City Lego seller continues to build up its business

Brick by brick, a Winnipeg Lego seller is building its third expansion — in less than two years.

Classic Scoop founder left lucrative job to start business offering treats on-site for parties, festivals

Days off used to be infrequent for Paul Abdul-Raymond, but now every day’s a sundae.

The Winnipeg entrepreneur is the owner of the Classic Scoop, an ice cream trailer that customers can book events such as birthday parties, corporate functions and community festivals. Abdul-Raymond and his staff show up to serve classic cones with customizable toppings, ice cream sandwiches and seasonal specials.

It’s a lot of work but it’s also a lot of fun for the 39-year-old, who left a lucrative but stressful job at a health-care company to get the Classic Scoop going in spring 2025.

Customers affirmed his career pivot from the start.

National Code Talker Day brings 101-year-old veteran to Phoenix

PHOENIX (AP) — All eyes were on Navajo Code Talker Thomas H. Begay. The 101-year-old veteran saluted while the national anthem played on Friday, kicking off a day of recognition honoring him and the other Navajo recruits who famously used their native language to keep military secrets during World War II.

Begay, one of the last two living Code Talkers, made the long trip from his home on the Navajo Nation to the Arizona State Capitol for the event. He was joined by family members and dozens of descendants of other Code Talkers.

“I am so damn proud,” said Begay, in a wheelchair and wearing a cap dotted with pins and a golden shirt that featured military patches and his service ribbons. “We used our language in World War II and won the battles.”

The Marine Corps recruited over 400 Navajos during World War II to communicate confidential information using their then-unwritten language. It was the largest code-talking program in the military at the time. In 2021, Arizona became the first state adopting Navajo Code Talker Day as a state holiday.

‘Much more to do’ to meet demand for licensed child care: education minister

An Elmwood child-care facility with 1,000 kids on its wait list served as the backdrop for a government news conference touting recent steps taken to meet overwhelming demand for licensed spaces in Manitoba.

The scoop on lawn bowling

If you’ve ever wondered what bowls — better known as lawn bowling — is all about, the Free Press has the scoop on it.

First off, to get you in the right headspace it’s important to not compare bowls to alley bowling. Although there is a ball that is rolled, there are no pins at the end to knock down. Bowls is better compared to curling and bocce ball.

The game is played on a turf known as a rink. The rink can be made of grass — a bowling green — or carpet.

Both types of rinks have advantages and disadvantages, with players usually having a preference. With grass turf, bowlers need more force while rolling the ball to make it through the thicker terrain, while carpet is a smooth surface and requires a lighter touch.

Rainbow Stage star relates to Elle Woods’ perseverance

Nearly 9,000 aspiring barristers and solicitors cross their fingers and send in their LSAT scores to Harvard University each year, but less than 10 per cent of applicants wind up on campus in Cambridge, Mass.

In Legally Blonde, the musical opening tonight at Rainbow Stage, Elle Woods (Claire Mac Master) defies the undercutting judgment of her blue-blood boyfriend Warner (Duncan Cox) to earn a spot in the Ivy League, leaving her doubters aghast and crimson-faced.

“What?” asked Elle — played by Reese Witherspoon in the 2001 film version — “Like it’s hard?”

The New York-born Mac Master never had any aspirations to pursue a law career, but can relate to her character’s plucky self-determination based on her experience at Toronto Metropolitan University’s undergraduate acting program, which accepts 25 applicants each year from an international pool of hundreds.

Unsafe conditions force Sea Bears, Honey Badgers into winner-take-all CEBL final in Winnipeg Saturday

BRAMPTON — The Canadian Elite Basketball League’s new Finals format lasted one minute and 46 seconds.

And it’s possible even that was too long.

What was supposed to be a historic best-of-three series between the Winnipeg Sea Bears and the Brampton Honey Badgers will now return to the league’s previous format of a single-game elimination. Wednesday’s Game 1 at the CAA Centre in Southern Ontario was cancelled shortly after tip-off due to condensation on the court, which made the playing surface unsafe for competition.

The championship will flip to the Manitoba capital for a single, winner-take-all contest at Canada Life Centre on Saturday (2:30 p.m.).

Bringing home a Fish: Group of local baseball fans open doors to Goldeyes

There’s no place like home.

