Alabama sheriff evacuates jail, citing unspecified ‘health and safety issues’

There’s fast and then there’s this

The advice was not unexpected but it was surprising considering it applied to a vehicle weighing almost 6,000 pounds.

“Before you let off the brake, put your head against the headrest,” the instructor said.

We — myself and a handful of Porsche customers gathered at Red River Exhibition Park — were about to experience launch control on the 2027 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric.

Launch control works like this: you put the vehicle in Drive, hold the brake as hard as you can with your left foot and quickly depress the accelerator pedal as far as it goes and hold it.

Letters, Oct. 1

Did anyone else see the irony when Premier Wab Kinew announced at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre that Manitoba would adopt permanent Daylight Time (DT) and had hired 17 new psychiatrists this year?

Ferraro gets call-up to the Jets

Landon Ferraro vividly recalls the moment his NHL career came to an extremely painful end — Oct. 20, 2017, in downtown Winnipeg.

“My last play was a breakaway on Connor Hellebuyck,” Ferraro told the Free Press this week.

“I tried to poke the puck past the first D. It was me and (Dustin) Byfuglien chasing it down. I thought he was going to throw me across the ice, so I tried to cut in on him, and he moved. I overextended, and I literally ripped my abductor off the bone and gave myself a hernia.”

Ferraro — at the time playing forward for the visiting Minnesota Wild — said he managed to get off a weak shot that hit the Jets goaltender square in the chest. But his 77th appearance in the big leagues would be his last following previous stops with Detroit (which drafted him 32nd overall in 2009) and Boston.

Transit, roads and city council’s priorities

Did any of you happen to notice that the week of Sept. 14 marked an interesting confluence of events in Winnipeg? First up was the mayoral debate on public transit. Second was an announcement that the city would be undertaking a survey to determine whether their citizens’ “transportation needs” are being met.

The debate on our public bus system, from which our current Mayor Scott Gillingham was tellingly absent, focused primarily on safety rather than the efficiency of the system.

Which, on one level, is no great surprise.

After all unlawful incidents on buses and at transit stops have increased by 280 per cent compared to levels recorded around 2016. Moreover, the candidates were primarily speaking to the bus drivers’ union that organized the event, and bus drivers are often the victims of violent episodes.

Thriller has steam to spare, but story slogs

Based on a 2018 book by hugely popular, wildly polarizing author Colleen Hoover (whose novels It Ends with Us, Regretting You and Reminders of Him have also been made into movies), this new adaptation is being billed as a sexy psychological thriller.

There is sex — quite a lot of sex. As for those other descriptors, Verity is not only lacking in thrills. It’s almost laughably light on plausible human psychology.

Plausibility can be overrated, of course. Scripter Nick Antosca (2026’s Cape Fear) and director Michael Showalter (The Idea of You) could have thrown plausibility out the window and gone all-in on escapist fun.

But while there is a gorgeous modernist lake house and some excellent knitwear here, and Anne Hathaway, at least, seems to be having a ball with her deliciously two-faced role, Verity is mostly a sloggy mess, with draggy pacing, flat characters and a fatal lack of atmosphere.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping (except food and gas) and important decisions after 9 p.m. The moon is in Gemini.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Your mind is focused, giving you common sense and practical ideas. This is an excellent day to sign up for a course or learn something new. Don’t hesitate to listen to the advice of someone older or more experienced because after all, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)