fuel from a portable container into one of the stolen vehicles. The man confronted the group and fired shots towards the vehicles, police said.

Three people stayed at the scene until officers arrived and took them into custody, RCMP said. Various items believed to have been stolen from the property were found in the back of a truck. A fourth suspect fled in the other vehicle.

Liquor authority fines True North $12K after minors with fake ID served at Jets White Out party

True North Sports and Entertainment was hit with a $12,000 fine for serving minors with fake IDs during a Winnipeg Jets White Out street party in 2025.

Tachinski helps punch men’s flag football ticket to Los Angeles Games

Jackson Tachinski: future Olympian?

Those prospects got a lot brighter for the Winnipegger on Sunday when the Canadian men’s flag football team won bronze at the IFAF World Flag Football Championships in Germany.

Tachinski was a key cog throughout a run that ended with a thrilling 34-26 overtime victory over Mexico that secured Canada’s spot at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, where flag football will debut on the biggest stage in sports.

“It was awesome. We were in overtime, and we got the ball first, and we ended up scoring and getting a two-point convert. We knew the defence just had to make a few plays and get a stop and we’d (win). Just seeing the ball go up in the air and (Montreal’s Guillaume Béland) came down with the interception, it was an unreal feeling. Just straight euphoria,” Tachinski told the Free Press shortly after returning home.

Curling show doesn’t quite clear the hog line

Apparently a casualty of CBC's decision to eschew half-hour dramas, the TV pilot for the locally produced dramedy Throwing Stones airs tonight as a kind of broadcast one-off.

As it stands, the Ceeb has no intention of ordering more episodes of the show from the Winnipeg-based company Original Pictures. But presumably, if enough viewers respond favorably, it may induce one of those reclaim-the-airwaves movements where we, the viewing public, might rise up and dictate the kind of programming we expect from the nation's broadcaster, instead of taking the dictation.

In its favour, the show deliberately aims for female audiences with its core of diverse female characters, centring on Patti Thom (Patty Duke), the irascible skip of a Winnipeg women's curling team.

A language-mangling force of nature, Patti corrals an unlikely cultural/economic cross-section of women onto her team, where the after-game drinks are deemed every bit as important as the game itself.