Motion to rename park withdrawn after MMF complaint

A motion to rename a Glenwood park will be withdrawn after complaints the process would replace a name that honours Métis history.

Coun. Brian Mayes (St. Vital) had raised a motion to rename Carriere Avenue Park in honour of James Peebles, an astrophysicist and astronomer raised in the St. Boniface neighbourhood. The motion was seconded by Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface).

Mayes issued a statement Tuesday that noted he and Allard have agreed to withdraw the motion instead of bringing it forward for a city council vote Thursday.

“(The councillors will instead) move to name a new outdoor classroom in St. George Park for Nobel laureate James Peebles … Both councillors learned last night that the Manitoba Métis Federation had concerns about renaming of the park,” the statement said.

Winnipeg Jets fan support ‘like none other’

It was a vivid — and very noisy — reminder of just how hockey-crazed this community can be.

A dreary, rainy Saturday didn’t stop roughly 5,000 fans from packing into Hockey For All Centre to watch the Winnipeg Jets go through their training camp paces.

“It’s awesome. It just shows how great the support is, how great the community is,” said rookie skater Colby Barlow.

The 20-year-old from Ontario, selected 18th overall by the Jets in 2023, drew one of the loudest ovations when he buried a wicked one-timer off a Parker Ford feed to open the scoring during a scrimmage, which was the main attraction of the team’s annual Fan Fest.

Small changes, big impact

Are you a climate champion or climate destroyer? Ecological quizzes and carbon-footprint calculators can help you find out.

Introduction to Michif — one word at a time

Before the wolf can howl, Norman Fleury says a Michif word: Ooyoowuk.

“Ooyoowuk,” Fleury repeats. Or, in English, “howl.”

Ooyoowuk is one of 70 words articulated by Fleury with an animation and English translation to match — all bundled into digital flashcards.

A group of Métis entrepreneurs unveiled their Michif flashcards this week. They join a swelling movement to revitalize the Métis language, which combines languages such as Cree and French.

St. Boniface residents drained after demolition of Happyland pool

As demolition continues at one outdoor pool in St. Boniface, a city councillor hopes to take a second look at extending the life of another one.

Hudson’s Bay seeks approval to auction off 1670 charter, court filings show

TORONTO - Hudson's Bay wants to revert to its original plan to auction off its founding charter after more parties signalled interest in buying — then donating — the 1670 document, new court documents say.

The Ontario Superior Court had been due to hear a motion earlier this month approving the sale of the artifact to the Weston family of grocer Loblaw Cos. Ltd. fame. Their holding company Wittington Investments Ltd. offered $12.5 million for the charter and planned to donate it to the Canadian Museum of History.

The hearing was adjourned after DKRT Family Corp, a holding company owned by David Thomson, objected to the Weston sale. The firm acting on behalf of the billionaire chairman of Thomson Reuters was willing to spend at least $15 million on the document he wants to donate to the Archives of Manitoba.

Hudson's Bay declined to comment Friday on news that it would return to the auction plan. The new court documents did not say who else was interested in the document but noted that the retailer will seek permission on Sept. 29 to auction off the charter on Oct. 15.

North Dakota missing its Manitobans

Kay Rone used to spot plenty of Manitoba licence plates outside stores, hotels and restaurants throughout Grand Forks on weekends in past years.

There haven’t been nearly as many since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020.

“Now, you hardly see them in town,” said Rone, who owns Northern Roots Boutique, a women’s clothing store opposite Columbia Mall, which was once a big draw for cross-border shoppers.

She displays a window sign welcoming Canadians.

After summer evacuation, northern students ready to hit the books

Hundreds of young wildfire-evacuees will be reunited with their peers and teachers on Sept. 29 for a belated, albeit welcome, first day of school on familiar campuses across northern Manitoba.

Frontier School Division plans to officially launch 2025-26 in South Indian Lake, Leaf Rapids and Lynn Lake before the end of the month.

Chief superintendent Tyson MacGillivray said he and his colleagues are looking forward to “opening day,” following months of emergency management and uncertainty.

Approximately 450 students are currently unable to attend regular classes at West Lynn Heights School (Lynn Lake), Leaf Rapids Education Centre (Leaf Rapids) and Thunderbird School (South Indian Lake).

Clarity, ‘competitiveness’ key to name change

In some ways, the entity that helped draw the 2023 World Police and Fire Games, a studio for video game publisher Ubisoft and the 2025 Grey Cup to Winnipeg isn’t changing.

We all live in glass houses now

In the 19th century, stocks and pillories were still in use in Canada, with people put on public display, their necks, hands or feet clamped into hinged wooden frames for a few hours as punishment for crimes like public drunkenness or disorder, theft and perjury.

Mayor, inner circle want assaults on firefighters, paramedics added to Criminal Code

Physical assaults and threats against Winnipeg firefighters and paramedics have become a regular occurrence on the job, prompting a push within city hall for changes to Canada’s Criminal Code.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said 58 assaults or threats were reported by the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service halfway through 2025 — a figure that one union says is likely underreported by a large margin.

