Your forecast
Sunny. Wind from the west at 30 km/h. High 24 C, Humidex 27, UV index 5 or moderate.
What’s happening today
Kick off the long weekend with a night of laughs courtesy of some of the city’s top and up-and-coming local comedians. The Winnipeg Comedy Showcase, hosted and created by Jared Story, is a quarterly convention of local standup comics. For more details on tonight’s lineup, click here. Park Theatre, 698 Osborne St., 7 p.m.
Winnipeg Comedy Showcase performers, from left: Brandon David, Jordan Welwood, Andy Noble, Spencer Adamus, Jaydin Pommer, Jared Story and Evan Lowes. (Supplied)
Today’s must-read
Days shy of his 65th birthday, Arcel Bissonnette, a practising doctor for 30 years, was taken out of court in handcuffs Thursday after he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting seven patients over the course of nearly two decades.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say you have scarred your victims, perhaps for life,” King’s Bench Justice Sadie Bond told Bissonnette, as five of his victims watched in the court gallery.
“You violated their trust and abused your authority as a doctor,” Bond said. “I trust that you will take every opportunity available to you for treatment and counselling.” Dean Pritchard reports.
Arcel Bissonnette arrives for the first day of evidence at his second trial in Winnipeg in May 2023. He was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files)
On the bright side
A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.
Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.
The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chatroom and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea” and “Agent 008.” The Associated Press reports.
A “mega den” of rattlesnakes in a remote location in northern Colorado. (Project RattleCam / The Associated Press files)
On this date
On Aug. 30, 1966: The Winnipeg Free Press reported that at the Fort Garry Hotel, the president of the Canadian Bar Association told attendees of the organization’s annual meeting the country’s judges were often ill-equipped and should take a six-week university course before ascending the bench, and that the system showed “a gross lack of legal care” for the poor, the young and the friendless entering the lower courts. In Ottawa, a bill to end the national rail strike went before Parliament, but union leaders opposed it and political leaders did not commit themselves on the legislation. Read the rest of this day’s paper here. Search our archives for more here.
Today’s front page
Get the full story: Read today’s e-edition of the Free Press.
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