MDA Space awarded $1-billion contract for next phases of Canadarm3

Frank Kriz was always willing to lend a hand to someone in need

Frank Kriz never wore a halo or wings, but talk to the many people he helped during his life and you would swear the man was a real-life angel.

For those who were fortunate enough to call him friend, he was always there to lend a hand, whether it was helping fix a wiring issue in someone’s house or organizing a group camping trip.

“He lived for other people, for helping other people,” says close friend Brian Turner.

“He was a very special guy that way. There’s no one like him that I know. Everyone has a little piece of him, in a sense, with how he fixed something for them or helped them out with something. That was his legacy.”

As camp fees increase, Sunshine Fund delivers another summer of adventures

Dana Moroz is on the other end of the line and the manager of the Sunshine Fund can hardly contain her enthusiasm.

With the summer winding down and school on the verge of being back in session, Moroz was asked about the 46th season of the program that sent children in need to 31 accredited camps across the province and northwestern Ontario.

Although the final numbers are still being calculated, it was a banner year for the program, which benefited from the Free Press Sunshine Fund campaign that ran throughout the past several months.

“We had over 700 kids that we supported to go to summer camp,” said Moroz, noting the cost of doing so eclipsed $300,000.

Kusama embraced dots which crowded her vision

In 2012, just as I was leaving the Tate Modern in London, I noticed an exhibition that I had nearly missed: The Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama, the famed Japanese artist with the bright-red bob known for her use of repetition and polka dots.

I had read about this exhibition but had no idea it was on while I was in the U.K. Conceived as an interactive exhibition for children and first put up at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002, it begins as a monochromatic white room, furnished with all-white furniture and objects that visitors are then encouraged to cover with the multi-coloured dot stickers they are given on entry.

The idea is that, over weeks, the pristine room becomes “obliterated” by dots of colour.

Obviously, I beelined for it. I was handed my sheet of stickers, all different sizes of circles, and sent to add to a work that hundreds of people had already contributed to.

Police chief pulls plug on security shifts at supermarkets, stores

The Winnipeg Police Service is ending its years-long practice of allowing officers to pick up overtime shifts to provide additional security in supermarkets and other stores at retailers’ expense.

At the city’s busiest fire and paramedic hall, first responders face a relentless workload

As a soft rain begins to fall between the concrete walls of “Hope Alley,” little feels further away than the place’s namesake.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews have been called to the narrow downtown passage, named by Al Wiebe, a formerly homeless man turned advocate. People regularly pass through here, moving between the shelters, drop-ins and resource centres clustered around Main Street between Logan and Higgins avenues.

Against a wall, as the sky switches into night mode, a man sits bleeding from his nose, seemingly unaware of how he ended up with blood running down his T-shirt.

His situation has already set Winnipeg’s emergency response network in motion.

Manitoba Hydro’s strategy: Deny, deny, deny

Here’s a good story…

A man walks into your office and says, “Have I got a deal for you! I want $3 billion (plus perhaps a bit more) to build you something that you might use three or even four times a year, for maybe 30-60 hours each time. Sign here.”

You might respond… “and I’ve got a lovely bridge for sale…”

That is exactly what Manitoba Hydro wants — $3 billion or more, plus the fossil fuel bonus for peak load events that happen a few times each year. They assure us that the gas turbines will only be used very occasionally. At the same time, they tell us that we are headed for a crisis of energy supply by 2030.