“When you’ve got firefighters, firefighter paramedics and paramedics attending a call to try to help someone, they shouldn’t be assaulted,” Gillingham told reporters. “When they are, there’s got to be consequences for individuals who assault our front-line workers.”

At a meeting Tuesday, city hall’s executive policy committee unanimously endorsed a motion, introduced by the mayor, that calls on Ottawa to amend the Criminal Code to make assaults against firefighters and paramedics a distinct offence, and increase penalties for aggravated assaults against first responders.

The big meaning behind micro-relationships, and why we should talk to strangers more

VANCOUVER - Psychology Prof. Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she began what she calls "a tiny, tiny micro-relationship."

She and a woman who ran a hotdog stand on her way to university around 2007 would wave hello and smile at each other. Their interactions were so small that Sandstrom uses air quotes to even describe them as a "relationship."

And yet "it really meant something much bigger than it seemed like it should, and it made me feel like I belonged there," said Sandstrom.

"I felt very out of place and she, more than anyone else, is who made me feel OK, which was a bit puzzling."

Province creates hunting buffer zone on Bloodvein First Nation

The Manitoba government is creating a buffer zone restricting where non-Indigenous hunters can harvest moose on Bloodvein First Nation’s traditional lands.

Manitoba Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures Minister Ian Bushie announced the change late Monday as moose season began for game hunting areas 17, 17A and 17B that includes the traditional areas of the First Nation, located 285 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

The community, which established a check stop to prevent illegal drugs and contraband from entering the First Nation, warned “outside hunters” on social media weeks ago that they’re not welcome to take moose on their traditional lands.

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation has questioned the First Nation’s authority to block licensed hunters with a moose tag from the area and called on the provincial government to intervene.

Rogers wins gold, sets Canadian record in hammer throw at world championships

TOKYO - Camryn Rogers set the tone early in the women's hammer throw at the world athletics championships Monday with an impressive opening toss of 78.09 metres.

Good enough for a world title. Not good enough for Rogers.

The 26-year-old from Richmond, B.C., put the competition out of reach with her second throw of 80.51 metres to claim her second straight world championship gold medal in dominant fashion.

Rogers's winning throw broke her own Canadian record and is the second longest ever behind the world record of 82.98 set by Poland's Anita Wlodarczyk in 2016. Rogers's previous personal best was 78.88 metres.

‘As we grow, our roots only grow deeper’: Red River Mutual insurance company celebrates 150 years

If Red River Mutual was an ice cream flavour, it would be rhubarb.

Scratch that. Red River Mutual has an ice cream flavour — and it is rhubarb.

Earlier this year, the mutual insurance company — which is headquartered in Altona and has a regional office in Winnipeg — partnered with Chaeban Ice Cream to create a special, limited edition flavour. Red River Mutual Rhubarb includes fresh pieces of the titular vegetable along with crisp clusters made using rolled oats, flour, brown sugar, butter and almonds.

The collaboration is part of Red River Mutual’s ongoing 150th anniversary celebrations, and the rhubarb is a nod to the company’s roots in southern Manitoba’s Pembina Valley.

Blame game after acts of political violence can lead to further attacks, experts warn

DENVER (AP) — From the moment conservative activist and icon Charlie Kirk was felled by an assassin’s bullet, partisans began fighting over which side was to blame. President Donald Trump became the most prominent to do so, tying the attack to “the radical left” before a suspect was even identified.

It was part of a new, grim tradition in a polarized country — trying to pin immediate responsibility for an act of public violence on one of two political sides. As the nation reels from a wave of physical attacks against both Republicans and Democrats, experts warn that the rush to blame sometimes ambiguous and irrational acts on political movements could lead to more conflict.

“What you’re seeing now is exactly how the spiral of violence occurs,” said Robert Pape, a political scientist and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago.

On Friday, authorities announced they had arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Washington, Utah, in the shooting. While a registered voter, he was not affiliated with any party and had not voted in the last two general elections. Even so, officials said Robinson had recently grown more political and expressed negative views about Kirk.

Equatorial Guinea enforces yearlong internet outage for island that protested construction company

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — When residents of Equatorial Guinea's Annobón island wrote to the government in Malabo in July last year complaining about the dynamite explosions by a Moroccan construction company, they didn't expect the swift end to their internet access.

Dozens of the signatories and residents were imprisoned for nearly a year, while internet access to the small island has been cut off since then, according to several residents and rights groups.

Local residents interviewed by The Associated Press left the island in the past months, citing fear for their lives and the difficulty of life without internet.

Banking services have shut down, hospital services for emergencies have been brought to a halt and residents say they rack up phone bills they can't afford because cellphone calls are the only way to communicate.

A Lebanese dancer defies extremist threats and social norms with his sold-out performances

BEIRUT (AP) — Alexandre Paulikevitch put on his white dress and wig and danced his way to center stage, knowing that the extremist groups who had threatened him before his controversial recital might be waiting for him outside the theater.

