Considering shrimp for dinner? Check out this Greek recipe

Animal rescue groups shaken by advocate’s death

A week after an animal rescue volunteer died doing what she loved at Sandy Bay First Nation, the charity she dedicated herself to has paused rescues as groups rally to prevent another mauling.

Winnipeg’s Amanda Nobiss, 37, was found dead July 17 after police were contacted by a friend trying to locate her. She often visited the community 180 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg to save animals.

Several “aggressive dogs” were found near where Nobiss’s body was located, Manitoba First Nation Police Service has said. It did not respond Friday when asked for an update on its investigation into her death.

“What happened is the most tragic, heartbreaking thing that could have possibly happened,” said Chelsea Kork, president of K9 Advocacy Manitoba, the charity Nobiss volunteered with.

Sweet sendoff for apprentice jockey

Three outside smoothies and a crunchy ride up the rail in the $40,000 Frank Arnason Sire Stakes on Tuesday vaulted apprentice jockey Ciera Pruitt into the top 10 at Assiniboia Downs for the first time this year.

The crunch came first. And she won’t be here much longer.

Pruitt led all jockeys on the week with four victories, the first coming aboard Manitoba-bred Bromeo in the 39th running of the Frank Arnason, for her mother, trainer Lise Pruitt. Bromeo and Pruitt duelled from the inside throughout and prevailed after a long, tight drive up the rail to take home the $24,000 winner’s share of the purse for longtime owner/breeder Barry Arnason.

“I just got really lucky, honestly,” said Pruitt. “Everything kind of fell into my hands. God was looking after me this week and it all worked out in my favour.”

Gimli Film Festival: Filmmaker’s new short tackles feelings around toplessness

When he’s hurtling down the highway for solo adventures on his Honda CB500X, Ande Brown often finds himself on Page 1 of an unwritten screenplay, drifting into imagined narratives about the interior lives of the men and women on the road around him.

“You go through any small town, and inevitably there’s a billboard for a real estate agent, so I’ll start making up a story about how they got into the business,” says Brown, a filmmaker who didn’t consider saying “cut” until his late 50s. “Hours will go by and I won’t even realize how far I’ve gone.”

Though he acknowledges that he’s a late bloomer in just about every way, Brown has used storytelling as escapism since he was raised by a devoted single mother in Arizona during the 1970s: at Phoenix’s airport, in an era of lax security, an adolescent Brown would sit in the terminal and concoct storylines about travellers’ comings and goings.

“There are ideas that float around, and they’ll find a head to go into, and if you reject it, they’ll find another one. There’s all kinds of inspiration out there, but you have to be open to it,” says Brown, whose latest short film, Half-Naked, premières Saturday at the Gimli International Film Festival.

Almost 250 people moved from city encampments under provincial strategy

Nearly 250 people have moved out of Winnipeg encampments under the Manitoba government’s Your Way Home strategy, which is more than 70 per cent of the NDP’s goal for its first term in office.

Brown bombs as Bombers blasted

Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Dru Brown took Friday night’s ‘Christmas in July’ theme a little too seriously.

He wasn’t carrying around a red sack, but he did giftwrap four interceptions to the Calgary Stampeders in what ended up being a 52-30 loss for the Blue and Gold in front of a sold-out crowd.

The result dropped the Bombers, now 1-3 at home this season, to 4-3. Calgary improved to 3-4 and now has a chance to win the tiebreaker when the sides meet for a final time on Oct. 10 at Princess Auto Stadium.

The Stampeders should’ve closed the game out at the end of the third quarter, but they were also feeling generous. Leading 39-20 in the final minutes of the third, Calgary defensive back Ben Labrosse picked off Brown in Winnipeg territory.

Longtime Assiniboine Park Zoo resident Blizzard the bison dies

Blizzard, the white bison that became one of Assiniboine Park Zoo’s most recognizable residents during nearly 20 years at the facility, has died, the zoo announced Friday.

The zoo said Blizzard’s health declined in recent weeks, so a diagnostic exam was recommended to better understand his condition. He died during the procedure.

Blizzard arrived at Assiniboine Park Zoo in 2006 and went on to become a favourite among visitors, inspiring “millions of visitors with his remarkable presence,” the zoo said in a social media post.

“While all animals in our care are deeply valued, Blizzard held a special place in the hearts of many people and carried profound cultural and spiritual significance for many Indigenous peoples,” the post reads.