Dems say DeVos’ deputy tried to influence internal inquiry

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m a working mom in my 50s and I love Winnipeg in the summer — all the cultural festivals, concerts and crazy events it has to offer.

So I told my 20-something kids I would come out to our lake cabin for only a couple of June and July weekends, but then join them out there with their dad as well for an unbroken two-week stretch in late-August.

However, I worry I’ll just be cooking and organizing while I’m out there! My bossy eldest daughter made up a cooking schedule, so everybody has a special dinner where they have cook, organize people to bring things, run the barbecue and entertain with a group game afterwards. It’s going well for July, but nobody has signed up for duties in August when we’ll all be out there to enjoy the last of the summer.

I spent summer after summer covering that entire duty calendar for my kids, so it’d be nice to actually relax when I’m out there later this year. So, now what?

BRANDON — A 35-year-old man from The Pas was sentenced to 90 days in jail after he admitted to smashing a garage window in the ambulance bay of the Brandon hospital while intoxicated.

James Constant pleaded guilty in Brandon provincial court on Thursday to mischief under $5,000 and breaching a probation order that prohibited him from possessing weapons. Two additional charges, involving failing to comply with a probation order and possessing a dangerous weapon, were stayed.

On July 15, Constant was taken to the Brandon Regional Health Centre by ambulance after he overdosed and became “aggressive” and “unco-operative” with paramedics, says an agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup.

“He took a piece of wood and smashed the garage-door window within the ambulance bay,” Lonstrup said.

A 39-year-old woman has been charged after police say a retail theft attempt led to a knife being used against a security guard at a store on Portage Avenue.

The Winnipeg Police Service said Central District General Patrol officers arrested the woman at about 5:30 p.m. on Thursday in connection with a robbery at a retail store in the 300 block of Portage Avenue.

Police said the woman entered the store shortly before 2 p.m. and attempted to steal merchandise before being confronted by store security. Police said the suspect then brandished a knife and assaulted a security guard.

Security was able to gain control of the suspect, and police were contacted.

I have been writing this column twice a week for a long time, so I have a finely developed sense for when the audience is sick of a subject. We have definitely crossed that boundary with regard to the wars currently being fought up and down the strip of land between the longitudes of 40°E and 50°E (Eastern Ukraine/Persian Gulf/Israel, Gaza and Lebanon).

It’s not just that they are stupid wars, launched by men who were too ignorant or too arrogant to realize that they could not win them (Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu), and it’s certainly not because they are harmless wars.

Not only are they killing thousands of people every week, but in every case the country that started the war also has nuclear weapons. In each case there is a small but real possibility that the leader in question might resort to using at least one “tactical” nuclear weapon as a final warning rather than accept the blame for a humiliating failure to achieve his aims.

Yet nothing much new and interesting is happening from one day to the next in any of these wars, and the audience would really like to move on. I have been trying to write about something else at least once a week, so I thought: maybe I could do a piece about Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter’s chance of being North Korea’s next dictator.