Despite green pledges, Amazon’s carbon footprint grew 15%

Hockey teams scramble after two city arenas put on ice

Instead of ice, Barry Bonni walks onto a dull concrete surface at the Terry Sawchuk Memorial Arena on Thursday.

The arena, as well as the West Kildonan Memorial Arena, have had to close after failing inspections. Predictably, the city’s hockey community is in a tailspin because ice time is so precious.

“We’re now in panic mode,” said Bonni, president of the River East Royal Knights on Thursday. The Sawchuk arena is the team’s home rink.

Bonni, who is a living legend in Manitoba’s hockey community, said the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League club is scrambling to find ice time.

MMF eyes Brandon for expansion of its real estate holdings

The Manitoba Métis Federation is ramping up its Brandon presence and it’s eyeing buildings downtown.

MMF President David Chartrand said the federation has placed a $2 million offer on two sites Assiniboine Credit Union owns.

It submitted an offer last week for a three-storey office and former branch at 220 10th St., and 1020 Princess Ave., Chartrand said.

Assiniboine Credit Union didn’t respond to an interview request by end of day Saturday.

Disgraced ex-dean landed job at German university after fleeing Winnipeg

Before he was arrested in a posh Paris suburb, the disgraced dean of Manitoba’s only law school — who fled the country following a 2020 expense scandal — kept a low profile at a German university.

Granite Curling Club wants judge to stop work on housing project, review city’s decisions

The Granite Curling Club has filed a new court action asking a judge to review and quash City of Winnipeg decisions on a controversial project that would construct a 110-unit housing complex on its parking lot — and to issue an injunction stopping work for now.

The new notice of application, filed in the Court of King’s Bench on Wednesday, comes as a judge mulls his decision on an earlier court application from the club over how the city moved forward on approving the development.

The developer has since begun what it calls “investigative work” at the site, conducting some digging to prepare for a heritage resources impact assessment that will determine whether the area has archeological significance, the chief executive of the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corp. Inc. 2.0 said earlier this week.

Work at the site prompted the club’s lawyers to file the new application, which will have its first hearing on Oct. 26.

Despite green pledges, Amazon’s carbon footprint grew 15%

NEW YORK - Amazon said Tuesday that its carbon footprint rose 15% last year, even as it launched initiatives to reduce its harm on the environment.

The online shopping giant said activities tied to its businesses emitted 51.17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, the equivalent of 13 coal burning power plants running for a year. That's up from 2018, when it reported a carbon footprint of 44.4 million metric tons. Amazon disclosed its carbon footprint the first time last year after employees pressured the company to do more to combat climate change.

Gregg Marland, a professor at the Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics at Appalachian State University, said his first reaction to Amazon’s massive carbon footprint was, “Oh wow.” But he said the company was comprehensive in calculating the number, even including the emissions from shoppers' drives to its Whole Foods grocery stores and the energy used to make a Kindle tablet.

Amazon said that while its carbon footprint grew, the amount of carbon it emitted for every dollar spent on the site fell 5% between 2018 and 2019.

Women wearing appropriate clothes to gym not asking for men’s opinions

Prior to last Saturday, I was the blissful sort of person who could say “who is that, again?” when I heard the name Shane Gillis.

Now, I know him as the comedian who said “women just dress like whores now” at the gym during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live — a show that fired him in 2019, by the way, for being racist and homophobic on a podcast yet continues to invite him back as a host for some reason.

Gillis also likened women’s short shorts (the kind one might wear to lift weights, say) to neon fishing lures.

“And don’t look. You’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look, because they are filming,” he said.