WHO plans to rename monkeypox over stigmatization concerns

Must-see Folk Fest workshops

Workshops have always been an integral part of the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

They are magic-moment makers; a curated group of musicians — sometimes friends, sometimes strangers — on one stage playing together, supporting each other, creating something that will only exist for an hour or two. No one knows what will come out of the collaboration, but usually it’s something special.

When the Free Press spoke to Winnipeg Folk Festival artistic director Chris Frayer ahead of the lineup release in early March, he noted he would be paying some extra attention to workshops this year, as some of the special projects occurring during the past couple of festivals had pulled some of his attention away.

And with 37 workshops on the books, it would seem he followed through on his promise.

MGEU resorts to arbitration for 12,000 civil servants

The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union filed for arbitration this week, alleging provincial negotiators have refused to make a definitive offer on wages or discuss any non-monetary issues.

WRHA directs three care homes to accommodate surge of hospital patients

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has directed three long-term care centres to make space for hospital patients, citing “exceptionally high demand for care across the health-care system.”

“Riverview Health Centre, Deer Lodge Centre and Misericordia Health Centre have been asked to identify additional temporary capacity for patients who no longer require an acute-care hospital bed but continue to need an appropriate level of care before they can transition to their next care setting,” a WRHA spokesperson told the Free Press Thursday.

“This whole-of-system response will help create additional capacity in acute-care hospitals, supporting patient flow and timely access to emergency departments and other hospital services.”

The spokesperson described the measures as part of “standard surge protocol,” atypical and temporary, but did not provide a timeline of how long patients would be staying at the health-care centres.

Former MLA Kevin Chief opens up about his 18 years of sobriety

Every day starts and ends with a prayer.

In the morning, Kevin Chief asks for the strength and courage to stay sober. At night, he thanks the Creator for another day of sobriety. It’s been 18 years since his last drink. Staying sober is still the most important thing to him.

“You’d have to be pretty close to me to know. And there are people today who know me very well that don’t know,” the 45-year-old father of three says.

“I never meant it to be like that. The anonymity was important to me because I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it, and I thought it’d be embarrassing when I slipped again. So I thought it was better for me to not let people know. And then my sponsor told me, ‘Look, you’ll know when the time’s right. You don’t need to force it.’”

A voice from within the shelter

On a sticky-hot evening, the bus shacks of Winnipeg sit mostly empty, void both of people waiting for the bus and of people who find under their roofs a sheltered, if not entirely comfortable, place to stay. For all the words about the latter groups that have spackled the news as of late, there are few out tonight. Not on Regent, or Pembina, or Osborne, or North Main. 

There is one person. In a shelter at the awkward intersection where Marion Street and St. Mary’s Road meet, Samantha Thomas sits on the bench, arranging containers of soup. Soon, she’ll pack her cart with all her things — a tent, some blankets, a thrift store Bible — and head south to find a quieter shack to bunk in for the night. 

“I do this every day, back and forth,” she says. “When nighttime comes, I’ll go sleep in St. Vital. It’s actually scary over there, because I’m all alone in the bus shelter and everybody’s gone. I can’t believe I stay out there by myself, but when you’re tired, you’re tired.” 

This bus shelter is already in bad condition. Two of the wall panels have been smashed out; Thomas, 27, was sleeping when it happened. She didn’t even know that it had been busted until the cops came, and she woke up to find the shack inundated by rain.

Truck driver blew stop sign in Broncos crash

MELFORT, Sask. - Grieving families sobbed Monday as they heard how a semi-truck driver barrelled through an oversized stop sign with a flashing red light and failed to avoid a high-speed crash with a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

An agreed statement of facts about the collision that killed 16 people on the bus and injured 13 more was entered in a Saskatchewan court as part of a heart-wrenching first day of a sentencing hearing for the truck driver. Roughly half of 75 victim impact statements to be submitted by friends and family members were read out.

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, 30, of Calgary, sat next to his defence lawyers as court heard he was going between 86 and 96 km/h with a load of peat moss when he drove into a rural intersection north of Tisdale last April.

The sun wasn't in his eyes. He wasn't distracted by a cellphone. And he hadn't been drinking or doing drugs. Weather and road conditions were also good, said Crown prosecutor Thomas Healey.