Opening the book on how Winnipeg libraries get new material

Last week, local fans of the hit television show Heated Rivalry received a thrilling notification: “Your hold at Winnipeg Public Library is ready to borrow!”

The gay hockey romance has become a major CanCon export, turning Haligionian author Rachel Reid, who penned the books upon which the show is based, into a New York Times bestseller and wreaking havoc on library wait-lists everywhere.

Things started heating up at the Winnipeg Public Library last month.

“That’s when it really took off. There was some increase in December, but not enough to warrant additional copies,” says Aileen Clear, one of three collections librarians responsible for keeping the city’s 20 library branches stocked with new and popular material.

Elmwood students’ clothing venture instils pride, breaks down stereotypes in blue-collar neighbourhood

Xander Woodley is spending his fourth period filling orders.

The Grade 12 Elmwood High School student pulls a blank sweatshirt from the supply closet and double-checks the customer’s purchase: one double-extra-large GPS Crewneck in navy.

He walks over to the heat press at the back of the graphics lab and flips through a stack of transfer sheets to find the correct design.

“It’s a map of our community of Elmwood; these are all of the streets, as well as the Red River and co-ordinates of where we are,” Woodley says, pointing to the line-art rendition of the northeast Winnipeg neighbourhood, the ward boundaries of which run from McLeod Avenue to the Canadian Pacific mainline and from the eastern bank of the Red River to Lagimodiere Boulevard.

Canada’s university funding system is broken

For decades, Canadian universities have delivered a world-class education at a remarkably accessible cost. Nationally, Manitoba has among the lowest tuition fees in the country. However, like many universities across Canada, the University of Manitoba is facing a new reality that can no longer be ignored.

When it comes to fixing health care, province must follow doctors’ orders

To get an honest assessment of Manitoba’s health-care system, it’s best to skip the government news releases and listen to the doctors.

Manitoba chambers rolls out AI adoption training assessment tool

A new online tool aims to help Manitoba businesses in their move to adopt artificial intelligence.

The AI Readiness Assessment evaluates organizations on their familiarity with, and current use of, AI. The voice-led assessment takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete and provides personalized suggestions for businesses to map their AI adoption.

Manitoba AI Pathways, the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce’s new AI training initiative, developed the assessment in partnership with the Manitoba Association of AI Professionals.

Kay Gardiner, a chambers program director, announced the tool on Wednesday at a small-business forum organized by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. The forum, held at the Delta Hotel, focused on what AI means for Manitoba businesses today.

Focus on local ‘fertile ground’ at 3rd annual MbTech Week

A weeklong tech “festival” is ready to celebrate made-in-Manitoba innovation later this month.

Channelling anger productively: understand it, handle it, grow from it

Anger at work is one of those topics people whisper about, joke about or pretend they have neatly under control. In reality, many people have felt a flash of heat in a meeting, a tight jaw after an email or a lingering resentment that follows them home at night.

Being angry with your boss can feel especially loaded. There is power involved, identity involved and often a paycheck on the line.

The good news is anger itself is not a career-ending flaw. It is information. What matters is how you understand it, how you handle it in the moment and what you do with it over time.

Workplace anger usually shows up in familiar forms.

Report sheds light on critical incidents in Manitoba health care

The failure to recognize and intervene when a patient’s health has deteriorated continues to be a leading cause of death and injury in Manitoba’s health-care system.

Eight people died and 24 others suffered major medical consequences between Jan. 1 and March 31 of 2025, says the province’s latest critical incident report. That’s a slight decline in the number of critical incidents compared to the final quarter of 2024, when Manitoba logged 28 major incidents and eight deaths.

The provincial nurses union said the chronic staffing shortage is a factor.

“One critical incident a year is too many, but I am just seeing more and more incidents that have to do with issues that are preventable, which tells me loud and clear that we do not have enough nurses to monitor and oversee our patients,” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said.

