Your forecast
Freezing rain changing to a few flurries this morning and ending this afternoon then cloudy. Wind from the northwest at 30 km/h gusting to 50. High -3 C, wind chill near -13. UV index 2 or low.
Schools in some divisions may be closed today, or are experiencing delays in school bus service, or are advising caution for drivers dropping off students because of icy conditions. See this map of school divisions in Manitoba and click on the division to see any announcements or warnings.
Manitoba’s premier donned a Toronto Blue Jays hat and a safety vest Thursday to pack sandbags and meet volunteers in a community bracing yet again for a fight against flooding.
“It really is a race to try and protect the homes in this community,” Wab Kinew told reporters at Peguis First Nation, north of Winnipeg.
The First Nation is trying to mitigate potentially disastrous water damage from the rising Fisher River. The Canadian Press has more here.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew loads sandbags onto a trailer at Peguis First Nation on Thursday. (John Woods / The Canadian Press)
What’s happening today
🎸 The Sheepdogs bring their Out All Night headlining tour in support of their latest album, Keep Out of the Storm, to Winnipeg tonight. Burton Cummings Theatre, 364 Smith St., 8 p.m. Tickets $47 to $119 at Ticketmaster.
The Sheepdogs are back in town. (Tim Smith / The Brandon Sun files)
Today’s must-read
Emma Kelly and James Sinclair have been busy.
Over an eight-hour span on Monday, April 6, the correspondents for Boring News published 164 local news stories about dozens of communities across Canada — from British Columbia to Nunavut to Nova Scotia.
The pair has churned out tens of thousands of articles since the Boring News website launched in early December, including 3,600 stories about 24 different cities, towns and First Nations in Manitoba.
AI-generated images routinely appear in articles produced by Boring News, a tech-driven newcomer to the Manitoba media landscape. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press)
Kelly is the co-founder of Upfeat Media, a Winnipeg tech company that made its mark in online coupon aggregation and is now expanding into the growing artificial intelligence-powered news business. Her credentials include a degree in business studies from the University of Ulster and a postgraduate diploma in accounting.
Sinclair has worked in content creation and management at Upfeat since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
These are the public faces of a technology company that has ushered in a fraught era of fake news in Manitoba — one that has the potential to disrupt the media landscape near and far. Eva Wasney has the story.
On the bright side
Nick Kuznetsov has lived in Winnipeg for nearly 14 years, but on Thursday was finally able to call himself a Canadian citizen.
Kuznetsov moved to Canada by himself when he was 17 years old to study. He knew no one. A few years later, he met Val Shevchenko, also originally from Moscow, through a friend. They began dating and when their parents met, the couple discovered they had been born in the same hospital.
“It was quite the discovery, and now we’re here,” Kuznetsov said at Winnipeg City Hall Thursday afternoon, minutes after he took the oath of citizenship and officially became a Canadian. Nicole Buffie has the story.
Nick Kuznetsov celebrates becoming a Canadian citizen with his partner Val Shevchenko at city hall Thursday. The couple, both from Moscow, met in Canada. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)
On this date
On April 17, 1991: The Winnipeg Free Press reported non-profit groups funded by the Manitoba government but outside its control were in shock after losing $11.9 million in grants in the new provincial budget. Finance minister Clatyon Manness cut 958 positions in in the civil service, which would put between between 375 and 450 employees out of work immediately; the job cuts were projected to save $30 million a year.
Today’s front page
Get the full story: Read today’s e-edition of the Free Press.
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