Your forecast
A mix of sun and cloud, with wind becoming northeast at 20 km/h near noon. High -17 C, wind chill -32 this morning and -27 this afternoon. Risk of frostbite.
What’s happening today
Today is Valentine’s Day, and if you’re looking for a heartwarming story of love in the face of dire circumstances, AV Kitching talks to Leonard Abraham Corstiaan Van Roon, whose courtship of the great love of his life Verna Alma Ball took the form of more than 400 letters sent while he served overseas from 1943-45.
Len Van Roon, 103, wrote hundreds of love letters to his girlfriend Verna during the Second World War. The couple were married for 65 years. (Mike Deal / Free Press)
And for a more modern look at the dating game, Jen Zoratti talks to Treena Orchard, whose experience swiping on dating apps led the sexuality scholar to write a book about it: Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps is a funny, vulnerable and insightful memoir-meets-field notes that examines both the promises and pitfalls of digital dating.
Treena Orchard (Supplied)
Today’s must-read
A new commissioner tasked with disciplining Manitoba educators for misconduct since the start of the year was doing so while still maintaining her job as head of the Saskatchewan teachers’ union, the Free Press has learned.
Critics call it a major conflict of interest that brings into question the independence and impartiality of Manitoba’s new teacher oversight commission.
“The fact that she’s doing two jobs at once, and one is the head of a teacher union, when you’re supposed to be adjudicating cases involving teacher misconduct, that’s a massive conflict of interest,” said Cameron Hauseman, an assistant professor of educational administration at the University of Manitoba. Jeff Hamilton has the story.
(Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files)
On the bright side
A new study offers a clearer picture of how planets are born alongside stars, findings that are an exciting step toward understanding the development of planets and their atmospheres, the lead researcher says.
Dori Blakely, a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria, said researchers have known that planets form by pulling in mass from gas and dust left over from the formation of stars, a process known as accretion.
But the study Blakely led used a special setting on a Canadian-made instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope to zoom in on the phenomenon playing out in the later stages of two planets forming around a young star known as PDS 70. The Canadian Press reports.
Mercury, centre left, passes between Earth and the sun, Nov. 11, 2019, as seen from Lutherville-Timonium, Md. (Julio Cortez / The Canadian Press files)
On this date
On Feb. 14, 1961: The Winnipeg Free Press reported the Soviet Union no longer recognized Dag Hammarskjold as secretary-general of the United Nations, and demanded an end to the UN operation in The Congo. Planning experts from the University of Manitoba reluctantly recommended St. Paul’s College on Ellice Avenue at Vaughan Street as the only site of seven suitable for Winnipeg’s new city hall. 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.
|