Tell-tail dedication, instinct for compassion drive staff at the Winnipeg Humane Society

Tell-tail dedication, instinct for compassion drive staff at the Winnipeg Humane Society

Building up engineers: RRC Polytech, U of M celebrate collaboration

The University of Manitoba and Red River College Polytechnic are making it easier for engineering technologists to earn a degree.

Without key GPS data, transit plan lacked direction

For the first six months after Winnipeg Transit’s $20.4-million network overhaul, city officials had little information to assess how well the new system was working.

The city’s data had been plagued by a faulty GPS tracking system that left major gaps in the first four months of ridership and performance numbers, which prevented Winnipeg transit from making significant adjustments to the network.

Flaws in the vision meant to rekindle the city’s relationship with transit have been widely reported — ridership is down, service hours are shorter and passengers are so underwhelmed, some users, in rare cases, have reportedly bought cars for the first time. Instead of encouraging more Winnipeggers onto the bus, the system appears to be driving users away.

The Free Press/Narwhal set out to understand when and why ridership was lagging. While the independent analysis showed declines on weeknights and weekends are far steeper than previously reported, transit officials warned the city’s publicly available figures are unreliable.

New book from renowned Canadian financial author aims to help you ‘Save Yourself’

If your goal for 2026 is getting into better financial shape, one of Canada’s most renowned personal finance experts is throwing you a self-rescue line.

Kelley Keehn has recently published her 12th personal finance book in the last 20 years, Save Yourself: a New Approach to Thinking About Money and Taking Control of Your Financial Future. She spoke with the Free Press about taking a different tact to helping Canadians to make positive financial change.

Her new book comes at the right time, released in January when many make resolutions about being better with money.

As with past efforts, Keehn has sought to provide advice on the behavioural aspects of finance. But with Save Yourself, she upped the ante with neuroscience to help readers understand how human brains handle the subject of money. “My first book was over 20 years ago on the psychology of money, but it was anecdotal because there was little research on the psychology of money.”

Extreme cold perfect for Operation Nanook

What do you get when you ask more than 40 troops with the 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery to load a pair of M777 Howitzers into the back of a C-130 Hercules amid extremely cold Manitoba temperatures?

Flexibility has become deal-breaker, not perk

There was a time when a flexible work arrangement was a bonus, something employees quietly hoped for once they’d survived probation.

A remote day here or there, the ability to adjust hours around a doctor’s appointment or the occasional work-from-home afternoon were all considered nice extras — perks that made a job feel a little more humane.

Fast forward to January 2026, and flexibility isn’t something workers merely appreciate. For many, it has become a core condition of employment — a deal-breaker if it’s removed or denied.

This shift is on full display this month as Ontario’s provincial government has begun implementing a policy that requires civil servants to return to the office full time. As of Jan. 5, nearly 60,000 public service employees who had been working remotely or in hybrid arrangements are being told to work in person five days a week.

Future students will be wired differently, thanks to AI

Teachers were urged to stop asking children what they want to be when they grow up and focus on building creative, self-directed and critical thinkers at Manitoba’s AI in Education Summit.

“How do we prepare kids for a future we can’t yet see, but we know it’s going to be radically transformed by technology?” futurist Sinead Bovell asked a crowd of educators at a first-of-its-kind conference Friday.

“That is the moment that we are in.”

The province invited Bovell, founder of tech education company WAYE, to share her predictions about artificial intelligence and related advice for schools.

Attention-grabbing screens demean us, bit by bit

The first time I read Oryx and Crake, Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s haunting dystopic novel, I couldn’t put it down. I devoured it in just days, engrossed by the fictional world Atwood wove from the most discomfiting new threads of our own.

Over the years, I returned to the book many times, always finding new depth in its pages. Each time, I finished it at the same brisk pace. I was a fast reader as a child, and for most of my life, that didn’t change.

