Multifaith prayers for Earth to precede climate strike

China keeps perfect record going in Olympic weightlifting

Correctional Services Canada is reopening prison farms. But in B.C., where it has no such programs, a wife and her late husband, who killed a man in a botched holdup, started Emma’s Acres, a unique prison farm she hopes to see expanded.

Manitobans largely heeding calls to stay home, but some continue to flout rules, data shows

The data is clear: Manitobans, for the most part, have got the message and are staying at home.

But there are outliers ignoring public-health directives, increasing the risk of community spread of COVID-19, which has eclipsed 100,000 deaths worldwide.

Data from Toronto-based Environics Analytics shows Manitoba has done well when it comes to sheltering at home as the pandemic deepens.

Environics Analytics senior vice-president Rupen Seoni said the company used cellphone location data from apps to track weekend movements throughout the country from Feb. 1 to April 5.

‘A new future’: city dentist Cholakis donates $2M to school of dental hygiene

Dental hygienist training in Manitoba is getting a big boost, after a major gift from a local dentist.

On Thursday, the dental hygiene school at the University of Manitoba’s Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry unveiled a new $2-million donation from Dr. Ernest Cholakis. It’s the largest gift the program has ever received, and in honour of the funding, the school will be named the Cholakis School of Dental Hygiene.

The gift was unveiled at a ceremony Thursday morning at the U of M’s Brodie Centre in the Health Sciences Centre complex. The benefactor and other dignitaries, including Premier Wab Kinew, were in attendance, as well as the three-year program’s current students.

Cholakis, who graduated from the U of M’s dentistry school in 1982, had high praise for the dental hygiene profession.

Free as can be

Katelyn Sawatzky founded Childfree Winnipeg Women in 2021 to bring together women who don’t have kids — be it by choice or circumstance — and do not plan on raising children.

The group is designed to help them share experiences and build meaningful friendships.

The community welcomes cisgender, straight, transgender, bisexual and lesbian women. Parents, including empty nesters and men, are turned away.

“Our group is a safe space where women can hang out with other women without being asked when you’re going to have kids or why you don’t have kids … where you don’t feel like you have to validate or defend your choices in any way, because everyone gets it,” Sawatzky says.

Perennials in the zone

The reputation of Manitoba’s cold climate precedes us into nearly every major North American plant-breeding company. You could almost say, if a plant survives winter in Winnipeg, it will survive anywhere.

Dummen Orange is a leading global breeder and propagator of ornamental flowers and plants. It has been in operation in North America for 26 years. The company’s True North Perennials program differentiates Dummen Orange from other breeders on our continent, many of whom test their plants in places where winter temperatures do not exceed -34.4 C — in other words, Zone 4.

Hence, many new plant introductions are classified as hardy to Zone 4 because they have not been tested in our Zone 3B climate. Vanstone Nurseries in Portage la Prairie is a key regional testing ground for the True North Perennials program, which is focused on our zone.

“This has become a very big deal,” says Duayne Friesen, Winnipeg-based sales representative for Ball Seed Company, a major North American supplier of seed and young plants to commercial greenhouses. “There is significant demand, especially in Canada and the northern United States, for plant varieties that are guaranteed cold-hardy.”