The Lebanese dancer’s sold-out performance to a cheering crowd at a popular Beirut venue had angered fundamentalist movements ranging from the right-wing Christian Soldiers of God to Sunni Islamists.

The fundamentalists say Paulikevitch is “promoting homosexuality" because he wears dresses and corsets and undulates to classical Arabic music in a way which society largely sees as exclusive to women.

Paulikevitch says he’s breaking social norms and reintroducing forms of dance that were commonplace for men as recently as the early 20th century.

Running down Terry Fox’s dream

In an era when today’s endurance feats seemingly defy human limits, his accomplishments still marvel.

In 1980, a curly-haired young man dipped a prosthetic right leg in the Atlantic Ocean in St. John’s, Nlfd., before embarking on a cross-country journey to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

With his signature hop-step running gait, Terry Fox, often only wearing grey shorts, a white cotton T-shirt with the words Marathon of Hope stencilled on the front, and blue adidas shoes, ran an average of 42 kilometres, or the equivalent of a full marathon, for 143 days. In total, he tallied 5,373 kilometres spanning six provinces.

His physical journey ended Sept. 1 of that year just shy of Thunder Bay when the cancer that had claimed his leg at age 18 had returned in his lungs. He died 10 months later, shortly before his 23rd birthday. However, his dream of raising millions of dollars for cancer research never faded.

Amazon’s Zoox launches its robotaxi service in Las Vegas

Amazon's Zoox on Wednesday launched its robotaxi service in Las Vegas, offering free rides through parts of the entertainment mecca for anyone willing to gamble on the safety of a driverless vehicle that operates without a steering wheel.

The Las Vegas debut of Zoox's long-planned ride-hailing service reflects Amazon-owned robotaxi maker's confidence in the safety of its boxy vehicles after two years of testing them in the city.

The robotaxis initially were only available to employees in Las Vegas before gradually expanding to friends and family members. Now, anyone with the Zoox app will be able to request a ride to five designated locations, including Resorts World, the Luxor hotel and the New York-New York hotel. The longest distance the Zoox robotaxis will travel is about three miles (4.8 kilometers) while carrying up to four passengers.

All rides will be provided for free for at least the first few months to help promote the existence of the service in the perennially popular travel destination. Once it begins charging for rides in Las Vegas, Zoox says its prices will be comparable to traditional taxis and ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.

Nepal internet crackdown part of global trend toward suppressing online freedom

Nepal's crackdown on social media companies, which led to protests and police killing at least 19 people, is part of a yearslong decline of internet freedoms around the world as even democracies seek to curtail online speech.

The Himalayan country’s government said last week it was blocking several social media platforms including Facebook, X and YouTube because the companies failed to comply with a requirement that they register with the government. The ban was lifted Tuesday a day after the deadly protests.

What's happening in Nepal mirrors “this broader pattern of controlling the narrative and controlling of stories emerging from the ground,” said Aditya Vashistha, an assistant professor of information science at Cornell University. “This has happened several times in the neighboring countries India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. So this is nothing new — in fact, I would say this is taken from the playbook, which is now very established, of trying to control social media narratives.”

Not just Nepal

Deadly attack renews calls to fix cellular gaps in, around Hollow Water

A mass stabbing and head-on crash that killed two people, including a suspect, and injured eight has renewed concerns about cellular coverage gaps in and around Hollow Water First Nation.

Residents said there is no cellphone service in Hollow Water and some surrounding areas, leaving people vulnerable if they’re in a location or circumstance where there’s no other way to call 911 or an emergency service directly.

“I don’t get any service in Hollow Water. It’s difficult to communicate,” said Brook Monkman, who lives south of the First Nation near Lake Winnipeg.

Monkman said he was driving on a road about 40 kilometres north of Hollow Water in 2023 when he came upon a crash that killed a mother and young son, and left a father and young daughter seriously injured.

Offhand insult in 2003 gave rise to the Banjo Bowl — one of CFL's most-colourful and enduring rivalries

It was the verbal shot heard ’round the world. Or at least, across a pair of Prairie provinces.

Canadian Football League fans in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are well familiar with the origin of the Banjo Bowl, the annual tilt that pits the host Winnipeg Blue Bombers against their principal rival, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Followers of both teams can tell you that the match evolved out of a comment uttered by former Bombers placekicker Troy Westwood in September 2003, when he sarcastically referred to Saskatchewaners (Saskatchewanites? Saskatchewians?) as “banjo-picking inbreds.”

Then, how he doubled down on that jibe a few weeks later when, at a scheduled news conference, he told members of the media that he had misspoken, as “the vast majority of the people in Saskatchewan have no idea how to play the banjo.” (For the record, Westwood’s mom was born in the Land of the Living Skies, and his aunts and grandmother were living there when he was spouting off.)

Family of student killed in encounter with police threatens civil lawsuit

The family of a U of M student who was shot and killed by a police officer say they’re considering further legal action after an external review cleared the officer.