But what exactly does that mean for members of the Winnipeg Goldeyes, who typically find themselves hundreds or even thousands of miles away from family and friends between May and September, trying to keep their baseball careers alive while living on shoestring budgets?

For some, home is a modest downtown hotel room or small apartment typically shared with a teammate or two. For others, there’s a more personal touch — one that truly connects them to the community they happen to be playing in.

Welcome to the world of billets, a longstanding tradition in this market that dates back to when the Fish first took flight back in 1994. They are a unique and valuable tool for the American Association organization and its players, with a dedicated group of local baseball fans who open their doors and roll out the welcome mat year after year.

Ridesharing platform lets people connect with local drivers with trucks, cargo vans

Want to transport something big but you don’t have a buddy with a truck? Log on to Truckbud.

Winnipeg entrepreneur Praise Odutayo launched the ridesharing platform in November. People who need to move large items can connect with vetted local drivers who have trucks or cargo vans for same-day delivery. Requesting a driver takes about 60 seconds, and users get real-time updates from pickup to drop-off.

Odutayo says he built Truckbud to solve a simple but common challenge: many people don’t own a truck or van, yet regularly need to move items that won’t fit in a car.

“Truckbud is making large-item transportation more accessible, affordable and convenient, while creating flexible earning opportunities within the community,” said Odutayo, 24.

Federal government announces $34M to help communities cope with climate change

OTTAWA - The federal government is spending $34 million on projects to make Canadian communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.

The funds come as cities and towns across the country spend another summer battling extreme heat, wildfires, flooding and tornadoes.

Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin made the announcement in Halifax Wednesday morning. The city is receiving nearly $800,000 to install cooling measures in its parks to help residents cope with extreme heat.

"Canada’s climate is changing. Our government is investing to make these communities more resilient, so that people are protected from flooding, extreme heat and other risks," Dabrusin said in a news release.

A mission to make hearing care easier to access

Armando Di Lello was four years old when he was diagnosed with hearing loss in both ears and received his first hearing aids. He doesn’t remember that moment, but he recalls moments that followed.

“Going through elementary, middle school, high school — it was definitely something that was not a positive experience for me,” he said.

Di Lello’s hearing aids were big, bulky and noisy, and he chose not to wear them much of the time.

“I didn’t perceive the benefit as a kid,” he said. “No kid wants to appear different.”

Fun drop-in last chance to mentor grads of inner-city school with excellent track record

Summer break may be in full swing, but Gonzaga Middle School invited graduates back to the building for water balloon fights and academic, employment and support services this week.

Roughly 30 alumni, including teenagers and twentysomethings, stopped by the grades 6-8 school in North Point Douglas on Tuesday afternoon. They were greeted with slime-making kits, ice cream sundaes and staff ready to answer questions.

The initiative — the final grad drop-in organized this summer — is a new extension of the mentorship and holistic programming baked into the funded independent school’s mandate.

“We have 22- and 23-year-olds coming back and checking in and asking for help on their university papers,” principal Rex Ferguson-Baird said.

Missing pet tortoise found at Oak Hammock Marsh

Nobody at Oak Hammock Marsh expected to find an African spurred tortoise wandering through the wetlands. Least of all one that had travelled more than 20 kilometres from home to get there.

A Winnipeg home with a mountain view? You won’t find a real one, but AI-generated visual suggests otherwise

Manitoba’s mountain range peeked out behind a Scotia Street home.

At least, it did in a photo attached to a real estate listing for 232 Scotia St. in Winnipeg’s (flat) Seven Oaks neighbourhood.

Another picture — now removed — showed a cartoon cityscape viewable from the bungalow’s front porch.

Both photos had tags in their bottom left corners: “AI-generated content.”

A new chapter: Renamed Winnipeg Book Festival takes to The Forks this fall

Winnipeg’s long-running annual literary festival returns this fall, once again featuring a slate of authors, local and beyond, ready to engage with readers.

New this year is pretty much everything else, including a new name, executive director and team of staff — as well as a shift to a tight, condensed timeline and a move to hold all events under one roof.

The festival formerly known as Thin Air/Livres en fête is now the Winnipeg Book Festival; the event takes place Oct. 1-4 at The Forks Market, with most events offering free admission.

It’s a lot of changes for the stalwart literary festival, which was run for more than two decades by Charlene Diehl, who stepped away in late 2025.

