Timeless ELEGANCE

The bountiful harvest: Thousands of visitors flock to St. Norbert Farmers’ Market every Saturday

While most of Winnipeg is still sleeping, or perhaps just starting to think about making the morning coffee, a patch of shade and sun just south of the Perimeter Highway is already humming with life.

Rollins becomes fifth councillor to bow out of fall election

Sherri Rollins says she’s withdrawing her bid to keep her city hall seat after eight years, citing her concerns about the “gradual erosion of the role played by council” and the struggle to work co-operatively with the mayor’s office.

On the night table: Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead

Author, Cool Machine

I’ve been reading Caroline Fraser. She has a book called Murderland about serial killers that came out last year. Her previous book, Prairie Fires, was a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She’s a new author for me, and I’m going through that biography now. I never read Wilder’s books, but I liked the TV show when I was a kid; it’s one of those books that’s about a person’s life, but also pulls back to get the larger cultural panorama of America, talking about frontier life and and prairie life — it’s really interesting.

Colson Whitehead will launch Cool Machine, the third book in his Harlem trilogy, on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Muriel Richardson Auditorium at WAG-Qaumajuq (300 Memorial Blvd.) in an event presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers.

Chinese newcomers protest over delays in security screening clearance

Dozens of Chinese newcomers rallied outside Winnipeg’s federal immigration office Friday to protest what they describe as untenable delays to Canada’s security screening process.

The rally against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada comes after a surge in immigration security screening requests created backlogs for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Protesters said the resulting delays have left them in limbo as they try to obtain permanent residency.

“We just want transparency,” said Pakying Chau, 26, who travelled from Hong Kong to Winnipeg in 2018 to study agribusiness.

Downtown Keg closes… to reopen nearby

Downtown Winnipeg is without a Keg restaurant — for a couple of months, anyways.

The Keg Steakhouse and Bar vacated 115 Garry St. on Wednesday, after more than five decades at the location. It will open in a new Donald Street apartment tower this fall.

Its move comes after years of waiting. The DSM, at 185 Donald St., sat as a partially started apartment block after its developer stopped operating and sought creditor protection in April 2023. The developer began the project in 2019.

Carrington Real Estate took over in 2024. Part of the 14-storey site’s initial plans — pre-Carrington — was for the Keg to occupy the main floor.

Manitoba Hydro expects storm-related power outages to be repaired Saturday

As Manitoba Hydro crews work to restore the last pockets of power following this week’s severe storms, some Winnipeg residents say the prolonged outages left them effectively stranded, unable to safely leave their apartments or charge essential mobility devices.

More than 30,000 Manitoba Hydro customers lost power after powerful storms swept across southern Manitoba Wednesday and Thursday, bringing down trees and power lines. Environment and Climate Change Canada recorded wind gusts of 133 km/h in Brandon, 113 km/h in Souris and 91 km/h in Winnipeg, along with more than 2,900 lightning strikes within 50 kilometres of the city.

In an update posted to social media Saturday morning, Manitoba Hydro said about 500 customers remained without power. The utility said it hoped to restore all remaining storm-related outages later in the day.

“Right now, we’re prioritizing customers that have been out the longest,” the post reads. “The final restoration work will still take time, in part because we’re dealing with small, localized outages and need to travel across a widespread area.”