Pimp sentenced to 11 years in prison

A man who picked up a vulnerable 17-year-old child-welfare ward on the streets of Winnipeg and coerced her into providing sexual services for several months has been sent to prison for more than a decade.

After a trial, Hassan Kargbo, who’s in his early 30s, was found guilty of sexual exploitation, making child sexual abuse and exploitation material, receiving a material benefit from sexual services provided by a person under 18, procuring a person under 18 and advertising sexual services.

Provincial court Judge Julie Frederickson sentenced him to 11 years behind bars late last month.

“Mr. Kargbo picked up a young Indigenous girl walking over the Osborne Street bridge and quickly got her involved in drug use and escorting,” Frederickson said in a written decision.

MPI lowers speed limit on tech upgrade with ‘IT roadmap’ following Project Nova debacle

Manitoba Public Insurance is now using an “IT road map” and phasing in new technology and systems after pulling the plug last year on its failed $164-million overhaul known as Project Nova, its annual report says.

The Crown corporation’s 2025-26 just-released annual report says lessons learned from Project Nova helped shape its “new path forward for modernization,” calling it an “IT road map” allowing systems to be changed in “smaller, lower-risk increments.”

Chief executive officer Satvir Jatana said in the report that the public auto insurer is in “a favourable position” — reporting $55.6 million in net income after losses of $19.7 million in 2024-25 and $130 million the previous fiscal year. Jatana said income would have surpassed $100 million if not for writeoffs related to the closure of Project Nova, which was intended to modernize outdated business and information technology systems, with a projected cost that climbed from $85 million in 2019 to an estimated $435 million in March of 2025, before it was cancelled.

Jatana has stated previously that Project Nova was doomed from the start with ineffective governance, major changes in MPI leadership, a global pandemic and a labour dispute that led to delays and cost overruns with many starts and stops to the project.

Transgender air force member fined for 17 Wing Winnipeg protest

A transgender military member has been fined in a case where she was Tasered while fighting to have her gender identity changed on her file.

Royal Canadian Air Force Sgt. Athena Morris was fined $2,000 for unlawfully entering a restricted area at 17 Wing Winnipeg on March 31, 2025, when she demanded the gender marker on her file be changed. Morris, a transgender woman, said she had been trying to get her gender identifier changed since January of that year.

The incident was a culmination of “months of friction,” defence counsel Maj. Carlos Da Cruz told military judge Stephen Strickey Monday during a hearing at HMCS Chippawa, a Royal Canadian Navy Reserve division in Winnipeg.

Da Cruz told court Morris was misgendered by colleagues and superiors and told she wasn’t allowed to use the women’s bathrooms or showers.

Woman who joined mother in young girl’s brutal abuse, neglect should go to prison for nine years, Crown says

A Winnipeg woman who, along with her mother, subjected a young girl to prolonged abuse and neglect that took her to the brink of death should be sentenced to nine years in prison, a judge was told Monday.

The 25-year-old accused — who can only be identified by her initials A.A.R. because she is related to the victim, who is now 15 – pleaded guilty Monday to one count of aggravated assault.

A.A.R.’s mother, N.A., 48, pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2024 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The crimes of the mother and daughter came to light only after the then-12-year-old, dangerously malnourished victim fled their Arlington Street home through a second-floor bedroom window in August 2023 wearing only a diaper, with duct tape clinging to her arms.

Klein vows city ombudsman would bring transparency

Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein is promising to build public trust in city hall, if elected, with a new municipal ombudsman.

Klein expects the change would ramp up transparency and ensure complaints are thoroughly reviewed.

An independent municipal ombudsman would receive reports from whistleblowers and the public, then publish findings. That person would not answer to city staff or the mayor, Klein said.

“It will make hiding a bad file much harder. And it will make having meetings behind closed doors very difficult,” he said.

Osborne Village violence sends two people to hospital, one in critical condition; two people arrested

Two people are in hospital and another two are in police custody after a serious assault in Osborne Village early Monday morning.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Pat Saydak said officers were called to the assault scene on Osborne Street near River Avenue just after midnight.

Two people were rushed to hospital, one in critical condition and the other in stable condition.

Two individuals, both adults, were arrested by police. There’s no word yet on charges.

Estate of woman who died from local anesthetic injected into blood vessel sues Morden dentist, his business, clinic

The estate of a 23-year-old woman who died after receiving a local anesthetic during a wisdom tooth extraction at a Morden dental clinic has filed a lawsuit over her death.

Virginia Blatz never returned home after she went to Boundary Trails Dental Centre to have her wisdom teeth removed on Nov. 27, 2024. An autopsy later confirmed she died from local anesthetic systemic toxicity caused by an inadvertent injection into a blood vessel, her family has previously said.

Her father, Dulaney Blatz, filed a lawsuit in the Court of King’s Bench on behalf of her estate late last month, naming Ronald David Janz — the dentist who performed the procedure — his dental corporation and the dental corporation that operates the clinic as defendants.

None of the defendants have filed statements of defence in response to the claim, which has not yet been heard in court.

Mayoral candidates Klein, Vogiatzakis continue to snipe over inducement allegations

Winnipeg mayoral candidate Mike Vogiatzakis told reporters Monday he will contact the city clerk to report his allegation that rival Kevin Klein offered him a job to drop out of the race.

Vogiatzakis and Klein both doubled down a day after accusing each other of offering the other a position at city hall, if they were victorious in the Oct. 28 election, in exchange for a withdrawal.

“Do I want to get him charged? Not really. I don’t want to destroy anybody’s life,” Vogiatzakis told reporters.

“Kevin’s a good guy. I thought he was a friend of mine, but he’s not. Kevin uses leverage to get ahead, and he tried to use me as leverage.”

Word test

TESTING

Premier Wab Kinew is an imported Manitoban, born in Kenora and raised on Onigaming First Nation in Treaty Three (in northwestern Ontario) before his family moved to Winnipeg. He’s the son of well-known Anishinaabe leader and traditional knowledge keeper Tobasonakwut Kinew and Kathi Kinew.

These are the words we provided feedback on: Boniface, Cockburn, Dauphin, Dene, Hellebuyck, Iafallo, Íslendingadagurinn, Kinew, Kildonan, Malak Abas, Métis, Newfoundland, Orlikow, Pembina, Portage la Prairie, Premier, Regina, St. Vital, Samyn, Schiefele, vínarterta, Wiebe, Generation Z.

The election of our discontent

There’s an undercurrent of unhappiness running through the Winnipeg electorate as the municipal election day approaches.

One-half of Winnipeggers believe the city is heading in the wrong direction, according to a new Abacus Data poll, with nearly one-third unsure if Winnipeg is regressing or progressing.

Only 21 per cent of residents believe the city is on the right track, the Free Press-commissioned poll found.

That discontentment extends to how the city spends its tax dollars, with four in 10 Winnipeggers believing they receive poor value for what they pay in property taxes.