US could end legal fight against Titanic expedition

Grieving families, local leaders want review of Interlake intersection after teens die in crash

A two-vehicle crash that killed four teenage friends in the Interlake Sunday night prompted outpourings of grief in several communities and calls for safety improvements at the intersection, which was also the site of a death in July.

Recent high school graduates Maya Borsa and Chloe Vermette, both 18, were identified by their families as victims of the collision at Highway 8 and Provincial Road 229, just west of Winnipeg Beach.

“(Chloe) was a very bubbly, loving personality. Always giving, always caring. Her friends meant the world to her,” said her mother, Veronique Vermette, who struggled to comprehend the tragedy when she went to the scene Monday. “We sat in the rain for hours, and it blew my mind that four lives were taken.”

The teens’ parents are waiting for RCMP to provide more information about the cause of the crash. Chloe, who graduated from Windsor Park Collegiate in Winnipeg in July, was driving one of the vehicles, her mother said.

US could end legal fight against Titanic expedition

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The U.S. government could end its legal fight against a planned expedition to the Titanic, which has sparked concerns that it would violate a law that treats the wreck as a gravesite.

Kent Porter, an assistant U.S. attorney, told a federal judge in Virginia Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking more information on revised plans for the May expedition, which have been significantly scaled back. Porter said the U.S. has not determined whether the new plans would break the law.

RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck, originally planned to take images inside the ocean liner's severed hull and to retrieve artifacts from the debris field. RMST also said it would possibly recover free-standing objects inside the Titanic, including the room where the sinking ship had broadcast its distress signals.

The U.S. filed a legal challenge to the expedition in August, citing a 2017 federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the site as a memorial. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.

U of M students call for ban on far-right group

Some University of Manitoba students are calling on their school to ban a far-right group from campus after posters promoting mass deportations were found during the summer break.

More than 50 people rallied on Wednesday, the first day of classes, to make known their concerns about a group called the Dominion Society of Canada.

The protest was organized after a supporter of the self-described nationalist group posted a video over the Labour Day weekend that shows him putting up flyers in Fort Garry.

“Canada is a really beautiful country and I have been welcomed here by a lot of beautiful people and it’s been amazing, but when I see harmful rhetoric online and now, on campus, it gives me a lot of anxiety,” said Ela Ancheta, an arts major at U of M.

Councillors say Main Street Project scuttles other agency’s efforts to house homeless

A Winnipeg outreach agency that’s been largely shut out of government funding says it has found housing for more people in the last five months than Manitoba’s homeless strategy that began last year.

Childfree Winnipeg group gives women without kids a place to gather

Katelyn Sawatzky founded Childfree Winnipeg Women in 2021 to bring together women who don’t have kids — be it by choice or circumstance — and do not plan on raising children.

The group is designed to help them share experiences and build meaningful friendships.

The community welcomes cisgender, straight, transgender, bisexual and lesbian women. Parents, including empty nesters and men, are turned away.

“Our group is a safe space where women can hang out with other women without being asked when you’re going to have kids or why you don’t have kids … where you don’t feel like you have to validate or defend your choices in any way, because everyone gets it,” Sawatzky says.

‘We feel lucky — and a bit traumatized’: Tornado confirmed in River Heights Sunday

Tanner Lemieux wasn’t surprised to learn the violent winds that tore through River Heights and reached their peak near his home Sunday night have been classified as a tornado.

While driving back to his Lindsay Street home from a shopping trip with his wife Sunday, it became clear they were not in the middle of an ordinary thunderstorm when rain and wind started coming from every direction and hit every side of their truck.

The forceful wind made it impossible for him to open his door after they had parked. He climbed through the window, over the top of his vehicle, and the couple struggled to fight the whipping winds to make it into the house.

“As we were running in, the wind started pulling me backwards out of the door,” he told the Free Press while cleaning debris from his yard Thursday.