Ultrarare Nintendo Mario game cartridges discovered in Wisconsin

A few years ago, a pop culture store owner in Wisconsin mentioned to Jason Ganos, a well-known Nintendo game collector, that he had a box of Super Mario cartridges that had been sitting in storage for years. It stopped Ganos in his tracks.

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation saves otter pup found strangled by fishing net in B.C.

Gordon Mellish says he has saved at least 10 people using CPR after being trained in the life-saving technique, but giving mouth-to-mouth to an otter pup was a completely different animal.

Ducks Unlimited makes province’s largest-ever conservation-land purchase

A Manitoba landscape that helped save the Giant Canada goose from extinction has now been permanently protected in the province’s largest conservation land purchase in history.

‘Exciting news’ on rail relocation coming

Premier Wab Kinew is expected to make an announcement concerning long-awaited Winnipeg rail relocation later this week.

Former federal transport minister and Manitoba MP Lloyd Axworthy, who Kinew tasked in October 2024 with leading a two-year rail relocation feasibility study, confirmed there would be an announcement Wednesday.

“We’ve had this rail study group which I’ve chaired and we’ve been responsible for developing recommendations,” Axworthy said Monday.

The longtime champion for Winnipeg rail relocation, who is vacationing at his cottage on Lake Winnipeg, deferred to the premier’s office for information, but confirmed he will attend Wednesday’s news conference.

Winnipeg pooches get time in spotlight in Rainbow Stage production of Legally Blonde

On stage and screen there are no small roles, but there are small actors.

And then there is Lil’ Beast, a spunky, wild-haired performer who weighs in at 1.5 kilograms (3.5 lbs).

“You think of a small dog, and then he’s even smaller,” says his owner Britainy Jasper.

In April, when the beast was only six months old, he was encouraged by dozens of dog park acquaintances to tap into his creative side and audition for his first professional acting gig.

It’s been a winding journey to the pros for PWHL’s first Manitoban bench boss

Christine Bumstead has never been one to spend much time wondering what might be on the horizon.

The Winnipegger has made a habit of focusing on the task at hand, leading to a wide variety of experiences behind the bench, culminating with her promotion to head coach of the PWHL’s Seattle Torrent in early June.

“I truthfully never look at things in (terms) of what is next or shooting for the next thing. I’ve never been someone with a five-year plan or anything,” Bumstead said during a recent telephone interview.

“I kind of laugh, five years ago I was in a classroom in Morden, Manitoba, teaching. So a lot can happen in five years that you can never really expect.”

Child who prompted Porter Airline flight cancellation not at fault, passenger says

The child whose refusal to buckle up prompted the cancellation of a Porter Airlines flight last week was "obviously terrified" and should not be blamed, says a passenger who was on the plane bound for Toronto.

The aircraft could not take off from Victoria in what Porter called an unsafe situation, so the crew decided to return to the terminal and have the child and a parent get off the plane. By the time they deboarded, it was too late for the flight to proceed.

Passenger Aryeh Kozuch said he has taken the red-eye flight a dozen times without issue, but as he was closing his eyes in preparation for takeoff last Thursday, he noticed flight attendants walking toward the back of the plane. Then, he heard an overhead announcement reminding passengers that obeying flight attendants' instructions is required by law.

Five minutes later, there was another announcement: Passengers needed to comply with flight attendants' instructions within 60 seconds, or the plane was going back to the gate.

Memories of East Selkirk evoked on Zoon Monkman’s new album

At the dawn of the MP3 era, an adolescent Zoon Monkman didn’t have the money for an iPod or a Microsoft Zune, the short-lived competitor to Apple’s revolutionary personal-listening device.

What the recording artist from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation did have in his backpack was the catalogue for the Scholastic Book Club, where only one product demanded attention: an AM-FM radio pen that scoured the airwaves for connection with every click.

For Monkman — a Polaris Music Prize-nominated musician who records as Zoon and pioneered the “moccasingaze” genre, which blends the dreamy textures of shoegaze with the rhythms and energies of Indigenous song — his mother’s gift of the ballpoint pen was a means of both self-discovery and the development of his musical taste.

During lonely days as an elementary student at East Selkirk’s Happy Thought School, the device was also a recess-hour tether to distant worlds, where artists such as Feist, Avril Lavigne and Broken Social Scene were introduced by the enthusiastic voice of a man who called himself Ace Burpee.