Your forecast
A few showers ending early this morning then clearing, with a risk of a thunderstorm early this morning. Wind from the northwest at 20 km/h increasing to 40 gusting to 60 this morning. High 20 C, UV index 5 or moderate.
As Malak Abas reports, experts warn Manitoba’s incoming wildfire season could be worse than last year.
There have been 37 fires across the province this year, with 12 active fires, and four with crews currently on site. Despite some recent rain, the overall dry conditions have “set the province up” for an active wildfire season, said Natalie Hasell of Environment and Climate Change Canada. Read more here.
Dry conditions could make for a busy wildfire season. (Ken Gigliotti / Free Press files)
What’s happening today
The Burning Season, the newest film from Winnipeg-based director Sean Garrity and Winnipeg-born writer-actor Jonas Chernick, opens at Cineplex McGillivray.
The film is a tale told-in-reverse starring Chernick (My Awkward Sexual Adventure), Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries) and Joe Pingue (Station Eleven). Ben Waldman has a preview here. For showtimes, click here.
The Burning Season was filmed at a summer camp in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. (Supplied)
Today’s must-read
Admitted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki disposed of the remains of his final victim in three different garbage bins, one of which was emptied into a garbage truck just a short time before police could seize its contents, a court heard Thursday.
Skibicki, 37, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the 2022 slayings of Rebecca Contois and two other Indigenous women — Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran — as well as a fourth still-unidentified woman given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous leaders.
Skibicki has admitted to killing the women but is arguing he should be found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.
On Thursday, court heard testimony from Winnipeg Police Service Const. Jan de Vries, who at the time was assigned to the forensic identification unit and tasked with documenting and collecting physical evidence at the crime scene and other locations, including Skibicki’s McKay Avenue apartment. Dean Pritchard reports.
On the bright side
As Cary Fowler and Geoffrey Hawtin began thinking about ways to prevent starvation and protect the world’s food supply, they came up with what Fowler called “the craziest idea anybody ever had” — a global seed vault built into the side of an Arctic mountain.
About 20 years ago, Fowler, now the U.S. special envoy for Global Food Security, and Hawtin, an agricultural scientist from the United Kingdom, envisioned the so-called “doomsday vault” as a backup spot for seeds that could be used to breed new crops if existing seed banks were threatened by wars, climate change or other upheaval. On Thursday, officials in Washington announced that Fowler and Hawtin would be named 2024 World Food Prize laureates for their work. The Associated Press reports.
Cary Fowler, left, and Geoffrey Hawtin in 2014 at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. (World Food Prize Foundation via The Associated Press)
On this date
On May 10, 1961: The Winnipeg Free Press reported the minister of public utilities said Manitoba’s Traffic Act prohibited the sale of automobiles that did not meet standradrs set out in the act, commenting on a coroner’s jury recommendation prohibiting the sale of vehicles not in proper highway condition. A Trans-Canada Airlines spokesman in Winnipeg said he knew nothing of any strike plans, despite the threat of a walkout by stewardesses over working hours aboard the company’s fast new DC-8 jets. 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.
|
