Military could begin Arctic sensor installations next summer

Frustration on menu as St. James construction drags on

Nearly four months of construction outside the front door of a longtime Portage Avenue restaurant has driven away customers and left its owner struggling to cover operating expenses.

October perfect time to put on a sweater, drink something warm and crack open a book

With Halloween around the corner, spooky season is in full effect.

But October is more than ghosts, goblins, Jack-o-lanterns and other things that go bump in the night. Not entirely, anyway. October is also a time of harvest, of change and renewal.

Pull on a sweater, pour something warm to drink and follow along as the Free Press arts and life team presents a literary tour through October Country…

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray BradburyFew authors write so frequently, so passionately about October as Ray Bradbury did. From his earliest work throughout the rest of his career, Bradbury returned again and again to the October Country as the settings of short stories, poems and novels.

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.

Mayor Gillingham poised for repeat

Incumbent mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham remains in the lead among decided voters in a new poll that suggests a majority of Winnipeggers want change ahead of Wednesday’s election.

Gillingham was backed by 36 per cent of decided voters in an Abacus Data survey released Friday, followed by candidates Kevin Klein (19 per cent) and Mike Vogiatzakis and a surging Noah Redden, who were tied for third (both at 14 per cent).

While a majority of respondents expressed a desire for a new mayor, Curtis Brown, a vice-president with Abacus, said “none of the other candidates has convincingly made the case that they represent the best change.”

“In the absence of that, Scott Gillingham definitely has the advantage. He looks likely to be able to win,” Brown said.

Winnipegger soprano, Iranian composer exhibit tremendous talent at WSO show

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra launched its newly renamed Thursday night series, Symphonic Sessions, by showcasing one of the world’s finest sopranos hailing from our fair city, Andriana Chuchman.

The 75-minute concert (sans intermission), titled Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and Schubert’s Symphony No. 4, also featured the auspicious Canadian debut of Iranian conductor Hossein Pishkar, who led the program ranging from lush lyricism to tempestuous Sturm und Drang for a small audience of 660.

Chuchman’s artistry just seems to grow more luminous with each passing year, as the Ukrainian-Canadian singer continues to light up stages throughout North America and in Europe.

Her eagerly anticipated concert performances include shows at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, the National Symphony at Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival, to name a few, as well as appearances with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and, particularly near and dear to the singer’s heart, Winnipeg’s Hoosli Ukrainian Male Chorus.

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.