Lake Powell hits record low, threatening key water and electricity supply for millions

Bibi, the ‘anti-Bibi’ and the ‘wanna-Bibis’

According to the 1970s anarchist slogan, “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

That’s certainly true for the election in Israel on Tuesday, even if the winner is not Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu himself. All the other party leaders, says Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer, are just “wanna-Bibis.”

Or rather, all the rest except one. Former general Gadi Eisenkot, the main opposition candidate, is the “anti-Bibi,” Pfeffer says. He’s a working-class hero who joined the army as a private and worked his way up to chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). He retired and went into politics only four years ago, he’s modest and honest, what’s not to love?

Eisenkot certainly stands out among the party leaders in terms of style, but not so much in terms of actual policies. He was realistic enough to know that “total victory’ over Hamas was not likely, but his “Dahiya” strategy of causing “immense damage and destruction” (in Lebanon in the 2006 war) foreshadowed the cataclysm that the IDF has inflicted on Gaza since 2023.

Henderson crosswalk has glaring safety gap, say researchers months after pedestrian killed

Six months after a fatal collision at a crosswalk on Henderson Highway, two traffic safety researchers question why the intersection remains an outlier that is missing key flashing lights.

The City of Winnipeg is being urged to install “backflashers” to better protect road users moving in all directions at the intersection where a 32-year-old father died in the spring.

“It’s these little, mundane, non-sexy engineering problems that can cause everything right up to fatality,” said Curt Pankratz, an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg who studies traffic engineering and policymaking.

On April 19, shortly before sunrise, Gabe Beardy was struck when he was crossing the six-lane thoroughfare at Neil Avenue.

U of W, former professor sued over alleged sex assault

A woman who studied and worked at the University of Winnipeg has filed a lawsuit against the post-secondary institution and her former professor — a convicted sex offender — who she alleges drugged and sexually assaulted her.

Outbreak should never have happened

The headline offered a vague sense that something had been accomplished, but it most certainly did not describe anything worth celebrating:

“Manitoba declares measles outbreak over.”

The news item in the Oct. 17 Free Press noted provincial public health officials had confirmed Manitoba’s last laboratory-confirmed case of measles was identified in August, and that the absence of any new cases since had allowed for the aforementioned declaration.

The end of the outbreak — which began in February 2025 and included a significant stretch this year during which Manitoba experienced more measles cases than any other province — is certainly worth noting. But it bears reminding that the real story here is that this province, and others across Canada, experienced a resurgence of this highly communicable but successfully eradicated disease in the first place.

Is Osborne a street or a road? ‘Stroad’ status fails everyone

Last month, the City of Winnipeg said it would soon begin to study ways to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety along Osborne Street, which runs between two of the city’s densest neighbourhoods, where residents walk and bike for many of their daily activities.