Your forecast
Increasing cloudiness, with wind from the northwest at 20 km/h becoming light near noon. High -16 C, wind chill -36 this morning and -27 this afternoon. Risk of frostbite. UV index 1 or low.
What’s happening today
🏒 The Winnipeg Jets host the Edmonton Oilers at Canada Life Centre, starting at 6:30 p.m.
Today’s must-read
Jodi Ruta is a Manitoba school bus driver by day, an independent traffic-safety researcher by night and a social media influencer 24-7.
Better known as “Jodi The Bus Driver” on TikTok, the 39-year-old has amassed a following of more than 150,000 users, many of whom earn a living transporting people and goods across North America.
She began recording herself — often inside her mobile office on break or with a parked yellow bus in the backdrop — during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ruta dedicated much of 2025 to researching collisions and compiling 10 evidence-based recommendations to improve safety for student commuters. Maggie Macintosh has the story.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 19, the last day of classes before the holidays, Manitoba Public Insurance recorded 108 school bus-involved collisions. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files)
On the bright side
It’s a holiday feast fit for a goat.
Fir, spruce and pine trees are as delicious as turkey and trimmings to about 20 goats at a farm just south of Winnipeg.
Aurora Farms will once again welcome donations of trees once the presents have been opened, the lights turned off, and the ornaments removed. Scott Billeck has more here.
Goats at Aurora Farms munch on Christmas trees. (Supplied)
On this date
On Dec. 29, 1923: The Manitoba Free Press reported that a man from Franklin who died on Christmas Eve on Selkirk Avenue, apparently did so from the effects of drugged alcohol given to him and a friend; both men were robbed. In Switzerland, nearly all the inhabitants of a small village were spared from an avalanche on Christmas Eve that buried their homes, but the church, where most of the people were attending Christmas service, was not hit. 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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