Daily Horoscope / By Georgia Nicols

Cancelling court erodes access to justice — just ask Matt Wiebe

Back in May 2023, when the NDP was in opposition and Matt Wiebe was just an earnest justice critic, he had harsh words for the Progressive Conservative government when provincial circuit court sessions were being cancelled.

Sex assault charges against basketball referee stayed

A Winnipeg basketball referee accused of sexual offences involving three men has had criminal charges against him stayed.

Michael Shane Maryk, 45, had been set to stand trial July 20 on five counts of sexual assault and two counts of committing an indecent act, but instead agreed to a one-year peace bond prohibiting him from having any contact with the three men.

Maryk was employed by the Manitoba Association of Basketball Officials at the time the offences were alleged to have occurred.

The peace bond requires that Maryk not come within 200 metres of the men’s homes, schools or places of worship and have no contact with their families.

What it means to be green… in a city beholden to the blue and gold

It’s not easy being green… if you’re a Winnipeg Blue Bombers season-ticket holder.

Dave Dech ordinarily arrives at his designated seat in Princess Auto Stadium fully decked out in blue and gold. That won’t be the situation this weekend, however, when the Bombers clash with their principal Canadian Football League rival, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, in the annual, sold-out Banjo Bowl game.

“No, I’ll be in green pretty much from head to toe. People sitting around us kid me, but by now they know if it’s the Banjo Bowl, Dave’s showing up in green,” says Dech, 63, possibly the biggest Saskatchewan supporter this side of Moosomin.

Not only does the married father of two grown sons have 25 Roughriders jerseys hanging in his closet — at press time, he was still mulling over which one to throw on for Saturday’s tilt — there is a main-floor lair in his and his wife Patti’s Westwood abode you’ll probably want to avoid if you suffer from prasinophobia — a fear of the colour green.

American takes men’s senior title, Manitoban Fanning finishes third

Todd Fanning did everything he could.

The decorated local golfer knew he would need to go low to have a chance at becoming the first Manitoban to win the Canadian men’s senior national championship on Friday, and while he held up his end of the bargain, in the end it was not to be.

Starting the day five shots back of the lead — a gap he closed quickly, actually taking the solo lead from a brief stretch early in the day — Fanning carded six birdies en route to tying a tournament-low four-under 68 in the final round at Niakwa Country Club.

The 58-year-old’s effort would be matched by Arizona’s Bryan Hoops, whose matching 68 carried him to a two-shot victory.

Rural venue lets artists shine on more intimate stage

With cooler temperatures on their way, Jocelyne Baribeau wants to break the linguistic ice between musicians with a new concert series at her home near St. Geneviève, about 30 minutes east of the Perimeter.

A onetime Western Canadian Music Award winner as best francophone artist, the St. Vital-raised Baribeau intends the Icebreakers series — which has its first concert this Sunday — to provide musicians with an intimate, rural setting to experiment and collaborate with peers with whom they might not otherwise share a bill.

“A goal for me to sort of erase a bit of that invisible line that we put. ‘It’s a French event,’ or ‘It’s an English event,’” says Baribeau, the vice-president of the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

“The more we can do that, the more opportunity there is for everyone. Music is music, and I don’t think it’s a language thing. You can feel a lot of things even when someone is singing in a language you don’t understand.”

Paranoid and high, man kills dad, takes photos of body, calls 911

Paranoid and sleep-deprived after a night of smoking crack, Donato Pellettieri stabbed his 64-year-old father 27 times, called 911 and waited outside their Maryland Avenue residence until police arrived minutes later and arrested him for murder, court was told Thursday.

“Paranoia led him to believe this was a kill-or-be-killed situation,” Crown attorney Joel Refvik told Court of King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne. “This is an individual who, but for his drug use and paranoia, likely would not have killed his father.”

The 39-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the July 2021 killing of Salvatore Pellettieri and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.

The resolution of his case was delayed by long periods in which he was mentally unfit to stand trial, and changed lawyers and awaited reports to determine whether he should be found not criminally responsible for his actions.