West Point time capsule that appeared to contain nothing more than silt yields centuries-old coins

Klein launches mayoral campaign with pledge to make Winnipeg safest city in Canada

Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein says he would make Winnipeg the safest city in Canada by the end of his four-year term, if elected.

“Crime is happening all over the city and we have to take steps to address it,” Klein said at his first campaign announcement Friday morning.

The candidate said crime is “getting out of control,” noting his grandchild’s car seat was recently stolen from a vehicle parked in a typically quiet neighbourhood.

He promised to hire 100 to 110 more police officers, which he believes would cost between $9 million and $11 million.

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.

Near-future U.S. the setting for surreal dual-world storyline

It’s not every day you encounter a seriously intended literary novel that attempts to dramatize a mind-bending physics theory like quantum entanglement.

But then the B.C.-born-and-raised Emily St. John Mandel is not your everyday Canadian literary writer.

In her late 40s, she has lived in the U.S. for her entire writing career. She is best known for her 2014 dystopian novel Station Eleven, about a Shakespearean acting troupe navigating a pandemic-ravaged America.

Her new outing, her seventh, Exit Party, shares DNA with detective and sci-fi genres more than with conventional literary fiction.

Family account spiced with magic realism, geopolitical intrigue and a ghost story

Tom Lin’s second novel Babylon, South Dakota moves beyond a historical account of an immigrant family’s struggle, delightfully blending and bending genres.

Lin is a Chinese-born novelist whose family emigrated to the U.S. when he was four years old. His debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making him the youngest ever recipient of that award. He earned a PhD in English from the University of California Davis and is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.

Babylon, South Dakota takes place in an unspecified time period that can be understood to be during the Mao era — likely the 1950s or ’60s. A young Chinese couple, the Hsuis, immigrate to the rural community that gives the book its title. They take the names Saul and Mei and settle on a 160-acre homestead left to them by a distant relative.

Saul’s dream is to breed and sell chrysanthemums from seeds he brought from China, while Mei wants to raise livestock. They speak no English, know nothing of life in the United States, are unprepared for the harshness of winter and the isolation of the farm and bring nothing with them except some gold, which Mei hides around the house for emergencies. Their only link to the outside world is a discarded and marginally functioning TV set, which Saul rescues and rigs up.

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

When Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton moved into the 55-plus apartment building on Stradbrook Avenue last year, she came across as “timid, soft-spoken and sensitive,” said building manager Tanya Owen.

Little did Owen know the meek-looking 58-year-old woman would soon turn her life and the lives of many of her tenants upside down and threaten her career and family.

“She was looking to destroy me for a simple tenant disagreement,” Owen said Thursday.

Court records show Ciochon-Newton was arrested earlier this month and charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel.

Steinbach Credit Union member warns others after scammer steals $10K

A Winnipeg single mother whose bank account was drained of nearly $10,000 says Steinbach Credit Union needs to warn its members about what she believes is a broader security problem.

The woman, who is not being named to protect her identity, said a scammer gained access to her account earlier this week after calling SCU’s contact centre, claiming to be her and successfully completing the credit union’s authentication process.

She said she knows of at least six others who have experienced similar incidents in which callers impersonate SCU account holders and pass the authentication checks.

The woman discovered something was wrong when her minor son asked why money had been transferred out of an account they jointly hold.