The Wrap: Construction rage, MLL pay, remembering Robbie Robertson and 50 years of racing at Victory Lane Speedway

Good evening. Here’s a look at what our newsroom has been working on today:

'Calm down, sit back, relax'

Concerns are being raised about drivers’ impatience and flared tempers around the city’s many construction sites this summer, leading to yelling, middle fingers, speeding, ignoring pylons or barricades and getting dangerously close to workers.

Meanwhile, an inner-city bakery has closed its doors to the public, fearing it’s not safe for customers to enter and exit the building around the gaping cliffs created by road construction.

Joyanne Pursaga:

Road rage on the mean streets

As drivers' frustration boils over, construction sites getting increasingly dangerous for workers Read More

Gabrielle Piché:

‘Impossible situation’

Construction season: customers cut off from shop’s front door Read More

Katie May:

Seeds of ‘gentle activism’: flower pot(holes) protest state of city road

Fed up with the potholes that have prompted a deluge of 311 info line complaints from herself and St. Vital neighbours this summer, Dawna Smith pulled out her garden trowel and got to work. She cou... Read More

'We are asking for fairness'

While picketing outside Premier Heather Stefanson’s Tuxedo constituency office Thursday morning, striking Liquor Mart and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries distribution centre employees decried discrepancies between the wage increases offered to MLL workers and the larger salary bumps they say were received by executives.

While the labour action continues, some Manitobans are crossing the border to get their favourite brands, heading to Saskatchewan and North Dakota to stock up on alcoholic beverages.

Danielle Da Silva:

Union slams Crown executives’ pay raises while liquor workers got little under Tory austerity measures

Striking liquor workers decried raises given to Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries’ top brass amid a two-year wage freeze for union employees as neither the Crown corporation nor the union budged from thei... Read More

Malak Abas:

Strike-affected Manitobans driving in order to drink

In the small town of Churchbridge, Sask., Barb McIvor’s general store has suddenly found a new customer base: Manitobans seeking relief from the provincewide Liquor Mart strike. “In the summertime,... Read More

'He was way ahead of his time'

Indigenous influences can be heard throughout the music of Robbie Robertson, the legendary Canadian-born singer-songwriter who died Wednesday at age 80.

Robertson’s career often drew upon his roots with the Six Nations of the Grand River, from his Americana sound to his involvement in the music for Killers of the Flower Moon, an upcoming Martin Scorsese film about murders that took place in the 1920s at the Osage Nation in Oklahoma.

Alan Small:

Finding his voice

Robertson honoured his Indigenous heritage Read More

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press:

Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist and songwriter of The Band, dies at 80

Robbie Robertson, The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter who in such classics as “The Weight” and “Up on Cripple Creek” mined American music and folklore and helped reshape contempora... Read More

'Every evening people can go there and watch exciting action'

Victory Lane Speedway is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In 1973, Peter Vernaus poured his life savings into a vision of transforming a cornfield into one of the largest and best tracks in central Canada. Today, upwards of 100 drivers rev their engines and fling dirt in every direction for a few hours for 16 evenings every Thursday from May to September.

Sports writer Joshua Frey-Sam talks to Pat Mooney, whose tenure at the track goes back to its very inception.

Joshua Frey-Sam:

Never a dull moment

Racing community celebrating 50 years of getting down and dirty at Victory Lane Speedway Read More