Japan’s Kishida cancels Asia trip after scientists urge preparations for a possible ‘megaquake’

Naked man dies after jolt from police Taser

A Transcona man says he was lucky to be awake early Sunday when, shortly after 4 a.m., a stranger smashed through his screen door and kicked in the front door of his home.

“It’s all I can think about, like what if I was sleeping?” said the man, whom the Free Press is not naming to protect his identity. “Being awake gave me just a couple of extra seconds to deal with him before he got his whole body in.”

He was sitting on his couch when he heard the glass shatter and saw someone trying to force his way inside.

“Glass flew in and this guy — he was a big guy — tried to climb through the screen door,” the man said. “I hopped off the couch and just remember screaming for help. Well, of course it’s four in the morning, so nobody’s going to help, right? I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Nightclub owner, divorced dad sentenced for involvement in cocaine-trafficking case

Three people, including a Winnipeg nightclub owner and a divorced dad desperate for cash, have been sentenced in a cocaine-trafficking case city police were once concerned had been compromised by a corrupt cop.

The trio was charged in early 2024 as part of Project Roasted, a lengthy investigation into a drug trafficking network by the Winnipeg Police Service organized crime unit.

Investigators arrested two of the men, Mohamed Ali and Abdullah Khan, as they left the Stella’s on Pembina Highway in early February 2024. Two kilograms of cocaine was found in Khan’s car.

On the same day, Ahmed Dini was arrested at his River Avenue suite, where investigators found more than 200 rocks of crack cocaine.

Port of Churchill celebrates first grain shipment in six years

Approximately 30,000 tonnes of Canadian durum wheat from Saskatchewan-based AGT Foods is being loaded at the northern Manitoba port and will be shipped to customers in Europe.

Chefs gather in St. Boniface to see whose version of jollof is best

Chef Alex Bockarie is bringing an age-old African culinary battle to Winnipeg.

On Saturday, five local chefs hailing from Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria will go head-to-head to determine who makes the best jollof — a rice dish simmered in a savoury tomato-based stew.

“Jollof rice originated from Senegal but it has spread throughout West Africa and every country has its own method of cooking it,” Bockarie says. “It’s a long-standing fight; even among the communities here in Winnipeg, everybody’s always saying that Sierra Leone’s (jollof) is the best, Ghana’s is the best, Nigeria’s is the best.

“It’s a friendly competition; friendly, but very serious too.”

Carney’s defence of Lake Ontario carries enormous weight

For centuries on Turtle Island (North America), explorers, map makers, and political leaders have erased Indigenous place names and substituted them — more often than not — with political, ethnocentric, and self-aggrandizing names.

In recent years, a few places on the continent have had Indigenous names re-established, but as of today, few of the original names are “official.”

So, it was no surprise when U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior and Board on Geographic Names to take steps within 30 days to officially rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”

The move may have been a result of the Canada-U.S. trade war and Trump’s pettiness and ego, but it also fits in perfectly with his career.

Japan’s Kishida cancels Asia trip after scientists urge preparations for a possible ‘megaquake’

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida canceled a planned trip to Central Asia on Friday to lead the government’s response after scientists urged people to prepare for a possible “megaquake” off the country’s southern coast.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued its first ever “megaquake advisory” on Thursday warning of a possible future major earthquake triggered by the underwater Nankai Trough, after a magnitude 7.1 quake shook just off the eastern coast of Kyushu island earlier in the day. The trough, which runs along Japan’s Pacific coast, was the source of past devastating earthquakes.

Seismologists at the agency held an emergency meeting after Thursday’s quake to analyze whether it had affected the nearby trough and reassessed the risk of a major quake. They urged people to observe high caution levels for about a week.

Thursday’s quake injured 16 people, most of them slightly, and caused no major damage. Tsunami advisories were issued for several areas but lifted hours later.