Spotless arrival: Rare giraffe without coat pattern is born at Tennessee zoo

‘A new future’: city dentist Cholakis donates $2M to school of dental hygiene

Dental hygienist training in Manitoba is getting a big boost, after a major gift from a local dentist.

On Thursday, the dental hygiene school at the University of Manitoba’s Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry unveiled a new $2-million donation from Dr. Ernest Cholakis. It’s the largest gift the program has ever received, and in honour of the funding, the school will be named the Cholakis School of Dental Hygiene.

The gift was unveiled at a ceremony Thursday morning at the Brodie Centre at the U of M's Bannatyne campus. The benefactor and other dignitaries, including Premier Wab Kinew, were in attendance, as well as the three-year program’s current students.

Cholakis, who graduated from the U of M’s dentistry school in 1982, had high praise for the dental hygiene profession.

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Time’s up for the time change in Manitoba.

Manitobans won’t be setting their clocks back an hour in November. The province has decided to permanently stay on daylight time after surveying residents on the twice annual clock adjustment.

“We heard from Manitobans loud and clear — no more changing the clocks in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release Thursday.

Most of the 72,000 votes submitted in an online EngageMB survey — 92 per cent — said they would like to see the practice end. The survey asked if they preferred earlier sunrises in winter with standard time or the later sunsets in summer with daylight time. More than half of survey participants (58 per cent) indicated a preference to stay on permanent daylight time; 34 per cent voted to eliminate the time change but stay on standard time.

Kinew delivered what most of us wanted; now we’ll have to deal with the consequences

Premier Wab Kinew has decided to adopt permanent daylight savings time, which means a permanent end to the spring forward, fall back tradition of adjusting our clocks. And absolutely no one is surprised.

Sod turned on new apartment complex for Old Kildonan

Blue blazers and black hard hats were front and centre as developers and politicians dug their shovels into the ground Friday at the sod-turning ceremony for a new apartment building near the north Perimeter Highway.

Real estate development and investment company Rockport Investment Group Inc. is constructing the building at 928 Fernbank Ave. in the Highland Pointe development in Winnipeg’s Old Kildonan neighbourhood.

The $40-million apartment building will include 90 units and is expected to be completed in the next 24 months.

It’s Phase 1 of 920 North, a three-phase, $160-million project Rockport is undertaking that will result in four multi-family residential developments and a centralized amenities building.

Spotless arrival: Rare giraffe without coat pattern is born at Tennessee zoo

A giraffe without spots at a Tennessee zoo may be plain, but she's definitely not ordinary.

The female reticulated giraffe was born July 31 at the family-owned Brights Zoo in Limestone, a rural community in northeastern Tennessee.

David Bright, one of the zoo's owners, said the plain brown animal is a rarity: Research found another giraffe that was born without a pattern in Tokyo in 1972 and two others before that. The spots serve as camouflage for giraffes in the wild.

The yet-unnamed baby is healthy and on display at the 103-acre zoo along with her mother, he said.