Until now. In November, as part of an effort to calm my restless mind, I put Oryx and Crake on my nightstand, and made a pledge to myself to read a little bit every night. This time, it’s been over two months, and I’ve made it through only 92 pages.

It would be easy to say I’ve been too busy, but that would be a lie. I’ve had time to read. The problem is now, unlike when the book came out in 2003, I struggle to read more than a page without checking my phone quickly; and checking it once means falling into the chasm of raw content the internet has become.

Chirp heard around Manitoba: RM sells building for $1 to cricket farm entrepreneur

One dollar doesn’t stretch very far these days, but apparently it’s enough to buy a business in Benito.

Why I expelled AI from the classroom

Artificial intelligence (AI) is certainly in vogue these days. Within post-secondary institutions, it is rapidly reshaping the pedagogical landscape. Some academics maintain that AI enriches the student learning experience, whereas others believe it enhances critical thinking.

Northwest Territories facing a hard-as-diamonds reality as pivotal industry wanes

It’s said that pressure makes diamonds, but a diamond mining downturn is what's putting pressure on the Northwest Territories economy these days.

Diamond mines have long been a vital source of well paying local jobs, with spinoffs in hospitality, construction and other areas. It’s been estimated that the region's three operating mines directly and indirectly employ more than 1,500 residents — a significant chunk of the territory's population of almost 46,000 — and account for about one-fifth of the N.W.T.'s gross domestic product.

“Diamond mining in the Northwest Territories has been incredibly pivotal to our economy over the last 25 years,” said Caitlin Cleveland, the N.W.T.'s minister of industry, tourism and investment.

“It's put over $30 billion into the Canadian economy, $20 billion of which has stayed here in the Northwest Territories.”

Students tasked with designing shelter for homeless

Concerned about the state of empathy at her suburban high school, a St. Vital teacher has tasked teens with designing transitional homes for their unsheltered neighbours.

Collège Jeanne-Sauvé made headlines in September when a student was involved in an altercation with a man living in nearby Dakota Forest.

Winnipeg police and the Louis Riel School Division reported at the time the man came out of a tent and chased after a group of students, injuring one. Allegations the teenagers provoked the man by hurling insults and items at the man’s tent were also reported.

The Sept. 9 incident — as well as the gossip in its aftermath — led Kay Wojnarski to reach out to End Homelessness Winnipeg for advice.

Local entrepreneur's time-tracking app Construction Clock ticking along

As a self-described blue collar construction worker, David Peters says he felt like a charlatan when he first became a tech founder.

“At the beginning, when you have no tech experience and you’re trying to convince the world, your customers, your investors that you’re the one that’s going to pull this off, yeah — you definitely feel like you’re selling a dream that you don’t know if you can pull off,” Peters said.

In 2022, the Winnipeg entrepreneur launched Construction Clock, a time tracking app for the construction industry.

The thing that gave him confidence in spite of his imposter syndrome, he said, was the amount of money he invested in the business.

16,000 fossil footprints in central Bolivia reveal dinosaur behavior

TORO TORO, Bolivia (AP) — Legend once had it that the huge, three-toed footprints scattered across the central highlands of Bolivia came from supernaturally strong monsters — capable of sinking their claws even into solid stone.

Then scientists came here in the 1960s and dispelled children's fears, determining that the strange footprints in fact belonged to gigantic, two-legged dinosaurs that stomped and splashed over 60 million years ago, in the ancient waterways of what is now Toro Toro, a village and popular national park in the Bolivian Andes.

Now, a team of paleontologists, mostly from California’s Loma Linda University, have discovered and meticulously documented 16,600 such footprints left by theropods, the dinosaur group that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex. Their study, based on six years of regular field visits and published last Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, reports that this finding represents the highest number of theropod footprints recorded anywhere in the world.

“There’s no place in the world where you have such a big abundance of (theropod) footprints,” said Roberto Biaggi, a co-author of the study led by Spanish paleontologist Raúl Esperante. “We have all these world records at this particular site.”