Mate’s escalating misogyny a serious red flag

Pair of banks abandoning Brandon’s downtown

BRANDON — Two of Canada’s major banks are set to relocate from their longstanding downtown Brandon locations in October.

BMO will close its branch on Rosser Avenue and move to a new location on Park Avenue while Royal Bank of Canada’s Rosser branch will be consolidated with the existing RBC branch on 18th Street.

Neither bank owns its downtown property or could say what will happen to the buildings after they vacate.

BMO spokesperson Jeff Roman described the bank’s move to Park Avenue as an investment in the Brandon community.

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.

Nutrition experts get to the meat of latest grocery store trend

Protein-fortified milk, pasta with added protein, high-protein tortilla chips. Turn down any grocery aisle these days and you’ll likely find a wide variety of products bulking up on a certain macronutrient.

Interest in protein isn’t new (see the popularity of the Atkins and keto diets), but social media has raised the essential nutrient to cure-all superfood status.

“We’re bombarded by this idea that we need to eat more protein to have more muscle and look better, and that is changing consumer behaviour,” says Dr. Dylan MacKay, an assistant professor in the department of food and human nutritional sciences and department of internal medicine at the University of Manitoba.

A 2024 survey of American adults found 71 per cent of respondents were trying to consume more protein, up from 59 per cent in 2022. The same survey determined exposure to food and nutrition content has increased significantly across social media platforms in recent years.

Multi-year budget to force councillors, bureaucrats to focus on the big picture

City hall is putting the final touches on the 2019 preliminary budget -- but the real tough job will start after that.

The city is committed to developing a four-year budget beginning with 2020, and having it in place by the end of this year.

It's a process that is filled with uncertainties, trying to balance four successive annual budgets at the same time, using assumptions on revenues and expenses that can change without notice: a provincial government that has frozen funding to city hall at 2016 levels and is reluctant to disclose annual funding commitments or share in unexpected revenues; erratic fuel prices; a possible change in government in Ottawa, which could bring new spending priorities. And in the middle of that four-year span, another civic election where new members of council may have other priorities than those laid out by the current crop of office holders.

Municipal governments across Manitoba are required to approve their annual operating and capital budgets by the end of March each year. But the criticism of decision-making at city hall has been that all the decisions are made on a year-to-year basis, keeping voters happy with an eye on the next election.

Olympics overnight: Synchro divers spring to silver, while Penny Oleksiak powers relay team to Canada’s first medal in Tokyo

Here’s what you missed overnight and need to know about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this morning.